Episode 2 The Great Flying Challenge

Air travel - fast, efficient and safe -

an everyday fact of life, now.

But not that long ago, it was a very different story.

Back in the early 1900s, aviation was in its infancy,

and a County Down man was at the forefront of an international race

into the skies.

Harry Ferguson, known the world over for his tractors,

was also the first man to design, build and fly

an aircraft in Ireland.

I'm Dick Strawbridge and we're on a mission to make and fly that little

plane from the early 20th century.

William, you're on, sir!

'Our test pilot will bravely follow Ferguson into

'the grey skies of Ulster.'

Are you ready, William?

No, but let's go!

It's the chance of a lifetime.

It really, really is.

About there. DRILL BUZZES

'We're searching out the final few craftsmen,

'engineers and technicians with the traditional skills

'to recreate Harry's plane.'

It's never been done before

and I'm really not sure if it's even possible.

Dangerous? Maybe.

But one thing's for certain - we're going to give it a go.

Welcome aboard The Great Flying Challenge.

So, we're looking for Slieve Donard?

Yeah, Slieve Donard's over there.

'The man who's going to fly Harry's plane is taking me for a spin

'over the gentle farmlands of County Down.'

What we're going to do is fly over Mourneview.

See the caravan park?

And we'll do a left-hand orbit, and then drop down onto the beach,

and right up the beach. OK.

'William McMinn is heading for the coast,

'where young Harry took on one of the biggest challenges of

'his flying career.'

Flight demonstrations were growing increasingly popular across the UK

as a way of attracting tourists.

It's a lovely stretch of beach.

Once that tide's out, you have loads and loads of sand.

Ideal.

'The local council offered Harry ?100 prize money if he could

'fly a minimum of two miles...'

That's the mountain ahead of us, just so you know. Yeah, yeah.

'..but he bit off a little more than he could chew.'

He crashed several times, buckled wheels, broke wings.

The man was stubborn,

but he was determined and very brave.

Harry's first attempts in July 1910 were dogged by bad flying conditions

for his flimsy plane.

Do you know what caught him out? The mountain.

Once the air was blowing over the mountain,

he had a lot of turbulence in here.

We're feeling a bit of turbulence here. Yes.

He wouldn't have understood turbulence. No, he wouldn't,

and we are in a much stronger and better-handling aircraft

than he was. This was all a new environment for him.

'But Harry's stop-at-nothing attitude came good in August.

'When the weather was right, he did it.'

I love the determination.

Well, I think that shows you the character of the man.

He picked himself up, repaired the plane and away he went.

Harry was no fool,

and he was going to prove that he could do it.

He wasn't going to be beat,

and I think he revelled in that.

'Our team is in the groove.

'Master boat-builder Alistair Duffin has already built

'the body of the plane,

'and he's bringing over 50 years of woodworking skill into play to

'manufacture our wings.

'William is also the engineer leading the entire project,

'but making a vintage replica is well out of his comfort zone.'

Putting the first cleat or U bracket in, I was very nervous.

All of my aircraft have really been aluminium and metal,

so I'm dealing with a new medium, as far as drilling wood.

But the only way you're going to get it done is start and do it.

'And the boys at Crossle Racing Cars are turning the clock back,

'and making the undercarriage just like Harry's metalworkers did.'

So, this is our baby and we're now starting to make it into a plane.

'It's critical that every part of our plane is built to

'the highest specification.

'Harry didn't have to worry about getting permission to fly,

'but we do.

'The aircraft will have to be cleared by an expert to get

'a flight certificate from the Civil Aviation Authority.

'The most important part of our puzzle is still missing -

'we need to find an engine.'

Harry was only 18 when he went to work in his brother's car business

in Belfast, but by the time he was ready to fly, aged 25,

he had a growing reputation as a brilliant mechanic.

But even great mechanics make mistakes,

and he wrecked a brand-new aeromotor when he was testing it.

Over-revving cost him the best part of ?30,000 in today's money.

He did find the cash for a replacement,

and we're here in Gloucestershire cos we've managed to track down

an example of the motor he used,

and that's not bad, cos they're as rare as hen's teeth.

Vintage car enthusiast Richard Scaldwell is

as much an artist as a mechanic,

and it's thanks to his passion for keeping old engines alive

that we can hear what Harry heard.

Your interest in old engines and things, where does it come from?

Where does it come from? I don't know! Yeah.

Have you always been into old ones? They're amazing things to own

and they are around and somebody's got to own them.

Somebody's got to look after them and do something decent with them,

haven't they? They're not just engines.

They are actually functional art to me.

