GALLANT TEST PILOT
■VALUABLE AIRCRAFT SAVED LONDON, May 19. Flight Lieutenant, Philip Gadesden Lucas, of Bexley Heath, Kent, who put Britain’s newest, fastest and deadliest tighter, the Typhoon, through its paces, has been given the George Medal for making a perfect landing when an aeroplane he was testing cracked up beneath him. : The aeroplane—probably a prototype —developed tail vibration. The “ shivers ” spread along up the fuselage —so violently that the aeroplane’s skin split. The gashes got large enough for Lucas to see daylight through his cockpit. , He could have baled out: But he wanted to save the machine at all costs. Months of labour and research were embodied in it. So he wrestled with the machine, which at any moment might have broken to pieces, landed it, at once diagnosed the trouble and had it put right.
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Otago Daily Times, Issue 24633, 14 June 1941, Page 10
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137GALLANT TEST PILOT Otago Daily Times, Issue 24633, 14 June 1941, Page 10
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