Aviation History - March 2016 USA

March 2016 AH 55

ILLUSTRATION: STEVE KARP

well to Abu Sueir, 2,857 miles in 31 hours. They returned on

December 13 to an ignominious forced landing caused by fog,

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a wing. For that and other reasons—not least the illness and

death of Flt. Lt. Betts and his replacement by Flt. Lt. Gilbert E.

Nicholetts—it was not until 0705 on February 6, 1933, that the

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Tunisia as their ill-fated predecessors, Gayford and Nicholetts

headed almost due south across the Sahara, using mainly dead

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star sights. The autopilot, which had been used for much of the

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Then turbulent conditions and reduced visibility over northern

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sightings of the Bight of Biafra and the island of Fernando Po

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1900, between Duala and Libreville, Gabon, the autopilot gave

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whole time completely blind,” Gayford recalled. “The moon

gave little help, and clouds and bad visibility made it impossible

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and the mouth of the Kunene

River, and followed the coast

southwards all day without

position until late afternoon,

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with less than ten gallons of

petrol left.” That was all that

remained from the 1,150 gal-

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of endurance by the airmen

and their unfaltering Napier

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distance record by 298 miles.

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Africa route in easy stages,

arriving on May 2. Its record

stood only until August 5-7,

when Frenchmen Maurice

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Blériot-Zappata 110 a total of

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Proposals to re-engine the

LRM for another attempt on

the record came to nothing,

and eventually this grace-

ful, innovative airplane was

scrapped. The RAF made

no further attempts on the

long-distance record until

1938, and then, once again,

it was with modified serv-

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Aviation History

Frequent contributor Derek

O’Connor is an RAF veteran

who writes from Amersham,

Bucks, UK. For further reading,

he suggests Fairey Aircraft

Since 1915, by H.A. Taylor.

FAIREY LONG RANGE MONOPLANE

ENGINE

12-cylinder liquid-

cooled, 570-hp

Napier Lion XIa with

fixed-pitch propeller

WINGSPAN

82 feet

LENGTH

48 feet 6 inches

HEIGHT

12 feet

CRUISE SPEED

110 mph

MAX WEIGHT

17,500 pounds

SPECIFICATIONS