Episode 3 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.

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.

There we go. We're off. Oh, wow.

Whoa.

That is amazing.

I'm soaring over a beautiful patchwork down there,

between Binevenagh mountain and Lough Foyle.

This is a place where Harry Ferguson loved to fly, over a century ago.

We've got our plane down in the hangar of the Ulster Gliding Club.

'And my pilot is covering Harry's plane with linen.'

The construction process is nearly finished,

and Owen Anderson is one of only a handful of craftsmen

with the skill to do this.

The wings have already been covered,

but we're still anxiously awaiting news from our expert

that they're strong enough to even attempt to fly.

WOOD SNAPS There it goes.

Feels as if you've no control.

But our chief engineer and test pilot, William McMinn,

is in high-tech training for that maiden flight.

Feels very realistic. THEY CHUCKLE

It feels realistic? It really, really does, yes!

An amazing view of the world, sir. Beautiful, isn't it?

I love flying, Dick, it's one of my first loves,

and it's so near my house as well.

I fly most weekends.

I'm an instructor at Ulster Gliding Club here,

but I just love working in the workshop as well during the week

and working on all my gliders -

especially at the Harry Ferguson Project,

which is a very special project.

It's very different from some of the gliders I work on.

We're up here, it's silent, you know, we're up with the birds.

When he took off,

he didn't understand flying the way you have to.

No, he didn't understand the weather very much,

but it was probably quite stressful as well for him.

DICK LAUGHS You think?

Slightly! But he was quite a special inventor, engineer,

to actually achieve that feat without killing himself.

There's another local connection here with Harry, isn't there?

My grandfather was present

at the time Harry flew from Magilligan Beach in the early 1900s,

so there's a wee bit of connection there as well.

What's the chances of us actually

putting the wheels down on the beach?

We'll do that now, if you're happy enough?

I'm just having a look at the beach here now and...it's quite clear,

so I'm going to radio the ground and tell the guys,

and we'll be landing on the beach in five minutes.

There we go. Turning onto base leg and then finals.

We are landing on the beach.

Over at Teesside University in Middlesbrough,

it's crunch time in the laboratory for our wings.

Now it's starting to noise.

Dr Alex Ellin is investigating

whether we've made a fatal error in the way they've been constructed.

This is an example of the section of the spar in the aeroplane

and it's two of these that form the main strength membrane of the wings.

Starting to make a slight noise there.

A press machine will simulate the kind of force

the wood will have to withstand in flight.

What's happened, unfortunately, in the manufacture of this one

is some slots have been cut

in the top service of the spar to take the ribs.

Alex is the only engineer who can give us an airworthiness certificate

on behalf of the Civil Aviation Authority.

So the results of this test could wreck our chances of flying.

Clear.

WOOD SNAPS There it goes. Wa-hey!

That was impressive when it went at the end.

I've got to go back to my calculations

and really explore what that means to us.

If this happened in flight, we'd be calling an ambulance.

I've just had a lovely flight and a safe landing.

Harry wasn't always so lucky.

In summer 1910, he was flying here regularly,

enjoying the open skies and big beaches

and really developing his flying skills.

It wasn't unusual for hundreds of people

to turn up to watch the spectacle of Harry flying here.

Fortunately for us, on one occasion,

there was a reporter from the Coleraine Chronicle.

He was there when a gust of wind caused an accident.

This is what he said.

"When the machine crashed into the strand,

"alighting on the tide with terrible force,

"Mr Ferguson was flung violently from his seat,

"his face striking the left mass of the craft.

"From this he rebounded and was pitched out of the chassis

"onto one of the shattered wings.

"Here he lay unconscious for some minutes

"and when he regained his senses,

"he struggled to his feet and made his way to the hotel,

"although suffering acutely, streaming with blood."

Harry was seriously concussed.

It could've been worse - he could've died.

But for us, it's a real reminder

exactly what our test pilot's going to go through.

This accident was caused by nothing more than a gust of wind.

Back at our build headquarters at the Ulster Aviation Society hangar,

William McMinn and Steve Lowry are at a critical stage,

preparing to fit the brackets that will hold the wings in place.

Not bad.

But they can't go any further

until they find out if the wings passed the stress test.

If they fail, it's game over.

We won't get a permit to fly from Dr Alex Ellin,

who's overseeing the construction for the Civil Aviation Society.

PHONE RINGS

It's a phone call William's been dreading.

Alex. Good afternoon.

Um, we've done the testing. 'Great.'

'To cut a long story short,'

we're not...silly safe,

'but we're safe.' Yes, yes.

I think we're good to go. 'OK.'

Look, that's great. Thank you very much indeed.

I do appreciate you letting me know

'as soon as you could. That's great.'

Bye-bye now. 'Bye.'

