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England . . ! After being invalided out of the RAF in early '53, I found employment in the Engineering group of Hunting Percival Aircraft. They were just getting involved on the new-fangled torque-less P.74 Jet Helicopter project, and I was assigned as the Section Leader in the Weight Control department. An interesting concept dreamed up by a Czechoslavakian engineer, while languishing in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. During the couple of years I spent there, I also got assigned to the new P.84 Jet Provost conversion from a P.56 Provost trainer, odd jobs on new variants of the Prince and Pembroke series of twin-engined machines, and proposal studies for RB.108 lift-jet flying test beds. Other than the odd joy-ride in these, masquerading as test flight observer, there was little opportunity for much flying. The old Mew Gull, G-AEXF, winner of the 1938 Kings Cup race, along with several other 'racing Gull' specimens, was in the test flight hangar following restoration. I managed to climb in and waggle the controls a bit . . . very cramped cockpit even for a small slim fellow like myself. 
 
 One of my fellow engineers was Tony Cole, owner-pilot of the legendary racing Comper Swift G-ABUS . . . this one I did get to fly for a modest few minutes . . . couldn't see a damn thing forward . . . all vision was to Port or Starboard only !  Canada . . ! In the Autumn of 1954 I was contacted by a representative from Avro, hinting at work, possibly related to our Jet Helicopter, on a top-secret project in Ontario, Canada. Was I interested ? Being somewhat disenchanted with life under the "Big-Brother" Socialist/Labour Party government then dominating British life . . . the exorbitant tax structure and their refusal to pay my Disability pension . . . I agreed and by early January 1955 took up residence in Brampton, Ontario. Initially, during my "probationary period" with the company, I was assigned to work on the CF.105 Arrow all-weather fighter project . . . mostly on internal heating/cooling systems and the development of slide-rule type flight loading calculators . . . a device I had conceived for the Prince/Pembroke series while at Percivals. The initial period over, I "moved across the road" to a small very secure building with armed guards . . . home of "Project Y" . . . the original 'Avro Flying Saucer' dream of John Frost. Nowadays, no longer Top-Secret . . . I have seen myself and others at work in the facility on TV on Discovery Channel programmes . . . this was a fascinating period of my career. Initially most of my work was on data reduction from the wind tunnel tests of a 1/6 scale half-model at Wright-Patterson AFB in the States. Designed for a top speed in the Mach 3.5 region, the device suffered from being conceived too early in aviation history . . . the CG, being at the centre of mass, was well aft of the aerodynamic CP at all times. With the then-current relatively slow responding hydraulic control systems employed, pitch-up stability and control was, at best, highly marginal. I had left Avro for a post at Aeronca in the USA by the time it was ready for ground testing. From reports seen in recent years on the Internet and TV, the prototype suffered catastrophic failure of the main rotor which destroyed much of the adjacent project facilities . . . in reality the plane was a huge discus-shaped two-spool gas turbine engine with afterburners ! In retrospect, I suspect that many of the boxed-up pieces and records from this USAF-funded programme, went to a remote spot in the south-west USA . . . the digits '51' and '117' come to mind ! During the two years I spent at Avro Canada after emigrating to Ontario, I only managed to get in a few power plane flights. These fell into two categories . . . those in light planes were all in Aeronca's . . . one a Chief and the other a pre-WW.2 Model K. These were rental aircraft at the local airfield, flown by a friend from Avro Canada . . one of our American job-shopper designers, Hans B., an ex-B.17 waist gunner from WW.2. He himself owned a Chief at his home in Ohio . . . of him, more anon.   Interestingly, the shot of the Model K shown above, was actually taken at Brampton, Ontario, my hometown while living in Canada . . . . who knows . . . it might even be the one in which I took a ride with Hans B. back in '55 ~ '56 or so - lol ! The other flights . . . limited in number, were in Avro CF.100 jet fighters. To earn extra funds, getting started in my new homeland, I found that I could work extra night shifts in the Flight Test department, setting up weight and balance conditions on test Canucks to evaluate flight envelope limitations. It so happened that the test pilot for these operations was ex-Sqdn.Ldr. Mike Cooper-Slipper, my old friend from CFE West Raynham days back in the late 40's. Naturally . . . under the rules of the "Old Pals League" . . . this provided the opportunity for some rear seat, instrument watching, data-gathering time in the air. The Chief Test Pilot at Avro during this period was Jan Zurakowski, another ex-CFE acquaintance. 
