Test Flying Memorial
"...and everywhere the
blue sky belongs to them
and is their appointed rest
and their native country"
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
| Date | 04/07/1944 |
|---|---|
| Casualties | Flt Lt Norman John Bonnar AFC (Test Pilots School TP) and Flt Lt Laurence Roy Brady RAAF (TPS student) |
| Aircraft | Vickers Wellington Mk III X3549 |
| Took off from | Boscombe Down, Wiltshire |
| Purpose of flight | Longitudinal stability tests involving aft C of G |
| Incident location | Chilmark, Wiltshire |
| Incident details | Flight involved hands-off flying increasing/decreasing speed by 10 m.p.h. and observing the aircraft's subsequent behaviour. Around an hour into the flight the aircraft was seen in a vertical dive and impacted the ground shortly afterwards. Cause unknown, but it was thought that the aircraft may have developed an excessively heavy nose trim when reaching a steep angle in a divergent phugoid, and the increase in speed prevented the pilot from recovering from the dive. |