Phew! We have a pair of wings.

And that is terrific news.

That is just good news for everybody in the project.

We will move on and finish it. And have a plane to fly.

Unbelievable. Really unbelievable.

And there's no time like the present.

William and Steve get to work

mating the wing spars and brackets that lock them in position.

It's a delicate procedure and a big day for us.

They fit like a glove, and for the first time,

Harry's plane looks like it might just be a flying machine.

We've done. We've done. HE LAUGHS

We're heading back to school. Queen's University, actually.

And William here is about to get a virtual flying lesson

on Harry's machine.

I am so looking forward to it, I can't wait.

Aerospace engineering student Edward Sang has spent weeks

coming up with an ingenious flight simulation using our basic plans.

This actually seems very real whenever you're sitting here.

Are you ready, William? No, but let's go.

Here we go.

He's off. Oh, he's away.

He's in the air. He's up. How does it feel?

Feels as if you've no control.

Let's borrow those, let's borrow those.

Hello, matey. Quick question, is it feeling good?

Well, I feel as if I've very little directional control.

It has a mind of its own at the minute.

It has a mind of its own, but you seem to be countering.

You're touching it quite delicately, aren't you? So well done.

It's very realistic in that...

You're very low, mate. You're 25 feet. Yeah. You're 20 feet.

I'd hate for you to crash, unless you're landing.

I'll just give it a little bit of power.

Are you coming in for a landing, are you? Yeah, yeah.

OK, good man.

20 feet, a lovely slow descent and in there, mate.

Oh. Yeah, well done, well done!

That's hard work. A good landing, fella!

Thank you, thank you.

Feels very realistic. Feels realistic?

It really, really does, yes.

Did you feel that you learnt from that? Yeah.

The main control you're using is the rudder pedals and your throttle.

You're not far off your first flight.

It'll be easier flying whenever you're sitting in the aircraft.

You have a runway in front and it's more physical,

you feel the wind in your face and all those instincts kick in.

And are you excited? Yes, very excited.

Can't wait. Good man!

We've got to go and do it now, haven't we? Yeah.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

There's still a bit of work to do.

The air frame has been shipped to Owen Anderson at Bellarena.

He's getting to grips with the last of the linen covering.

OK.

It's like covering a sofa.

Harry Ferguson would've brought the aeroplane up from Belfast

and they would've got his upholsterers

to work at it on the beach, or somewhere near hand.

So, we're recreating that bit...

..as well, at the minute.

It's painstaking, laborious work.

The final stage before we can attempt to fly,

and the man from Magilligan believes the odds are in our favour.

This is its spiritual home,

so it's only right that we should fly the aeroplane here.

I'm very honoured, I'm very excited about it flying.

You can actually see a plane coming together, just very slowly.

There's a big chance it will fly.

We just need the weather.

The time has arrived.

It's taken months to get from an idea to a flying machine.

When Harry Ferguson built his plane,

he used the skills of the craftsman here in Northern Ireland.

We've scoured the country, and our team have done it.

We've got Alistair, our boat builder from the Newtownards Road.

He can now say he's an aircraft manufacturer.

Crossley Cars now build flying machines.

Our research was done by Queen's University

and we got our linen from the Ferguson factory at Banbridge.

Steve and the team from the Ulster Aviation Society,

they did the construction.

The man with the plans, Michael Clarke,

provided us with blueprints,

drawn up with the help of his friend and Ferguson expert, Jack Woods.

Up here at the Ulster Gliding Club,

Owen put the linen on the fuselage and he made her beautiful.

But our number one man is Mr William McMinn.

He's our test pilot, he's our lead engineer,

he's a very brave man, and today, he's a very proud man.

William, the world's ready to see her!

Are we clearing it, Dick? You are indeed.

Be careful at the back, Steve.

Oh, come on, how beautiful!

Very, very impressive.

Is it light? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

A thing to be proud of. Thank you.

Thank you very much indeed.

Oh, William, how beautiful?

I think it's fabulous, absolutely fabulous.

It's a work of art.

This is our wing warping.

Does it work? I'll show you.

It's got a lot of movement. Yeah. OK, now, what else have you got?

You've got your wing warping, your next control?

Rudders, here we are here.

Isn't that fabulous? Twin rudder. Yeah. Superb.

And...coming down? We have to go round to this side.

The office here is going to be quite intimidating

until we get a few runs to see if it handles right,

if we have some control.

It'll be pure seeing if we can get this thing into the air,

and that's a big challenge.

It is a big challenge, isn't it? That's the Ferguson challenge.

Harry Ferguson wasn't the only would-be aviator

in Northern Ireland.

Others were competing with him to be the first to fly here.

Joe Cordner from Derry was in the race

with an aeroplane of his own design.

But so, too, was a remarkable woman.

