Builtling &n Aircraft in the Attic !

UR member, Mr. Arthur W. J. G. Ord-Hume, of Lake, Isle of Wight, deserves congratulations for his never-say-die attitude in the matter of finding space for building his L.A.4c. Minor Coup6 (based on the Luton Minor)-he solved his problem by constructing the aircraft in the attic of his bungalow !

Power for tlre aircraft, G-ARIF, is a 55 h.p. Lycorning. Span is 25 feet with slotted ailerons for low-speed handling. The machine is a cabin machine which is tailored to Mr. Ord-Hume's own requirements. A full instrument panel is carried comprising electric turn and slip, artificial horizon, directional gyro and rate of climb and descent. A recording log tachorneter is also incorporated and the ignition switch is automobile-type with key devised by the designer.

Construction is we[[ advanced, the fuselage construction being completed save fot' the installation of controls. The complete tail unit is finished and both wing panels are ready for assembly.

There is a strong possibility that the machine may be completed this autumn.

" The machine is' being built," writes Mr. Ord-Hume, " in my small but well-appointed attic space which provides a warm, dry workshop more than thirty-flve feet long and twenty feet wide with ample headroom. Entrance for all materials is through the normal attic flap. The complete akcraft components will be removed through a hole in one end of the roof achieved by cutting one rafter and removing some tiles and sections of tile batten. The roof is lined with felt and a section of this, too, is detachable.

" Construction of the Coup6 began two years ago at Panshanger where the basic fuselage was built. This lay dormant for a year and was then brought down here on the roof of a car, creating a minor sensation on the Portsmouth to Wootton car ferry ! A small piece of surgery on the roof permitted the fuselage to be slid into ptace. Pressure of other work dictated that for a further nine months little could be done on the machine. However, in January this year, work re-started with gusto and there is progress to show."

Book Reuiew

Space Flight Pioneer

Scott Crossfield was the first man to fly at Mach 2. He accomplishecl this feat in November, 1953, in a D-558-II Skyrocket flying from the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) desert base at Edwards in Southern California. In his recently published autobiography 'o Always Another Dav,n," Crossfield relates the events that led him from his first flight in a Curtiss Robin to attempting to build his own aircraft at the age of 77+ (" This fullscale airplane that could take me into the boundless sky turned into an intense work of love"), to joining the Navy and logging 1,400 hours of single-engine time as a flying instructor through to the time when he was able to move to test flying, the branch for which he had trained and where he could combine engineering skills with his thirst for flying.

Populer Flying, fub-August, 1961.

Much of the volume is devoted to exciting chapters dealing with Crossfleld's consuming ambition to take part in planning, building and flying an advanced research aircraft. This he did when he joined North American to play a leading role in the X-15 project, the prototype of man's first space ship, first flown by Crossfield and the type in which a fellow test pilot achieved Mach 3.3 and, early this year, reached 169,000 feet.

The language of the book is of the immediate pre-space flight era-exciting, exhilarating, dramatic. The reader is at once engulfed in the new spece age technology-liquid oxygen fuel systems, altitudes on the fringe of space, powered escape systems and so on. Even so it is a human story, full of anecdotes and with a vitality in its telling. Such as this: " I pulled the nose up and climbed; there was not much time. The jet engine, fed by scoops that were far too small and inefficient, would soon starve for want of air. My flngers had flicked across the separate switches for the four rocket barrels. I felt a gentle forward surge, indicating a successful light-off. Chase pilot Fulton drawled on the radio

"A1l four going.

" I glanced momentarily at the rocket pressuregauges. They were in the green-I think. My eyes were still adjusting to the glare of the sunlieht.

" Five ten fifteen seconds. My Mach meter and altimeter seemed to be running a clock-like race. Speed: Mach .9 and increasing. Altitude: 40,000 feet and increasing. My chase planes were far behind, left in a cloud of rocket dust. Altitude: 43,000 feet."

Too far removed from the man in the Turbulent or the Tiger ? Not really, for as one reads on there is, as ever, a good deal of common ground. An absorbing book.