Jeffrey Quill

Jeffrey Quill

Jeffrey Kindersley Quill OBE AFC (1913–1996) was a British Royal Air Force officer and Test pilot and the second man to fly the Supermarine Spitfire after Vickers' chief test pilot, "Mutt" Summers. After succeeding Summers as Vickers' chief test pilot, Quill test-flew every mark of Spitfire, originally designed by R. J. Mitchell.

Quill wrote several books about the Spitfire.cite book
last =
first =
author = Jeffrey Quill
title = Spitfire: A Test Pilot’s Story
publisher = London: Arrow Books
date = 1983
location =
isbn =0-09-937020-4
] cite book
last =
first =
author = Jeffrey Quill
coauthors = Sebastian Cox
title = Birth of a

publisher = Quiller Press
date = 1987
location =
isbn = 0907621864
] He was President of the Spitfire Society.

Early years

Quill was born at Littlehampton, Sussex, England in 1913, the youngest of five children. In 1926 he began his secondary education at Lancing College, which overlooks Shoreham Airport. The aerial activity overhead quickened the already air-minded Quill's resolve to take a non-commissioned career in the Royal Air Force long before he left the college in 1931. Whilst a pupil at the college, Quill attended the famous RAF Display at Hendon, and years later he participated in the event taking part in a mock bombing attack on 24 June 1933.

Aviation career

At the age of 18 years and 6 months Quill was accepted into the RAF as an Acting Pilot Officer. He learned to fly on Avro Tutor biplanes and went solo after the remarkably short time of 5 hours 20 minutes (9 hours being regarded as the norm) flying time. He graduated on to Siskin IIIA advanced trainers, and his flying ability was assessed as "exceptional". In September 1932 he joined No. XVII Squadron RAF at Upavon, where he began flying Bristol Bulldog fighters. He flew as often as possible in order to familiarise himself with the aeroplane, practising aerobatics and flying in cloud. He knew the dangers of flying and he later wrote:

"Unless aerobatics were practised assiduously to the point where one was familiar with every conceivable combination of speed and altitude ofwhich the aircraft was capable, one was not master of the aeroplane. Therefore a day would come when the aeroplane decided that it was in charge instead of the pilot, and that would be the last day. I never had cause to modify that view, and I kept my aerobatics well honed to the day of my last flight as a pilot."

Quill was posted to the Meteorological Flight at Duxford. There, flying open-cockpit Siskins, the unit made twice-daily scheduled flights (except on Sundays) up to 25,000ft to collect data for weather reports. After Quill took command of the flight in November 1934 he and his team managed to fly every "slot" for a whole year, regardless of "unflyable" weather, without missing a flight. For this achievement Quill was awarded the Air Force Cross. On one occasion, when letting down through cloud, his Siskin hit the ground very hard but in perfect landing attitude, bounced over a hedge and overturned, pushing Quill's head forward on to the cockpit coaming (its raised border). Had he not already received a broken nose from a boxing accident he would have qualified for the "Siskin nose" - a characteristic of many pilots of the period.

In January 1936 Quill joined Vickers (Aviation) Ltd as assistant to its chief test pilot, "Mutt" Summers. His initial task was the testing of the Wellesley bomber, and it was while flying a production Wellesley that Quill had a narrow escape. The 74 ft 7 in-span bomber refused to recover from a spin and at 3,000 ft Quill decided to bail out. As he descended, the spiralling bomber seemed intent on slicing the pilot with its wings; but he landed safely not far from the Kingston bypass.

There was some rivalry between Vickers (Aviation) Ltd and Hawker Aircraft, whose Hurricane had first flown four months earlier. Quill's long association with the Spitfire began when he made his first flight in the prototype on 26 March 1936, and his priority was to get the Spitfire cleared for acceptance by the RAF. The Spitfire needed a great deal of work before it was deemed safe for young RAF pilots to fly, and it did not enter squadron service until July 1938. However, developed through many marks and variants, the Spitfire remained a first-line fighter throughout the war.

econd World War

During the Second World War, Quill was in charge of development and production flying, a job that he took very seriously - so seriously that he felt he must obtain first-hand combat experience. He was temporarily released on 5 August 1940 to join 65 Squadron at RAF Hornchurch, cite web
url=http://www.deltaweb.co.uk/spitfire/survival.htm
title=The Supermarine Spitfire, an operational history
author=Christopher Whitehead
publisher=DeltaWeb International
date=
accessdaymonth = 23 August
accessyear = 2007
] privately hoping that it would be a permanent appointment. On 16 August he shot down an Me109 and two days later he shared a victory over a Heinkel He 111. His combat days were short-lived because he was recalled after 19 days, but they made Quill all the more determined to make the Spitfire an even better fighting machine.