In the summer of 1910,

Lilian Bland was the first woman in the world

to design, build and fly an aeroplane.

Pilot and adventurer Geoff Hill is a fan

and he's flown up to Bellarena to tell me about her.

What sort of a lady was she? Remarkable, I think is the answer.

The only bland thing about her was her surname.

She was probably, as far as I know,

the first female photojournalist on Fleet Street -

and this was before women even had the vote.

She was a crack shot, a martial arts expert

and shockingly, she rode a horse the way men did.

How did she get into flying?

Her uncle sent her a postcard of Bleriot,

the first crossing of the Channel,

and of course, Lilian being Lilian, she immediately wrote to him

and said, "Can I come along as a passenger on your next flight?"

She got an immediate "non" from Bleriot.

But she went over to a flying show in Blackpool,

the same one that Harry Ferguson went to in 1909.

Made a few sketches and came back

and started designing her own aircraft

which is as remarkable as you and me going into a car showroom,

making a few notes and coming home and building a Porsche.

Harry had the resources of a workshop behind him.

How did she do it?

She started building a glider, which she called the Mayfly,

and when people asked why it was called the Mayfly,

she said, "Well, it may fly and it may not," which is a great answer.

So, she built this glider, flew it down Carnmoney Hill

with the help of six burly Royal Irish Constabulary members

who loved her, apparently.

Then Lord O'Neill said she could use the big meadow at Shane's Castle

to fly the powered version.

She ordered a 20 horsepower two-stroke,

and when that arrived without a fuel tank,

she improvised using a whiskey bottle

and her deaf aunt's ear trumpet to pour the fuel in,

so it was just wonderfully innovative.

Being from Northern Ireland, somebody we should celebrate -

the first woman in the world to design, build and fly.

What an achievement, and what a remarkable person.

In fact, she gave up aviation after that.

Her father, who was deeply worried about her killing herself,

said if she gave up, he'd buy her a model T4

and she went to Dublin, became the first woman in Ireland to own a car.

Got taught how to drive it, drove herself home

and within a month, she was the Northern Ireland dealer for Ford.

An incredible lady. An incredible lady.

Lilian and Harry belong to a world where the sky was open to all.

But our replica needs permission to fly.

The man who decides if we can take off - or not -

has dropped in to Bellarena for a final inspection.

It's not a model. No. It's a proper aeroplane.

All the hinges on.

We've set the controls to what we think

is going to be an acceptable level. Yeah.

And the Go Pro will fall away outside of the hinge line there?

Yeah. And everything is tethered as per regulations.

OK. I mean, longer term, you'd be worried about rubbing there

but I think the time we're looking at, it's not going to be an issue.

I hope it's airtight.

How are we doing? Dr Ellin. Hi. What's the score?

I think... Is it airworthy?

It's an impressive piece of work, whether it is or it isn't,

but my gut feeling is, yes, it is.

Well done. Thank you.

That's a very big statement you've just made there.

I'm happy that the wing is strong enough

for the intended flight test profile.

And you're ready? I'm ready.

Shall we get into position and see what happens?

I'm ready, but whether I'm willing or not is another thing!

You're going anyway, William, you've said you would!

Thank you, Alex. Do you think he has a choice?

Not at this stage! You couldn't stop him getting in it now.

Shall we get the team and get it over into position? Yes, let's go.

We are trying to remake history,

re-enacting scenes first captured on camera

when flying was a rare pursuit.

When pilots were daredevils who risked life and limb

every time they reached for the sky.

William is about to take Harry's seat

in what was, and likely still is, an unstable aircraft.

Straight line, tracking dead into a wind

and absolutely no purposeful deviation from that straight line.

He's only allowed to go head on into the breeze.

Side winds could easily flip this plane over.

ENGINE STARTS

Alex won't allow him to attempt to fly just yet.

We don't even know if he can taxi in a straight line.

Without brakes or the ability to steer the undercarriage,

that's the first test.

And the first run proves it's been built brilliantly!

I just bounced and bounced.

He said he felt it get light on its wheels.

This is a plane that wants to fly.

Just take her back as far as you can.

Manhandling Harry's plane back into position,

there is a huge sense of optimism in the camp.

Unbelievable! It was straight, it was much faster than I expected.

William is happy. Chocks away.

We know gusty winds made Harry crash,

and while we're only doing ground trials,

a stiffening breeze is a constant danger.

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

A simple taxi run almost ends in disaster.

This is the closest thing you'll see to an accident.

A light sea breeze would pose no problem for modern aircraft.

But Harry's plane remains

right on the ragged edge of early 20th-century flight.

The only reason Harry Ferguson's plane didn't crash this time

is William McMinn.

I think I hit a bump and the bump on one wheel

lifted the aircraft into the air

but the aircraft was in a roll condition.

