Comet Shows Its Paces In South Island Flight

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28270, 7 May 1957, Page 15

Comet Shows Its Paces In South Island Flight

Over Lake Ellesmere 25 minutes after turning north from near Invercargill yesterday afternoon, passengers in the Royal Air Force

Comet jet airliner were hardly able to credit that 20,000 ft below them was Banks Peninsula and not the Otago peninsula. The jet’s high-speed run after a low level demonstration flight over South Island cities and townships earlier was made at 525 miles an hour at heights up to 31,400 ft The Comet had been displaying its paces in a special flight for representatives of South Island metropolitan and provincial newspapers. It was designed for luxury passenger travel and it is operated by the R.A.F. Transport Command for fast inter-continen-tal flights. .

Fuel Consumption On the flight south below 1000 ft, and once almost brushing the grass as it streaked across Taieri airfield, the Comet used only two of the four engines and burned 2250 gallons of kerosenefive times its normal high-flying consumption. On the return trip the Comet was flying 10.000 ft below its most economical operating height on all four jets, and used only 500 gallons of fuel. A timetable for the flight over 11 east coast towns was worked out beforehand to the last half minute for <?ach point. The Comet pilot (Squadron Leader D. J. Harper) brought his machine overhead within seconds of the planned times. It was an impressive demonstration of precision flying. Navigation was more elementary. The co-pilot and navigator sat with coloured roadmaps on their knees and guided the big machine by identifying landmarks such as crossroads, hills, rivers and small towns. Oxford was not in the timetable, so the Comet took off earlier than intended to appear x over Oxford, the home-town of\ Air Marshal Sir Andrew McKee who had travelled from the United Kingdom to New Zealand in the plane. Ashburton was reached 13 min22sec after the Comet had passed only 200 ft above the Cathedral spire in Christchurch, Geraldine 6min later, Timaru 6min after that and Waimate in another 7 minutes.

At Geraldine schoolchildren ran from their classrooms and scattered out over the asphalt playground to get a look at the plane sweeping overhead. Seeing them, Squadron Leader Harper made another circuit and passed over them once more at a low level. /Invercargill was covered by a thick cloud down to 800 ft when the aircraft arrived overhead. Although he thought that the overcast might pass in about 10 minutes, Squadron Leader Harper was not prepared to risk circling and eating into his planned reserve of fuel. Reluctantly, he touched the controls that sent the plane hurtling upward. Fast Climb Withip seconds the Comet was more than two miles high. The altimeter needles were spinning, and the clouds were left far beneath.

With only the clear blue dome of the sky above the plane kept climbing. A reporter stood behind the pilot and slowly counted: “Twenty-one thousand feet . . . twenty-two . . . twenty-three . . . twenty-five.” In the wide cabin behind the passengers did not realise they were climbing so rapidly. There had been no change in air pressure, no apparent increase in engine noise, and practically no uplift of the nose. “Eight thousand?” hazarded one journalist, a former Air Force pilot, when asked to guess the height. “No, 25,000,” replied the man who had been in the flight deck. “Both wrong” interrupted a crew member. “She’s up to 31.000 now.” For all the sensation of speed, passengers might have been sitting in the restaurant at Harewood sipping newly-made hot coffee and eating meat sandwiches, which were then served. Steep Turn The greatest thrill of the threehour flight was in the last few minutes. After a flaps-down slow run over Harewood, the pilot pushed his throttle forward for full power and the Comet catapulted forward. A tight turn to the left was made, with the aircraft seeming to stand on its left wing, and the thought passed

no're than one person’s mind that uch a position was excellent for tbserving whose chimney had >een cleaned and whose had not. After the Comet had levelled out, slightly giddy passengers had hardly time to regain their faculties before the plane streaked low across the Harewood airfield. Hangars, buildings, and people crowded on the tarmac watching were a horizontal blur as the Comet roared past in a surge of power. It was to a group of slightly dazed journalists, reliving the last few moments, that an officer handed out Bin by lOin glossy prints of photographs taken as they climbed aboard three hours before.