That's really quite interesting because they are art -

they are so beautiful. Yeah.

And is it running? Oh, yeah, it's running. Yeah, yeah.

It's the only one that you can see running.

Really? Yeah, because the other three engines are all in museums

and they are not operational.

'Harry used the same model that now powers

'Richard's 1914 GN racing car.'

Richard, that is ridiculously gorgeous.

There's a little part of me that's horrified that

an aeroplane engine is in your car instead of in an aeroplane.

It's the best place for it.

It's used all the time.

It goes racing, it goes hill climbing

and it goes touring in France.

It's just the most fantastic engine.

It is also the most beautiful engine you're ever going to look at.

It's a V8. Yeah. Yeah.

It's not the first V8.

There were other V8s before this but, yes.

Air-cooled, it's just over five litres...

You can almost see it all happening. Well, you can.

You can see everything on this engine

because everything is on the outside of the crankcase.

The pushrods are outside, all the rockers are outside.

That's why it looks so wonderful.

We have a little bit of air pressure.

ENGINE RUMBLES

This is exactly what Harry would have been listening to! Yeah.

ENGINE PURRS

The sound is there. Yeah.

The smell.

The heat that we're getting coming off it. Yeah, yeah.

And all of that in a time when this was so cutting-edge.

Absolutely right. Yeah.

ENGINE REVS

Period articles about flying with these engines

and all the other types of aeroplane engine that they were building,

they were spraying oil out

because it's a total-loss lubrication system.

You put a little bit of oil in,

and most of it gets burnt and what doesn't gets sprayed all over you.

As the pilot, you could fly for about 15 minutes before you had

to land and then try and get all the oil out of your clothes.

They were brave or daft, weren't they? But, you know, wonderful.

ENGINE REVS AND STOPS

What's the chances of us actually taking this engine,

getting it out of your car and shoving it on our aeroplane?

I'll shove you on an aeroplane, mate(!)

No, you can't have that engine. No.

And I don't think you really want to fly behind this engine.

You know, it appears to be completely reliable

when you're on four wheels,

but hanging in the sky,

I don't think I'd want to do that, really. Really?

I think it's a bit late for this one.

I think you might have to use something else.

OK. All right, I've got to tell you,

there's a little part of me that wants to use it

but there's a little part of me saying it's...

Yeah, I mean, it does seem daft not using it, doesn't it?

But, yeah, it's staying in my car.

Sorry, mate!

'Well, with that option firmly off the table,

'it looks like finding a modern alternative is the way to go.'

If you hold that in the centre line...

'Definitely William's area of expertise.'

Roughly 10.5 inches.

10.5 inches.

'William has his hands full with the build,

'but he'll be busier still when he takes the pilot seat.

'By today's standards, this is a seriously exposed position,

'sitting more on the plane than in it,

'but he wouldn't swap Harry's seat for the world.'

William! Look what I've got.

Whoa, matey!

You've been busy!

Is this a present for me?

Not yet. Oh, you're a bad man.

You're a bad man. Look at this!

Yeah. You wouldn't believe the work we have done on this.

I do believe it!

The whole tail end's sorted?

Yes. We have it all hinged, look.

The rudder moves.

Left and right. Elevator moves.

Up and down. All the hinges done.

And do you notice this bit?

Yeah, but hold on, hold on.

Alistair gave you the woodwork and what did you do?

Well, we had to lighten it a little bit.

Does that make a big difference? Yes, we have a concern.

Because we're so far back from the engine,

any small weight here has a big, big bearing on the balance of the plane.

Right. So, look - we have made it like a piece of cheese.

We have probably saved about a third of the weight of that

by what we have cut off it.

You've had to make everything, all these little...

We have made everything that you see in this aircraft.

All the metalwork has been made in here by Steve and myself.

What was the hardest?

I would say the hardest thing we have had to do is all this bracing.

We're nearly finished it and every section is, like,

pulling cables at all the diagonals. It does take time.

Say when. Go.

Are you happy that you've actually made it more rigid, stronger?

Oh, yeah, yeah. If I'd move that,

the whole fuselage, the whole structure is moving as one.

It's not twisting... No. ..the whole lot is moving. Yes.

Are you happy with that? Oh, yeah. I am quite happy.

There's an immense strength in that.

I mean, I'm happy as a pilot that I can say,

"Yes, this structure's strong."

It's not exactly the same,

but you're happy you're in Harry Ferguson's mind-set

to produce what is a good engineering solution?

Yes, because the plans have no metalwork,

so we have to think and we have to design and cut and make.

How are we going to do it? How can we do it simply?