 U.S.A. . . ! When I started work at Aeronca, they were just really getting involved in the sub-contract aerospace business . . . the light, private plane operations, for which they were famous, having been essentially discontinued. One variant, the Model 7 Champion, was modernised as a full-aerobatic type and the design sold to the newly-formed Champion Aircraft Co. for production as the Citabria. A few years later, John B. and I did similar redesign work for the Model 15AC Sedan, although no production was ever initiated. The company philosophy of the time was that any sub-contract job that could bring in $1000 or more was worth seeking. I recall the infamous "Chicken-Feeder" project where we all dreamed up inexpensive sheet metal chicken feeders, that would sell to Purina for five cents or less, to be included in their bags of feed as give-aways ! Initially my main work was on a re-design of the B.52, the terrain-following "G" variant. We developed all-new undercarriage gear, wheel well doors, bomb bay doors and vertical fin structure. With that completed, I moved to a beaching vehicle project for the Martin P.6M flying boat and from there to the Prelim. Design Projects group. Much of this work was on terrain-following trans-sonic target drones and huge radio-telescope antenna structures. Then, following the submission of a wild-blue shoestring-budget proposal to the Foreign Technology Division of the USAF, I found myself "locked-up" again for six years, developing mathematical solutions to ICBM design philosophy queries. Then off to Seattle for a year or so, working on the Boeing 747 programme . . . followed by almost ten years as head of the R&D Laboratories. From our Labs came much of the technology used in todays' aerospace and railroad industries . . . honeycomb sandwich and composite structures . . . filament winding techniques . . . noise reduction systems for jet exhausts . . . ultra-high temperature structures . . . aluminum freight cars . . . the "unit" train, etc. We developed and built the structure for all the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Moon-lander vehicles . . . the wings of the B.70 bomber . . . the empennage structure, and original cermet heat shields for the Space Shuttle before NASA abandoned them in favour of the lighter weight but ill-fated foam system now employed. In the mid-70's, a major labour union, which had been trying for many years to get a toe-hold in the Aeronca work force, forced a Labour Department-ordered election. The result . . . a local branch of the national IAM union was set up . . . within weeks a strike, the first work stoppage in Aeronca's history, was called ! As staff members, we pitched in and kept critical military projects rolling . . . . the strike lasted some 6 months with much violence. Following settlement, in which the plant workers came off very poorly . . . previously Aeronca employees had been the highest paid, most benefitted in the industry . . . the company faced bankruptcy from loss of unfulfilled contracts and essentially closed its' doors. Myself, I then set up in business as an Engineering Consultant, tackling anything and everything across the country that I could find. After almost two years at this, one of my customers . . . the last independent appliance manufacturer in the USA . . . convinced me to take over as head of their R&D operations. So . . . I now learned to "fly a gas stove" so to speak, and was involved in development of the early microwave and convection ovens. Later, the company was absorbed as an appliance division of General Electric, where I was assigned to introduce and manage the new concept of CAD . . . Computer-Aided Design engineering . . . finally taking "early retirement" at the age of 66 - lol ! Following retirement, GE continued to employ me as a consultant for a further two years . . . the end of a long road to "get them paperless" using computers for virtually everything. In my early years in the States, it seemed that with my total loss of hearing, dating back to my Halton days, that it would be an impossibility to get a Private Pilots license, although I could still be permitted to fly a sailplane. So I . . . and Dick S., another of our local Sailing Club skippers . . . began to frequent the Soaring Club based at the airfield over at Richmond, Indiana. All launches there were aero-tows . . . a new experience for me. They, like many other Clubs of that period used military-surplus Stinson L.5's for tow tugs. There, one could get dual time in Schweiezer 2-22's for a modest cost. Later, Dick bought a half share in a K.8, and that let me get in some extra low-cost solo time as well as in Club 1-26's. As one got to know other members better, and helped out on recovery teams with cross-country goal flights, the opportunity arose to sample again the Grunau Baby, long remembered from my Halton days, the Bergfalke and the then-new 2-32 Schweizer. 
       About the end of my second year, a French engineer, Georges J., along with Hans B., who had worked with me at Avro in Canada, came to work at Aeronca. Now, before emigrating to Canada, Georges had worked with M. Fauvel in France on the design and development of the Fauvel AV-series tail-less gliders. He had already built a couple of these while in Canada, and after settling in at Aeronca, the two of us commenced on the construction of another in my basement. We completed it, and I was able to get in a couple of flights before Georges, an itinerant job-shopper, moved on to another assignment., taking his Fauvel with him. 
