The New Jerusalem and the New Sparta

David Edgerton produced a great sound bite early in the first programme of James Holland’s two-part documentary for BBC2, Cold War Hot Jets: the now familiar ‘warfare Britain’ was intent on creating the New Jerusalem and the New Sparta.  Peter Hennessy also appeared, and the first quarter of the programme suggested that its content would be as terrific as its title.  Fairey featured only via a  brief shot of the delta-winged 1956 record-breaker taking off, but no matter.  Perhaps more disappointing was that James Holland began the programme in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, talked at length about Frank Whittle, and twice used rare footage of Armstrong Whitworth’s Flying Wing to illustrate postwar invention; but failed to link all three as highlighting my native city’s centrality to British aviation’s innovation and ingenuity.  Before losing its way and focusing upon RAF pilots spying for the Americans in the late 1950s (e.g. flying U2s over the Soviet bloc), the programme emphasised the legacy of World War Two and the belief that in aviation at least Britain could still take on the world, not least the Americans.  Yes, Edgerton briefly mentioned the escaltion in R and D costs when developing jets as opposed to piston-engined aircraft, and the sorry tale of Comet was told again to illustrate how De Havilland – and thus UK plc – lost a unique opportunity to dominate the global market in civil aviation, but Holland failed to spell  out how high unit costs could only be significantly reduced by long production runs securing economies of scale.  Manufacturers of military aircraft in the late 1940s and 1950s were competing against each other for RAF/FAA contracts, with only modest potential for export scales, and so they got hit twice: no guarantee of securing a contract, let alone volume sales, and soaring R and D costs.  No wonder Fairey suffered so much in the postwar era, particularly with prototypes like the Rotodyne rendering civilian projects ever more uneconomic.  The Rotodyne utilised propulsion technology remarkably similar to the jet-tipped propellor Wittgenstein patented at Manchester University in 1911 when  studying aeronautics  prior to following a fresh path as a philosopher at Cambridge from the autumn of that year.  My colleague Ray Monk’s mention of this on last week’s ‘In Our Time’ programme on Wittgenstein sent me off to consult his acclaimed biography of the one-time aeronautics engineer, and to read the diary of David Pinsent.  The latter, to whom the Logicus Tractatus is dedicated, moved from philosophy at Trinity to training for the bar, to a succession of wartime positions (having been declared unfit for military service) that culminated in test flying at Farnborough.  Pinsent died flying in 1918, but while working at ‘The Factory’ he must have met the impressive array of scientists based there during the war, including Frederick Lindemann  (the future Lord Cherwell, close confidant and highly influential adviser to Churchill, himself an enthusiastic supporter of the fledgling RNAS at Eastchurch and elsewhere  before and at the start of World War One).  Lindemann is closely associated, through his direct experience as a pilot in 1917 at Farnborough, with working out the science behind how to spin and survive.  Parke and Hawker are regarded as the first pilots to work out that pushing the joystick forward as far as it could go was the best course of action in a spin, but Lindemann set out to establish the reasons why.  In my interview with Jane Tennant on 5 November she talked about her father’s belief that he was one of the first, if not the first, to establish the appropriate course of action.  Yet she also made clear that CRF didn’t really like flying, and ironically was not that comfortable as a passenger.  My questions focused upon family background and the formation of the company in 1915, and my archival work has all been related to this.  I’m back to the London Metropolitan Archives next week to check out Esther Bellamy’s intuitive suggestion that the absence of records in 1905-6 for CRF at Finsbury Technical College is because this was when he was laid low by a serious motorcycle accident – will I find evidence of academic success and due certification in the FTC documents for 1907?  The same day I hope also to visit Kew, as I have drawn up a list of Murray Sueter’s papers re his role in establishing the RNAS on Sheppey and his early procurement activities, and these appear more pertinent than those in his archive at the RAF Museum.  I will be at Colindale two days later to check out boxes of Fairey papers from the earliest days of the company, and after that I shall have enough material to start drafting my first chapter, which will be very basic and in need of extensive rewriting and expansion over time.  Nevertheless it’s clearly time to put pen to paper, and follow P.G. Wodehouse’s advice that the key to writing is the ability to attach one’s backside to a chair.  I’m reading Evelyn Waugh’s wartime diaries at present, and while staggered by his gargantuan appetite I am nevertheless impressed by the self-discipline that produced a manuscript of Brideshead Revisited in the face of so many distractions (how did he manage to stay sober long enough to write/rewrite a novel of that length?!).  Lord Marchmain’s passing was duly chronicled on D-Day – I hope when I eventually record on paper CRF’s death it won’t be against a backdrop of such a world-changing event – come the moment let there be peace and quiet, however boring that may seem!