So this is the result of all our labour.

Perfect!

It looks like an aeroplane.

It looks like a strong aeroplane.

You know, you've worked so hard,

I think you're allowed to sit on your seat. Aw, thank you!

You know something? This is perfect.

William, that is so impressive.

I probably look like James Bond!

No, that wasn't the thing that came to my mind,

what I was thinking about there. It's the hat that does it! Yeah.

'Not so much double-oh seven - more like double-"oh, no".'

The wings are really taking shape in Alistair Duffin's workshop.

Beautifully shaped ribs, fixed in place,

and held by sturdy spars cut from Douglas fir.

It's vital they're light enough, strong enough,

and safe enough to carry William and our dream of flight.

They need to be just right if we're going to get a permit to fly.

This is the first of the wings.

Oh, yeah...

Yeah.

They're big whenever you see them like that.

Now, that's upside down, obviously.

I wonder what weight it is?

I'm going to pick this wingtip up. Go on, have a lift.

It looks heavy. I'm hoping it's going to...

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

That, now, that is a surprise.

Yeah, it's not as heavy as what it looks.

No. It's nicely made - it really is.

And it's quite intricate, whenever you see it.

Oh, it is - it takes quite a time to do that.

Yeah. The ribs, are those simply interlocked?

Yeah. These are your main spars.

The main spar has about an inch taken out of it,

and the height, 25mm. Yes.

And then these are set in, but they're all glued.

They're glued into these wee blocks and they are quite strong.

This is the parts that give the wing the strength.

That's the strong... Yeah.

If these break, the plane's grounded. Mm-hmm.

You'll need a spare wing. We'll need a spare wing.

'Over at our build headquarters...'

Crimp when you're ready.

'Steve Lowry is teaching me how to fix bracing wires

'to strengthen the fuselage.'

We'll need about 10mm through.

Now, if you can put that into the third hole on the crimper.

'Steve is William's wing man on the project,

'making most of the metal fixings.'

Good.

I was born in an RAF camp and raised there,

and joined up, and served my own time in the Royal Air Force,

and I just got a passion for planes of any shape.

Did you ever think, when you were the young Steve,

that you were going to be working on something that is so old

and so different?

As the young Steve, I had no idea that this

was how they built planes back then.

Now I appreciate the risks they took

and the challenges they overcame in engineering

to make this, basically, pile of sticks fly!

This pile of sticks is going to fly!

OK.

I'm on my way to Tandragee for a flying lesson.

I'm trying to get a feel for what young Harry Ferguson

had to deal with when he climbed into the cockpit of

his flimsy little plane in 1909.

Is this big enough? That's it. Oh, good.

Good, good.

PLANE WHIRS

Harry Ferguson would have been, here, at this stage,

listening to his engine and nothing else.

LAUGHTER

He would have been bricking it. Do you know what?

I am.

'My instructor used to farm this land,

'but Raphael O'Carroll traded the milk cows for microlights

'and has never looked back.'

Now, you hold the stick nice and gently. I'm holding it gently.

Right, and I want you to add a wee bit of back pressure,

just to feel what it's doing.

There, you see the nose coming up? Oh, yeah. OK.

A little birdie told me that your learning to fly was

a little bit like our Harry Ferguson.

Yes, to a degree. There's no doubt, yeah.

A good friend of mine and myself, we bought ourselves a microlight.

We didn't have lessons.

We just taxied ourselves up and down a big 30-acre field.

Yeah, we're going down a bit, so...

OK, well, we're still in level flight.

We're doing good and the speed's good.

Wow, you have to be gentle with this.

The day that I actually took off for the first time,

I only went up to about five feet,

and I actually closed the throttle really quickly

cos it scared the devil out of me,

and I landed down the ground with a bang.

Listen, you're talking Harry Ferguson here, aren't you?

There's no doubt. You're talking the same mind-set of... Yeah.

..you hop, you skip, and then the next thing you know, you're flying.

'This cosy flight couldn't be further from Harry's experience.'

The principles are the same on this microlight

as it would have been on Harry's?

The principles are the same,

but you see the way we can try this aircraft, you see,

on a hands-off situation?

I'd rather you didn't do that.

He wouldn't be in that position.

No, he had to... He had to fight the aircraft.

He had to clean it, he had to fly it and that's where it stopped.

'He was also perched on top of the plane,

'exposed to the elements and constant danger.

'I much prefer this.'

They do it effortlessly, instinctively -

birds inspired the earliest aviators,

who studied how wings flex and move to make flight possible.

Harry Ferguson used that principle of movement on his plane -

a mechanism known as wing warping,

where cables physically alter the shape of the wing.