 With no valid pilots' license, my power plane flying for the first seven or eight years in the States was mainly limited to commercial flights as my work assignments at other aircraft manufacturers took me around the country. Most of the earlier flights were in the venerable DC.3's and DC.6's . . . or the Martin 404's, the Convair 240's and the Boeing 247D's, brought into service as DC.3 replacements in the 50's. For longer flights, the Boeing Stratoliners . . . or later on . . . the ever-graceful Lockheed Constellations were most often the plane involved. 
   
  On a couple of occasions, while making the long boring 7~8 hour overnight trips to Seattle from Chicago Midway . . . pre-O'Hare days . . . often with virtually no-one else on board, I found that chatting-up the stew and/or the co-pilot on a coffee break, might get you a spell in the second chair of a Connie. Terrorists hadn't been heard of in those days - lol ! Very interesting experience ! At Aeronca, we had a Flying Club for the employees. In those early days the Club fleet consisted of six or seven Model 7AC and 7EC Champions, two or three 11AC Chiefs, and a 15AC Sedan. I can't recall for sure, but it's possible that the original Chum prototype was also included. For those not in the know, the Chum was the final design scheduled for production before Aeronca "went out" of the light plane business during the industry slump of the mid-50's. It was a somewhat re-vamped variant of the Aircoupe/Ercoupe design, the rights to which Aeronca had acquired. Our Marketing Manager, when a business call had to be made within a couple of hundred miles or so, would "Sign-Out" one of the Club planes for the trip . . . usually the Sedan, but occasionally a Champion or one of the Chiefs . . ! Should I be included on the trip as Technical Support, I could usually depend on getting in a little dual stick time.    Although we were "out of the light plane business" per se, we still had a small engineering staff, John H. and Jim M., who took care of customer queries, and maintained a stock of spare airframe parts. Once in a while we'd get a visit from a customer with such rarities as re-furbished antique C.3 'Flying Bathtub' models, or the radial-engined Model LC and the WW.2 L.3 or TAC.65 spotter planes. On rare occasions we'd have a fly-in at Middletown and such birds would appear out of the proverbial woodwork. It was during one of these events in later years, after I obtained my own Pilots License, that I was able to sample one of the beautifully restored C.3's.     Jim M., an ex-professional motor-cycle racer, was also the only licensed A&E man for miles around, and moonlighted as the head mechanic for the local Middletown FBO . . . knowing Jim, he may have also been part-owner of the airfield facilities - lol ! He also doubled as Aeronca's "company pilot". Now . . . in those days . . . many "private planes" were syndicate-owned with a small group of fellows sharing operating costs and stick time. Over the years, as syndicate members opted out of their group, Jim would be offered the opportunity to buy up their share in a plane. By the mid-60's he totally owned quite a fleet of aircraft . . . most available for corporate charter. I recall Beech AT.18's and a Bonanza, Piper Apaches, a Cessna 310, a Globe Swift, and a pretty little Mooney Mite. I managed a little dual stick time in the AT.18's and the Bonanza. 
