Leslie Brooks - Engineer, Member of the Horsa Design Team, Airspeed Ltd
17/12/10 11:41
“I was 24 when I worked for Airspeed down in Portsmouth and it is in that location that I ran the section responsible for the design of the Horsa tail.
I was initially turned down as a pilot due to medical problems and as a result I turned my hand to design and Engineering. I was always pretty creative and thought I would enjoy the opportunity to design and make aircraft if I couldn’t fly them. Working at Airspeed was one of the best times of my life. I was responsible for the team in charge of the design of the Horsa tail.
I remember the first stages of the design process for the Horsa including the suggestion of using a paraffin heater in the fuselage so that the troops would be kept warm. I know it seems unbelievable but we tried and tested the idea as we were pretty confident that it would work. We had a test run with the heater inside the fuselage, I was on that particular test flight and at first things seemed to be going quite well. After a while we could smell burning and all of a sudden a small fire broke out in the fuselage. We had to crash land the Horsa and after what was really a lucky escape the heater was taken out of the design plans.
During the initial stages of the tail design there were no struts used on the tail but eventually as a method of strengthening and supporting the tail’s huge weight one strut was introduced. We realised, after some more test runs, that the tail was flexing too much with just the one strut so eventually we introduced two struts and this proved effective and in fact was part of the final design.
It took us approximately twelve months to complete the design for the Horsa and during that short period of time I had a blast and we all knew that we had created something pretty special. Fantastic aircraft.”
I was initially turned down as a pilot due to medical problems and as a result I turned my hand to design and Engineering. I was always pretty creative and thought I would enjoy the opportunity to design and make aircraft if I couldn’t fly them. Working at Airspeed was one of the best times of my life. I was responsible for the team in charge of the design of the Horsa tail.
I remember the first stages of the design process for the Horsa including the suggestion of using a paraffin heater in the fuselage so that the troops would be kept warm. I know it seems unbelievable but we tried and tested the idea as we were pretty confident that it would work. We had a test run with the heater inside the fuselage, I was on that particular test flight and at first things seemed to be going quite well. After a while we could smell burning and all of a sudden a small fire broke out in the fuselage. We had to crash land the Horsa and after what was really a lucky escape the heater was taken out of the design plans.
During the initial stages of the tail design there were no struts used on the tail but eventually as a method of strengthening and supporting the tail’s huge weight one strut was introduced. We realised, after some more test runs, that the tail was flexing too much with just the one strut so eventually we introduced two struts and this proved effective and in fact was part of the final design.
It took us approximately twelve months to complete the design for the Horsa and during that short period of time I had a blast and we all knew that we had created something pretty special. Fantastic aircraft.”