It sounds like old technology, and very last century,

but the engineers here at Queen's,

they know it was an idea ahead of its time.

Wing warping is really beautiful,

because it takes advantage of something that was already there,

which is the flexibility of the wings.

So the idea is that because they're inherently flexible,

if you force that flex this way, with cables and levers and things,

what you're doing is you're changing the shape of the wing

in a way that's going to give you the lift

in the direction that you want it.

OK, so Harry harnessed the flexing of the wings to do it.

Yes.

Why didn't all the aeroplanes from then until now have it?

Cos everybody seemed to have flaps. Oh, yes. Sure.

Why did we go into the flap stage instead of just saying,

"You know, Harry, bright idea, let's do more of that"?

As we wanted to go faster, we needed stronger, more rigid material,

so then we went to flaps.

However, now that we're moving even beyond that,

and we're going very, very fast on aircraft,

now we can, kind of, return to this idea -

can we look at smart structures and smart materials

and computer-aided ways of moving the wing?

Today... Yeah.

..we have the technology that allows us to go back to

moving and flexing our wings.

We do, but we're doing it for a different reason.

Now we're doing it in order to minimise things like flutter,

or get controllability in very high-speed regions,

like the transonic regions,

which is right before you get to the speed of sound.

Are there any aircraft with this?

Or are we soon going to have an aircraft that can actually fly

by warping its wings?

Well, there are aircraft that do fly by warping the wings right now.

They're all experimental.

NASA is, pretty much, the organisation that is really

exploring this idea in a lot more detail.

And up near Limavady, under Binevenagh Mountain,

our wings are on their way to be clothed in Irish linen.

Many of the earliest aeroplanes were covered in this super-strong fabric

to make a protective skin over the airframe.

It was once commonplace here, woven everywhere,

but now the cloth, and those who work it, are vanishingly rare.

'Aircraft technician Owen Anderson is one of a bare handful of people

'capable of covering Harry's plane.'

Owen, there's some more to cover, sir.

There you go - there's a rudder. Thank you very much, sir.

Right. Thanking you. Hey. Lots of aircraft in here.

Yes, we've got lots of light aircraft here, up near the front.

Two tug planes to tow the gliders up, a few microlights,

and, in the back here, we have the club gliders.

How long has the club been here?

The club has been here from the early '30s.

Really? Yep. It started down on Magilligan Beach,

towing up the gliders with a car.

A large car with a V8 engine towed it up to the cliffs

and they soared the cliffs.

What do you actually do in the club? What's your title?

I'm the Club Technical Officer - a very grand title.

Oh, dear, goodness. Basically, I keep the aircraft in the air.

I keep the gliders flying.

So, you do the maintenance as well, the repairs, everything like that?

I do the maintenance and repairs, a few refurbishments every year...

I just basically keep old gliders flying as well.

Old wooden gliders that, maybe, would have been abandoned,

maybe a few years ago,

I basically try and keep them in existence.

But this is my latest project.

These are the wings of a 1955 single-seat glider.

This glider actually holds the Irish height record -

27,000 feet from a car-tow on Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry.

Whoa! Mm-hmm. 27...

That's the height of Everest, nearly. Exactly, exactly.

Is that wood? It's wooden in the front -

plywood in the front and back here is fabric.

That's a modern fabric called Ceconite -

it's a Dacron fabric you iron on with an iron,

quite unlike what we're going to be working at in the workshop.

That's quite special, isn't it?

The workshop, eh?!

That's the workshop. Yup.

Owen, what can I say, fella?

I recognise this skeleton but the wing looks phenomenal.

You have taken this... There must have been masses of work in there.

Lots of work - at least two solid days' heavy work

just attaching the fabric to the wings.

The wings have come home. This is exactly right place for them.

"This is exactly the right place" is right.

This is where Harry would have been, down at Magilligan Point.

He would been working on his aircraft as well

because, bearing in mind, he didn't come up and assemble it

and fly it straight away.

He would have worked on the aircraft for a few days

to get it flight-ready.

How many people in Ireland would know how to do this?

At the minute, maybe a handful, if you're lucky.

What can I do to help?

OK, I want you to do a wee bit of stitching.

Poke it through here,

and you're going to send it back out this side,

without poking me in the eye.

Can you see me? No, I cannot...

HE SCREAMS Yes!

Send it back through.

Wow, there's enough string!

It's so long.

You had it there. You were on it. Go for it.

Is that it? Lovely. Come through now - I want you to do the knot now.

Watch your feet, cos you're standing on the thread.

