WONZ Show 202 - Neville Clarke - RAF Ferry Command Pilot

[Dave Homewood]

In this episode of the Wings Over New Zealand Show we hear from 97-year-old veteran RNZAF pilot Neville Clarke.

Neville was one of the RNZAF pilots of perhaps the least remembered part of the wartime air force, RAF Ferry Command. He was tasked with flying newly built aeroplanes that were rolling out of American factories across the Atlantic to Britain. In his time he ferried Lockheed Hudsons, Lockheed Venturas, Douglas C-47 Dakotas, Consolidated Liberators, Martin Baltimores, Martin Marauders, and probably others. He flew both the northern and southern routes.

He also spend a number of months piloting the Consolidated RY-3 (the transport version of the Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer) on the San Francisco to Sydney route. And he flew the Avro York for a period too on transport routes.

After a short postwar secondment to BOAC, Neville left the RNZAF, came home to New Zealand, and joined TEAL on the 7th of May 1947. He flew as co-pilot and later captain with the airline, encompassing such aircraft types on the Short Empire, the Short Sandringham, the Short Solent, the Douglas DC-6, the Lockheed Electra, the Douglas DC-8 and lastly the Douglas DC-10.

Here is the show page:
www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/WONZShow/2019/08/wonz-202-neville-clarke/

[davidd]

Sounds terrific Dave, will have to listen to this show at the weekend! Think I will greatly enjoy this one.
David D

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks David.

[Dave Homewood]

At the beginning of this report we see Prime Minister Peter Fraser arriving back from San Francisco in one of the RY-3 transports. I wonder if Neville was flying it?

[Dave Homewood]

Here is an interview with Nevill from The Press back on the 8th of December 1973 when he flew the inaugural Air New Zealand DC-10 flight to Singapore!

Veteran pilot began on Tiger Moths

(By R.O. DEW, a staff reporter who was a guest on Air New Zealand's inaugural DC10 flight to Singapore.)

Piloting a giant commercial jet airliner with 245 passengers on board at speeds of more than 500 miles an hour some six miles up in the air is a very different proposition from buzzing around the sky in a Tiger Moth.

Nevertheless, it was in one of these tiny biplanes that Captain W. P. N. (“Nobby”) Clarke, the man who commanded Air New Zealand’s recent inaugural DC10 flight to Singapore, made his humble beginning more than 30 years ago. Now Captain Clarke is a mileage millionaire seven times over and has 26 years’ unbroken service with Air New Zealand or Tasman Empire Airways, as the company was first known.

Captain Clarke enjoys people as well as flying. During the long haul to Singapore, he left his flight deck on several occasions to talk with passengers.

“I like to mix with the passengers if I can, as long as it doesn’t infringe on the safety of the aircraft. There must always be two pilots on the flight deck in the DC10. We have three on the trip to Singapore, so I can get away now and then.”

Captain Clarke’s in-flight commentaries have become almost his trade mark. A keen student of geography, he is reluctant to let any point of interest pass without bringing it to the attention of the passengers—even if it means breaking the rules and interrupting a film show. Although he remembers the early days and the old aircraft with some affection, he has no desire to return to those times.

“Flying is a much more comfortable existence today. Aircraft are faster and capable of flying much higher, above the weather. There is not the same problem of boredom, either.”

War service
In the Second World War Captain Clarke served in the R.N.Z.A.F. and then the R.A.F. after the war. He decided to make flying his career. “I liked doing it and I seemed to have the ability.”

But before he could join the infant T.E.A.L. airline he needed to obtain a commercial pilot’s licence and a second-class navigator’s ticket. He went to Britain where more regular examinations were held for these, gained the necessary qualifications and in May, 1947, joined T.E.A.L.

It was a decision he has never had cause to regret. And yet there was one black moment when his career seemed threatened. He was the check captain in command of the turbo-prop Electra, Akaroa, during an emergency procedures training flight at Whenuapai in March, 1965 — a flight which ended in the destruction of the $1,600,000 aeroplane. It was an exercise which has since been taken out of the training schedule.

He regards the invention of the jet engine as the single most significant development in aviation. It increases the amount of power available tremendously, giving the body designers greater scope, and is also much more reliable than the old piston engines. “While I was flying DC8s between 1965 and 1972 I didn’t suffer one in-flight engine failure.”

In February this year Captain Clarke checked out on the “Big 10,” as the DC10 is affectionately known. He cannot praise the aircraft highly enough. “It is a beautiful aeroplane. I haven’t met one pilot who is not absolutely enthusiastic about it. The only thing against it is the compactness of the cockpit.”

DC 10 is safest
Being 35ft from the ground when at the controls and 95ft ahead of the main wheels required some getting used to and allowances had to be made for this when landing and taxi-ing, he said. But he had no reservations at all about flying the biggest passenger aircraft operating out of this country.

“It flies beautifully. The DC10 is probably the safest aircraft I have ever flown.”

Aeroplanes in the category of the “Big 10” had a very impressive safety record, notwithstanding their size, he said. Since the DC10 and its Boeing equivalent, the 747, had been introduced about two years before, there had not been a single catastrophic accident involving either. “This has never happened before. It points to the increasing ability of the manufacturers to do their arithmetic properly in the planning stages.”

Captain Clarke is a married man with two sons. He regards flying as a rather selfish career. He regrets having had to spend so much time away from his home and family. "It is a 365-day a year job. When the public are on holiday, that is our busiest time. A social life is not too easy to organise. The week-end to pilots is two more flying days.”

However, in three years Captain Clarke will be able to spend much more time at his Auckland home. He will have reached 55, the compulsory retiring age for commercial airline pilots. He has been preparing for retirement. He has been dabbling in real estate in Auckland and when his flying days are over intends to carve out a new career in this. But even if his future is assured, it will be with much sorrow that he turns his back on a way of life which has taken him the equivalent of 295 times around the world.