The Beaufort Bogey

In November 1943, Group Captain Brian “Black Jack” Walker was ferrying a Beaufort from Tocumwal to Bankstown. The aircraft was an early production machine from the GAF Fisherman’s Bend factory and a number of passengers were aboard. The aircraft was in the Picton area, south of Sydney, when Group Captain Walker noticed the control column begin to rock back and forth without any pilot input. He thought that this was rather strange and called back for one of the passengers to check the tail for anything unusual. During this action, the control column forward pressure increased until it was all Black Jack could do to hold the aircraft in level flight.

“Mrs. Walker’s little boy isn’t going to die just yet,” thought Black Jack as he struggled to hold the aircraft. He found that if he put both feet on the instrument panel and pulled with all his strength, he could just hold the aircraft. He called back to the passengers, “I’ll fly away from the mountains and then I want all of you to jump. Put on your parachutes.”

“How are you going to get out, Sir?” queried a corporal. “I’ll roll it inverted and let go,” called Black Jack. “When I let go, it’ll bunt me out the roof!” A Flight Sergeant clambered forward and yelled, “Sir, we have a passenger aboard without a parachute.” “How the hell did that happen?” shouted Black Jack. “Sorry Sir,” replied the Flight Sergeant, “it was my fault. I said it would be alright.”

Walker looked back at a slight, blonde youth of about nineteen. “You’re going to look pretty silly when we wave you goodbye, aren’t you,” he called to the youth. A tear squeezed out of the corner of each eye. Unable to abandon the aircraft, Walker was committed to flying it. Suddenly realising that this was a dual control aircraft, he yelled behind him, “Jazza, you have applied for a flying course, haven’t you? Get up here, your lessons start now!”

Walker instructed the “second pilot” to assist him in maintaining level flight by helping to maintain back pressure on the control column. He checked the trim wheel, and as he suspected, it was jammed. For fifty minutes they kept the aircraft flying, weaving in and out of terrain until they reached the coastal plain. They passed over Prospect Reservoir at 800 feet (245m) and set course for Bankstown. Walker did not lower either undercarriage or flaps, as both would have added to the nose-down tendency. After a long, flat approach, reducing power throughout, Walker cut the throttles and made a successful belly landing on the grass strip at Bankstown.

Jumping out, he ran around to the tail of the aircraft and found the elevator trim tab hanging loose. The actual cause was later identified as the substitution of mild steel rather than the specified high-tensile steel spring washers for the elevator trim tab control cable support. In service, these failed and caused the trim tab to flick up or down instead of streaming, causing the porpoising and an eventual uncontrollable dive.

The information that it was elevator trim tab failure which was causing the crashes was immediately passed to the Air Board by Walker, but action was painfully slow. On January 6, 1944, Wing Commander C. C. Learmonth struck the same problem and was able to describe the symptoms over the radio to another Beaufort in formation with him just before the aircraft dived into the ground. Thus, the “Beaufort Bogey” was finally positively identified and cured.