In 1942 the Luftwaffe's Focke-Wulf Fw 190 was gaining the edge over Allied fighters, and it was an urgent priority to capture an example. For a while Quill was on standby to be taken to France in order to hijack a Fw190 back to England. Fortunately an example was delivered to the RAF on a plate in the meantime, when a disorientated German pilot landed at a Welsh airfield by mistake.

Postwar

In the immediate postwar era, Quill continued as a test pilot, flying the latest Supermarine jets including the Attacker and Swift; he later became a military aircraft marketing executive . He also became a prolific author, chronicling the Spitfire and its legacy through: "Flying The World's Great Aircraft" (1982), "Spitfire: A Test Pilot's Story" (1983), cite web
url=http://www.ajbrown.eu.com/RAF/HCHbofb.htm
title=The Battle of Britain, Spitfires of 65 Squadron
author=Alan J Brown
publisher=
date=
accessdaymonth = 23 August
accessyear = 2007
] "Spitfire" (1986) and "Birth of a

After Quill's death in 1996, the British aviation society, the Air League commemorated Quill by naming a new award after him, and since 1997 they have awarded the Jeffrey Quill Medal annually for developing air-mindedness in young people. cite web
url=http://www.airleague.co.uk/mm-awards.html
title=The Air League's Awards
author=
publisher=The Air League (UK)
date=
accessdaymonth = 24 August
accessyear = 2007
]

References


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Quill (disambiguation) — *A quill is a pen made from a feather.Quill can also refer to:*A character from ; *Quill (comics), the X men character; *Quill drive, a mechanism to connect drive shafts together so they need not be oriented in the same direction; *Quill Lake,… …   Wikipedia

  • Quill and Dagger — is a senior honor society at Cornell University. It is often recognized as one of the most prominent collegiate societies of its type, along with Skull and Bones of Yale University. [cite news | first = | last = | title = Tap Day | publisher =… …   Wikipedia

  • Quill (band) — Quill was a popular Northeast USA band that played extensively throughout New England and New York in the late 1960s and that gained national attention by performing at the original Woodstock Festival in 1969. The band was originally founded by… …   Wikipedia

  • List of Quill and Dagger members — The Quill and Dagger Society, founded at Cornell University in 1893, selects new undergraduate members in the spring of their junior year or fall of their senior year. A small number of honorary members have been selected since the society s… …   Wikipedia

  • Supermarine Spitfire (late Merlin powered variants) — Infobox Aircraft name =Spitfire type =Fighter manufacturer =Supermarine caption =Supermarine Spitfire VIII in the markings of 457(RAAF) Sqn designer =R. J. Mitchell first flight =5 March 1936 introduction =1938 retired =1955, RAF status = primary …   Wikipedia

  • Supermarine Spitfire — Infobox Aircraft name =Spitfire type =Fighter manufacturer =Supermarine caption =The distinctive silhouette of a typical Spitfire shows elliptical wings. (P7350, a Mk IIa, was first delivered to 266 Squadron on 6 September 1940.) designer =R. J.… …   Wikipedia

  • Joseph Summers — Joseph Mutt Summers Nickname Mutt Born 10 March 1904(1904 03 10) Died 16 March 1954(1954 03 16) (aged 50) …   Wikipedia

  • Supermarine Attacker — Infobox Aircraft name = Attacker type = Naval fighter manufacturer = Supermarine caption = designer = first flight = 27 July 1946 introduced = August 1951 retired = FAA 1954 RNVR 1957 PAF 1960s status = primary user = Fleet Air Arm more users =… …   Wikipedia

  • Supermarine Spiteful — infobox Aircraft name = Spiteful type =Fighter manufacturer =Supermarine caption = The 494 mph Spiteful XVI, RB518 designer = Joe Smith first flight = 30 June 1944 introduced = retired = status = Out of service primary user = Royal Air Force more …   Wikipedia

  • Alex Henshaw — Infobox Person name =Alex Henshaw image size =150px caption =Alex Henshaw holding the Winner s trophy after winning the 1938 King s Cup Race birth date =7 November 1912 birth place =Peterborough, United Kingdom death date =24 February 2007 death… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”