    As an aside, my mentor at Aeronca, George P. the Director of Engineering, was one of the original aviation pioneers. He had started out as assistant to Glenn Curtis, working on the original "Pusher" . . . taught to "fly" by Glenn, his pilots' license as I recall was Serial Number 18 or so. George also served as an aviation historian for the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. As the mid-60's approached, it was becoming noticeable to me that I was progressively regaining hearing in my undamaged left ear. I discussed the matter with my friend and physician, Dr. Ben S., who also happened to be the FAA Medical Examiner for southern Ohio in those days. Now Ben had been somewhat instrumental in my emigrating to the States . . . I was a competent racing sailboat skipper - (sic) - and he needed such a person to helm his racing yacht in National events. He sent me to his ENT Specialist brother for audio testing, and after some negotiating with the FAA, I was able to start formal student pilot training in late Summer 1965. My instructor, Bob R., was a local High School Maths teacher, who also was a fellow member of our community radio-control model airplane club. Everything was falling into place very nicely. By this time, the Aeronca Flying Club had been reduced to just one plane . . . all older Aeronca planes had been sold or traded off, and we now had just a four-seat Cessna 170B, N813MD . . . an excellent plane on which someone like myself with prior flight experience could get back into the game. Within four hours of dual I had gone Solo . . . with attendant shirt-ripping and signing ceremony . . . and was turned loose for solo cross-country flying. This phase went very well, with one exception . . . on my final 3-legged trip, my second stop was at a small airfield in Western Indiana . . . the surface winds as I made my approach were gusting in the 30-40 knot range . . . and I have never been known for making "good" landings ! Obviously with that much wind, a "wheels-landing" was mandatory . . . as I came in over the blowing cornfield, the tops of the corn ears about level with the artificially-raised runway . . . ground speed barely above walking . . . I set her down on her main wheels for possibly the best landing I'd ever made. Then had to call the FBO office to have someone come out and hold the wing struts down while I tried to taxi in, tail still half-bobbing in the air ! At Aeronca in those days, we staff members could take our annual vacations in increments as small as one-tenth of an hour . . . so, weather permitting I'd take 5~7 tenths of an hour vacation during lunch breaks in order to get to my final flight test sooner . . . simple to do as the plane was parked by the side gate from the plant to the airfield.  The test occurred in mid-December . . . a blustery grey-looking day, but with occasional sunny periods. I flew the Cessna over to Lebanon Airport where I had scheduled the flight test with Bob L., the FBO and FAA examiner. I knew him well from many flights into his field during training, and also knew he was looking forward to my visit. He "had a thing" about tail-draggers, and with none on his own field, I knew that he wanted desperately to fly our Cessna 170B. On the whole the test went pretty well, although a couple of times we ran into local isolated patches of snow flurries. The best moment came in the forced landing exercise. Bob reached over and applied carb heat while shutting the throttle . . . I immediately looked around for a suitable clear spot . . . we were in the area over the old "Voice of America / WLW" radio station antenna network ! Spotting a beautiful clear grass area to the north I set up for a landing. Just as we're about to skim the grass Bob slams open the throttle . . . over-rides me on the wheel . . . and we head for the sky again. He mutters something to the effect that although it was a "perfect field" . . . the problem was that it was within the grounds of the Ohio Penitentiary, and he'd noted that armed prison guards were starting to run in our direction ! On returning to Lebanon, it was snowing quite hard . . . the wind had picked up . . . and he had me do a cross-wind, wheels-landing on the grass instead of the main runway. Before we'd even finished our run-out he was asking if he could "fly it for a while". So we spent another half hour or so dodging in and out of snow squalls. Myself ? With my logbook now formally signed and paperwork complete, I flew back to Middletown beaming like a new husband on his wedding night ! I continued to rack up hours on the Cessna . . . lunch-hour trips to nearby airfields . . . stopping for a quick lunch at their terminal facilities, often with one or more of my engineers, lab technicians or mechanics as passengers. Dropping in to remote semi-private and farmers' strips to check on news of planes for sale. At weekends, whenever no-one else had signed out the plane, it would be a trip to nearby fly-ins with my eldest son. It let him look around at the planes, while I chatted and/or swapped flights with other plane owners. Over the next year or so I racked up an impressive list of models flown . . . always keeping an eye out for the "perfect one" to buy. Occasionally Bob R. and I would rent a Citabria at South Dayton airport, and I'd get in some aerobatic instructional flight time.
South Dayton Airport, a grass field nestled in a loop of the Miami River . . . what a place to know ! At one side of the field were row upon row of tightly-locked corrugated iron T-hangars. If you were lucky enough to get friendly with one of the "hangar residents", many of them almost total recluses who "virtually lived" in their hangars, doors would be unlocked and a world of antique aviation history opened up. The place was a haven for Stearman/Boeing, Waco and other similar old biplane enthusiasts . . . all with planes either immaculately restored or in the process. A similar group existed at Troy airfield, north of Dayton . . . home of the original Waco corporation. Over the years, I managed to get in a little dual stick time in several of these beautiful birds.
