ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 302244
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| Date: | Friday 18 May 1951 |
| Time: | day |
| Type: | Gloster G.42/GA.2 Ace |
| Owner/operator: | RAE Farnborough |
| Registration: | TX145 |
| MSN: | |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Farnborough Airfield, Farnborough, Hampshire -
 United Kingdom
|
| Phase: | Landing |
| Nature: | Test |
| Departure airport: | Farnborough Airport, Farnborough, Hampshire (EGLF) |
| Farnborough Airport, Farnborough, Hampshire (EGLF) |
Gloster G.42 (also known as the GA.2 Ace) TX145: First flown 9 March 1948 at Boscombe Down, Wiltshire. Some sources say that it crashed on landing at Farnborough Airfield on 22 November 1949. Another says that, after suffering an engine failure, it made a forced landing in a field at Cove (which is no great distance from Farnborough). It appears that its pilot at the time was the Gloster Chief Test Pilot, Bill Waterton. He had made some very disparaging remarks about the aeroplane (lack of power, poor handling, etc.) - which acquired the unofficial name of the Gloster Gormless (the official name Gloster Ace was mooted) - as a result of his test flights in it. Perhaps on that November day in 1949 the aeroplane was getting its own back on him! But if so, it was not too cruel as it seems that he survived the incident without injury. Whatever damage the G.42 suffered in November 1949 appears to have been repaired as the following account of another incident, at Gatwick, a little under a year later. That recounts the incident as follows:
"My father had an interesting moment whilst flying a Gloster E.1/44 (TX145). At the time he was a Flight Lieutenant with the Aerodynamics Flight at RAE Farnborough. On the 2nd November 1950 he was at 26,000 ft, above solid cloud cover, when the engine flamed-out. During the descent he was guided by Farnborough Radar while he tried, unsuccessfully, to relight the engine. A major concern was that the electrically operated flight instruments might fail if too much battery power was used up. He broke cloud at about 3,000ft to be told by radar that Gatwick (then a grass field with a steel mesh runway) was straight ahead. From this position he was able to make a wheels-down glide landing, only sustaining a burst tyre towards the end of the landing roll".
It would appear that TX145 was a rather accident prone aeroplane, suffering three accidents in less than eighteen months. The third accident occurred at Farnborough Airfield on 18 May 1951, when its starboard undercarriage leg collapsed on landing. But it wasn't a case of third time lucky. It appears that the RAE had enough of this underwhelming aeroplane for it is said that the damage that it suffered was not repaired. Instead it was struck off charge and dispatched - presumably by road - to the ranges at Shoeburyness (the Proof & Experimental Establishment). The 'hush, hush' nature of that site usually served as an obstacle to determining the fate of airframes there. As a result of the target aircraft being being shot at and having bombs dropped on them, as well as suffering other ignomies, it may not have survived for long
The most substantial legacy of this aircraft was that the fin and tailplane configuration were adapted for the Gloster Meteor, replacing the earlier "ear shaped" tail on the F.Mk.8.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_E.1/44#Variants
2. https://1000aircraftphotos.com/Contributions/6053.htm
3. https://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-185700.html
4. https://dingeraviation.net/gloster/ace.html
5. https://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=19301.0
Revision history:
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