So it lifted the starboard wing.

When you started coming up around,

I was sure you were going to dig a wing in.

There was pucker factor - put it that way.

I'll go and get a cup of tea now and collect my thoughts.

You know what? You deserve a cup of tea.

After such a close shave, and with conditions worsening,

Alex rules out any further trials for the rest of the day.

Dawn breaks over Bellarena,

and we're hoping for a golden opportunity

to take Harry's plane into the air.

The weather forecast promised much lighter winds,

but a stubborn breeze refuses to shift,

so we're forced to sit it out,

waiting and praying for the wind to drop.

By six o'clock, Alex gives the nod, and out she comes.

It looks to all the world like the plane that time forgot.

A beautiful dinosaur from a bygone age.

But it is a tribute to Harry's genius as an inventor

and a credit to the team who have remade her.

Harry, when he was flying,

mornings and evenings were the time to try and get out there

cos on the beach, on the fields,

the wind drops in the morning or in the evening.

There's your opportunity. So we've all got our fingers crossed.

It's still too risky, too blowy,

so William has to content himself with one more taxi run.

Then, quite by accident, something extraordinary.

We have lift off!

I think you were told to go slower and not fly!

I'm not flying. Was he flying?

I think... There is no dispute.

Anybody think he didn't fly? No.

As I came over the hill,

I could feel it getting light as the ground fell away.

It seems to get to a speed and then just want to elevate.

Without a shadow of doubt,

Harry Ferguson's aeroplane has left the ground? ALL: Yeah.

This is a flying machine. This is not a monument in a museum.

Harry made hops like this too.

He didn't consider it proper flight, yet it's a great start for us.

I think that OK, we've flown.

I'm not sure who was in control

but what I'd like to do is, until the wind drops,

I'd like to knock it on the head.

We've proven it's possible.

Let's leave it there until we have better conditions

and then look at doing it again.

After a long day of waiting and weather watching,

Harry's plane remains sadly grounded.

We are at the airfield beside the beach

where Harry really perfected his flying.

Do you feel like he's here with us?

I think Harry would be proud.

Imagine you were 30 years younger with no experience whatsoever.

What would it be like getting up into the seat of an aeroplane then?

I would say it was scary.

The first run across the ground with the engine gone

and you're accelerating, it is a daunting task,

and for him to do that on his own with no flying experience,

a gusty, windy day, he's a unique man.

Even with all your experience, you came very close to disaster.

The wind got underneath the right-hand wing.

Suddenly, we're at right angles to the wind, wing up in the air,

one wing on the ground and...

useful opposite rudder and roll control.

And we got it back under control.

We? I think we had a little help from the gods!

You didn't quite get to soaring the way we had hoped to.

Are you disappointed? Yeah.

If we had a weather window and the wind calmed down,

we could fly it, we could get it into the air.

It would have been heartbreaking for William to park the challenge

after one wee hop.

Harry's plane and everyone with a hand in making her

deserves a last roll of the dice.

A chance to soar.

So, when the wind finally slackened, William raced back to Bellarena.

MUSIC: Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss

We want to end up at that grass.

The tension is real, the pressure on our pilot, enormous.

Owen and his fellow glider pilots are right behind him.

Now William, over to you.

Can you get her in the air?

What an achievement!

What a spectacular take-off!

To 20 foot. 20 foot? 20 foot. Just beautiful.

She just kept flying and flying and flying. Gorgeous. Gorgeous.

You could feel the winds rocking and I knew I was airborne,

and I could see the hedge starting to come, so I cut the power

and you had to really had to push the nose,

really had to push the elevator to try and get it level.

Now, it landed a wee bit heavy, but look, we're good, we've got it done.

It was indeed a heavy landing,

but our skilled team of craftsmen built it strong.

The undercarriage took a pounding and stood the test.

But it was more than the tail skid could take.

Well done! Superb!

Brilliant! Great job, man. Well done!

Unbelievable. Well done, William!

Great to relive a moment of history, isn't it?

It is. For Irish aviation.

It's just sinking in now. Yeah.

There was a lot of pressure. Oh, it was huge.

But well done, well carried out.

Little did the guys know in 1909 where this was going to lead,

when you look up there today and see all the jets flying.

Fantastic!

Getting serious, the serious part is, we have to thank Harry.

We should be in awe of the man, there's no doubt about it,

and Ireland, as a whole, should be proud of him.

You're the only man alive to have flown a Harry Ferguson plane.

What does it feel like?

Nice, yeah. It's flown not just for me,

but it's flown for the people who put the time and the effort,

and it's a nice result.

The certificate came through from the CAA and it says,

"Constructor and type, WH McMinn, Ferguson monoplane."

That is something I will treasure for the rest of my life.

It is wonderful.