Wing-tip Flares?

[Dave Homewood]

I just came across this article in the NZ Herald, dated 25 March 1938. One passage struck me, about wing-tip flares. Did they ignite flares so the guys on the ground could see them coming into landing at night on gooseneck flare-lit runways?

BOMBER WRECKED

DEFENCE MACHINE

ESCAPE OF PILOT

ACCIDENT IN DARK

CRASH NEAR ASHBURTON

[by TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] ASHBURTON, Thursday

A Royal New Zealand Air Force pilot stationed at Wigram Aerodrome, Pilot Officer E. S. Reynolds, had a remarkable escape from death when a Vickers Vildebeest bomber crashed during night flying exercises on the property of Mr. A. C. Cameron, seven miles east of Ashburton, shortly after nine o'clock to-night.

After flying over Ashburton with another machine Reynolds made toward the coast and, although he was off his course for Wigram, it is not known why he came down. The landing flares on the wing-tips had not been set off when the landing wheels struck a high gorse fence and the machine landed a few yards inside the paddock with the nose well down and the propeller churning up the ground.

It ran like this for 60 yards when the engine hit the ground and the machine turned over, somersaulting twice and coming to rest nearly 200 yards from the fence and resting on its back. The engine was torn out of the machine apparently when it first hit the ground, and, rolling over a distance of 150 yards, struck the wreckage of the aeroplane.

The undercarriage was wiped off, the nose was completely smashed in, the top wing shattered and the lower wing broken beyond repair. The pilot was able to crawl out with only minor abrasions, and sought assistance at n near by farmhouse.

paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19380325.2.95

[aircraftclocks]

They will be the Holt flares.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks.

[Mustang51]

Used on Demons and some Tigers if I remember correctly.......why with a fabric aircraft I shall never know

[davidd]

These flares could be fitted to pretty well any RAF aircraft as desired in the inter-war years (and early in WW2), provided the fittings could be attached to the wing-tip structure, and the electrical wiring for ignition was installed. Quite possible other nations' air forces had similar equipment. These particular flares should not be confused with Forced Landing Flares, or Parachute flares, which became popular in the RAF in the late 1930s, which did basically the same job but perhaps better, more intended for the specific activity used in its title - for throwing a large portion of countryside at night into sharp focus. This would enable a lost or otherwise distressed pilot to choose an emergency landing ground with a fair chance of getting his aircraft down without (hopefully) too much damage. Normally two such flares were provided (stored in aft fuselage usually, so far as I know) rather than on wingtips. Wingtip flares were, so far as I know, intended mainly for use in approach and landings at night, to give the pilot a view of the ground beneath, although they could also be used for forced/precautionary landings in real emergencies. These flares were permanently attached to the wingtips, whereas the forced landing flares were discharged from the aircraft (they were stored in angled tubes within rear fuselage in most types of aircraft so equipped) and then their small parachute opened and they gradually descended to the ground, casting a brilliant, white light in all directions. Normally only one was discharged initially, and if the ground beneath revealed itself to be "friendly" the pilot could quickly proceed to land whilst the descending flare was still of assistance. If the land beneath was "hostile" the pilot could then climb again (if possible) and fly a short distance before discharging his second flare to see if he was over a more promising area for a forced landing. Unfortunately there were no other alternatives after this! Both these types of flares were used by suitable RNZAF aircraft, with Ansons and Oxfords carrying the parachute flares as standard, as did Vickers Wellingtons. I think many types of RAF fighters also carried parachute flares, although they seem to have been going out of fashion by end of the war. Late-model Oxfords (and probably ditto for Ansons) were not equipped with the flare chutes.

[Dave Homewood]

Interesting stuff. I am guessing that these were all superseded by electric lights for landing?

Surely if you drop a parachute flare from a fighter you'd be well away from it pretty quickly.

[davidd]

Strangely enough, electrical lights did NOT replace the forced landing (parachute) flares, as aircraft such as Oxfords (and possibly Ansons) already had electrical landing lamps, which were installed as designed in the wing leading edge. I think it was believed that parachute flares were quite a lot brighter than electric lamps anyway, although their burning time was quite short, so I guess the thinking was that the flares gave a far wider circle of brilliant light which would presumably burn for maybe 2 or 3 minutes, hopefully long enough to enable the pilot to have a fairly good scan of the otherwise very dark country below and judge if it looked promising enough for a forced landing. Early Spitfires (Mk. Is, and II, and probably Hurricanes also) carried one parachute flare for the same purpose as well as having an extendable electric landing lamp under each wing, although these lamps were abandoned in the next mass-produced version, the Mk. V. Seems that the special forced-landing flares had by this time fallen completely out of favour, likely that deaths and injuries resultant on night-time forced landings were not such a great burden on manpower as envisaged earlier. I also imagine that the landing lamps were used for the actual forced landing, as the flare may have already burned out by this time, or the country may have been unsuitable for landing anyway, so the lamps would have been the "last chance" to get down, hopefully undamaged. I would also guess that some trials may have been carried out to see if these flares could provide a reasonably cheap system of getting aircraft down safely on dark nights (hopefully in fields rather than forests, hills, rivers).