Free Marked for Death by James Hamilton-Paterson

pilot the most pleasant flying experience of the day, with all the noisebehind him, no prop-wash blowing into his face, and wonderful visibility. But pushers also had inherent disadvantages. One was that any hard object sucked rearwards out of the open cockpit in front – as a pair of goggles or even a pencil might be – could damage or even shatter the propeller. But the chief disadvantage of the pusher type was that the open framework of the ‘fuselage’ caused a good deal of drag that would always put a limit on performance.
    Another measure forced upon aircraft designers of the period (not to mention the pilots) was that no ordinary machine had wheel brakes. This was, of course, to save weight; but it did mean that landing in a restricted space could be tricky indeed. Instead, there was a tail-skid (sometimes steerable) that dragged along the ground and slowed the aircraft after landing: always crude but not always effective, especially if the ground was frozen. To limit the run-out trainees were taught to make ‘three-point’ landings: touching down on the main wheels and tail-skid simultaneously. If the machine’s attitude at rest on the ground was at a particularly steep angle, this took practice. The propeller’s size sometimes dictated how a tractor aircraft sat on the ground. A nine-foot propeller at the front of a typically stocky Sopwith design meant the aircraft sat at an angle that left the pilot staring up into the sky. This not only made the view ahead when taxiing almost non-existent without weaving from side to side, but until a pilot got used to it doing a ‘three-pointer’ could go badly wrong.
    The same applied to the Royal Aircraft Factory’s generally awful R.E.8, or ‘Harry Tate’ two-seater observation machine. This had been designed to sit with a very nose-high attitude on the ground, not to provide propeller clearance but so that the upward angle of the wings would produce more drag on landing and hence a braking effect when touching down in small fields. It took a lot of getting used to, and no-one was keen to botch a landing in a Harry Tate, an aircraft that already had an evil reputation for catching fire in a crash. (The fuel tank was sitedimmediately behind the engine, so when – as usual – it split on being forced forward, petrol promptly gushed over the red-hot exhaust manifolds.) Nothing could have made plainer the gulf between the boffins at Farnborough who designed this detail and the wretched men who had to fly the aircraft:
    I well remember one very windy day when I had been forced to land on an R.E.8 aerodrome owing to having received a bullet through my petrol tank. Flying conditions were abominable, and I watched four R.E.8s land, all within half an hour. Two pulled up safely, one crashed on landing, and the fourth turned over on the ground. In both latter cases the machines immediately burst into flames, killing pilots and observers. A tribute is due to the squadrons using these machines, and while we scout pilots laughed at them to their faces, behind their backs we heartily respected and admired them. 28
    On the other hand one Harry Tate became famous as a ‘ghost’ aircraft that never did catch fire. It was doing artillery observation one day in December 1917, flown by two Australians from No. 3 Squadron, Lieutenant J. L. Sandy and his observer, Sergeant H. F. Hughes. Hughes managed to shoot down an Albatros D.Va scout that attacked it and a larger battle ensued when two more R.E.8s from 3 Squadron turned up as well as some more German machines. In the end the Germans broke off the attack and one of the R.E.8s, noting that Sandy and Hughes looked fine, gave a wave and let them get on with their ‘art. obs.’
    Somewhat strangely, no further wireless messages were transmitted from Sandy’s R.E.8 and apprehension increased as the evening approached and the aircraft had not returned. To all intents and purposes the aircraft and its crew seemed to have vanished from