Keep pulling that, there. You can let go of that loop now.

Hold on tight to that. Yeah, which side do I come from?

Back to that side there.

Underneath it now.

I'm worried that... You're doing well.

Now I come down through...

Mm-hmm, and straight through the loop.

Give it a good pull, cos there's a knot on the needle. Yes!

Lovely. Just pull this? Give it a good pull.

First one!

Perfect.

William! Stephen!

How are you?

There you go.

You got me a present. Ta-da! What do you reckon?

Lovely. The wheels look quite big compared to the pictures.

Hmm, they might look a bit big but they have strength.

It's a strong... It's a strong assembly.

If they're higher because they're bigger,

it's going to change the angle of the plane. Does that worry you?

No, as long as that front wheel is off the ground

whenever that aeroplane is sitting level.

All it does is protect it the prop.

Let's see if it fits.

Steve, do us a favour, mate. Grab an airframe. Let's go.

That doesn't look too terrible.

I think it looks rather well.

What about the angle of take off?

Do we need to lift the tail up and see how that looks? Yeah.

Down. Down a wee bit. Down, down, down. That's great.

Easy, easy, easy, easy.

No, that's perfect. That's perfect.

How does that look?

Close? That's perfect because it's level with the back wall.

Get away! Get away!

I told you.

I'm a draughtsman. I've got a level eye.

ENGINE REVS

'That lovely old engine from the distant past will never fly again,

'so what's William decided to replace it with?'

Talk to me. What have we have here?

Well, this is a Rotax engine, a 912 - a very, very popular engine.

A modern engine which I know will take me into the air.

It has loads of power, and, you see, once I start it, it will run.

I've got a little feeling that the idea of an old engine

wasn't cheering you up.

I think you were trying to kill me, putting that old engine in.

Never. Never, never, never! OK, I'm guessing the propeller's there.

That would be correct.

You see, the thing about Harry's engine,

the oil that was fed into it got sprayed all over the place.

The propeller would have blown it all over him. Correct.

You've got a closed-system, modern aeroplane -

the oil stays in the engine.

This engine is oil-tight.

Yeah. You see, the old engines - that's why pilots wore scarves,

so that they could take the scarf and clean their goggles.

I never thought of Biggles wearing a scarf to clean his goggles.

When Harry Ferguson took to the air,

the skies were open and free to everyone,

but, a century later, air space is at a premium

and we need permission to fly.

'Dr Alexander Ellin is the only engineer in the UK with

'the experience and credentials to pronounce us flight-worthy.

'He's here on behalf of the Civil Aviation Authority

'and he's marking William's homework.'

If I was to have any concern, in my initial view on the fuselage,

it is the amount of weight you've got down the back end.

Yeah.

And, you know, your pilot behind the wing there,

and the engine being lighter,

and the amount of weight you've got down the back end,

we're going to be very careful as to where the C of G lies.

'Finding the centre of gravity is the least of William's problems.'

If I had any significant concerns at the moment,

they centre around the wings.

Right. I'm concerned about the way that you've joined

the ribs to the spars -

in particular the way that you've weakened the spars to do it.

Is that because there's a slight undercut in the spar

which is weakening the spar?

Your spar is about four inches deep.

Well, you've cut into it by an inch at the top,

and you've put in stress raisers every ten inches along the wing,

and I think that if you were trying to get it through

a modern airworthiness certification... Mm-hmm. Yes.

..it would fail.

Yeah. OK. Erm...

Is it capable of doing the flight that you want to do?

The honest answer is, I don't know.

If you asked me to stand up here now and say, is it strong enough?

I would have to say, no, it probably isn't.

Right. But what we can do is we can use modern computer analysis,

we can look at the strength of the wing, and we can make...

use that, then, to make a judgment,

is it good enough for what you want to achieve?

OK, but it's going to be your judgement call

at the end of the day.

Yes, and I don't think it's strong enough,

I will not authorise the flight test.

'Next time, will our wings pass the stress test?'

WOOD SNAPS There it goes.

Do you know what you need?

What?

20p for the slot.

'I go back to school for a virtual flying lesson in Harry's plane.'

Oh, I'm up in the air. Yes.

Oh, damn!

Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's blue skies, people.

Are you getting any sensation in there?

I do feel sick, actually.

Is nobody worried about the fact that I'm heading into space?

'Let's hope William is a lot better than me in the simulator.'

You've made me nervous, you really have.

'And we'll find out what the stress tests mean for

'our Great Flying Challenge.'

Alex, good afternoon.

We've done the testing.

Right.

'Is it a pass or a fail?'