My memory has just clicked in, do any of you know anything of this plane,the Armstrong Whitworth 52, the Flying Wing? It was developed at Bitteswell airfield near Lutterworth Leicestershire just post war. I saw it flying in 1948 just before its crash in 49, I believe there were two built and a couple of experimental gliders. The pilot who survived the crash was I believe the first to survive by use of ejector seat. The airfield, now long gone was about four miles from my home.
He was the first to escape by Martin-Baker Ejection seat! On 13 January 1942, the first known emergency use of an ejection seat occurred during a test flight of the Heinkel He-280 jet fighter. The pilot, a man named Schenck, ejected from his iced-up aircraft after jettisoning his canopy, successfully achieving safe egress from the machine. Although Schenck’s was the first known use of an ejection seat for emergency egress, the Heinkel compressed air driven seat used by Schenck was purportedly tested in an experimental ejection from a test aircraft by a Heinkel employee named Busch, prior to Schenck’s 1942 ejection. The first operational type to provide ejection seats for the crew was the Heinkel He 219 Uhu night fighter in 1942. http://webs.lanset.com/aeolusaero/Artic ... istory.htm AW 52 http://www.airbornegrafix.com/HistoricA ... s/AW52.htm Brittish Flying Wings http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviati ... ritain.htm
If you had read above links you would have know that it was due to an asymmetric flutter wich caused control problems that made the pilot decide to eject! (If you had read above links you would also have known that it was not a glider but a jat aircraft powered by Rolls Royce Nene turbojets)
Thanks OJ, began to think I'd written incorrectly! Come on Blaster, wake up! thanks for the ejector info. I knew it was a first of some kind. I thought both the AW's crashed, but well remember seeing one flying.