Among the members of the Aeronca flying club we had a sub-group who had all built various models of the then-popular Bensen Gyrocopter and Gyroglider . . . about two dozen of them altogether. I had several occasions to fly different versions including the towed-glider and two-seater variants. Nice little gadgets, most with surplus McCulloch 72hp drone engines, although a few were experimenting with modified Volkswagen motors. One had to be careful not to over-control in pitch, particularly in landing . . . the rotor blades would cone down and slice off the rudder unit . . . or hit the main prop . . . often with fatal results ! I believe that this, more than any other, was the reason the Bensen finally fell from favour.  Eventually I found a 1948 Piper PA.15 Vagabond in fair condition at a reasonable price, and with help from Ed S., the FBO at an airfield west of Dayton, Ohio, we went about the task of restoring the old gal. New fabric and paint job . . . a two-tone pale green and pastel orange with red stripe . . . a picture of Snoopy flying his doghouse on the vertical fin . . . several Type Certificate mods . . . a sprung undercarriage . . . metalised rooftop . . . re-positioned throttle control . . . to "improve" the little lady and we were off and running. This particular Vagabond had the Lycoming 65HP engine installed . . . one of the sweetest, quiet-purring motors ever built. For the next 9-10 years the little Vagabond, N.4343H, known to my boys as "Chubbsy", became well known at every fly-in and airshow for 2-300 miles around. I used her on every possible occasion instead of my car on area business trips . . . had to pick my airfields carefully as she had no electrics other than the flashlight I carried behind the seat . . . made regular annual trips into that horribly located little strip that serves the Indianapolis Speedway for the big '500 Mile Race'. All flights were made under what were then known to us field-hoppers as IFRRR flight rules . . . "I Follow Roads, Rivers, Railways . . !" 
 One of the engineers at Aeronca, Les R., a Canadian who had come there from DeHavilland Canada at the same time I did, owned a very nice Republic Seabee amphibian. Normally flown off the grass at Middletown, he gave me the opportunity to try her for a few circuits and bumps on the river at South Dayton. Next to the Harvard, that had to have been one of the noisiest planes ever built ! 
 During a spell out at Boeing in Seattle in the '66/'67 period, where I was in charge of an Aeronca design group working on the internal wing structure for the 747, who should I run into but Hans B., the old job-shopper friend from Avro Canada and Aeronca. Now settled there as a full-time designer, he had sold his old Chief and had just completed the construction of an Emeraude . . . a rather beautiful Experimental design. Naturally . . . this led to a little stick time in the creature. My Boeing liaison counterpart also owned a Cessna 150, conveniently parked across the road at Boeing Field . . . very handy for quick lunch-hour jaunts !   A year or so later, Aeronca was approached by Jim Bede, the prolific creator of many interesting designs suitable for home-builders. He had the idea for producing kits of a jet-powered version of his popular tiny BD.5 design. Would we be interested in taking over the project . . . doing all the detail design work and actually building the prototype ? With some reservations, knowing his background, we entered into the task at our own expense, but with the promise of manufacture of the resultant kit aircraft as reward. A group of six of us from my R&D Labs, the Model Shop, and Manufacturing Engineering departments started a crash programme. Within a very, very short period, using structural parts from existing BD.5B prop-driven kits whereever possible, we had a plane designed, built and FAA-inspected as an Experimental. Jim had supplied us with a tiny SNCMA jet engine from France, for which we designed and added a clam-shell thrust reverser. Engine test runs and preliminary taxi tests were conducted with no problems. The cockpit of the BD.5J was rather cramped, and wearing a slim sailplane-type backpack chute, it was found that I was the only one of the group . . . all Flying Club members . . . who could fit in it. (My ! I have "swollen" a bit since retirement !). Then just days before the hoped-for first flight tests, a USAF low-loader truck appeared at the Aeronca main gates with an order that we NOT test fly the plane, but rather, get it loaded on the truck for shipment to Edwards AFB. Jim B. had done it again . . . sold the plane right out from under us ! Not too many weeks later, an Edwards test pilot took it for an unauthorised joy-ride . . . experienced a flame-out at altitude . . . baled out and lost the plane ! Somewhere in my Patent File archives I have photos of the plane . . . will try to find them if possible to show here.   Eventually, in the mid-70's I noted that my hearing was starting to erode again, and depth perception not all it should be . . . so following the old axiom . . . "No Old, Bold Pilots !" . . . I sold the plane and grounded myself again. Below is a pictorial sampling of other planes I flew during that period . . . not the actual ones but similar model types. There were several other types that I got to fly, and as I find suitable photos I'll add them in. 
      
  
 
 I got to fly in this old beauty a few times when sailing with Ben S. in the south-west Lake Erie region around Sandusky and the offshore South Bass island where it was used for island-hopping tourist traffic. 
                  
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