Canberra From Britain

[Dave Homewood]

CANBERRA FROM BRITAIN

Christchurch Man In Command

Group Captain, J E. S. Morton, a Wigram-trained pilot, and now chief instructor at the Royal Air Force Flying College, Manby, Lincolnshire, will land at Harewood today in a Canberra on a round-the-world flight.

His Canberra, named Aries IV, is on a training flight with another, named Aries V, commanded by Air Commodore P. H. Dunn, commandant of the college. They reached Ohakea yesterday.

At Wigram Group Captain Morton will discuss Canberra operations and training techniques with the staff of the training schools. On Saturday Group Captain Morton will continue his flight, crossing to Laverton, Melbourne.

While in New Zealand Air Commodore Dunn will have discussions with the Air-Department at Wellington and leave on Friday for Christmas Island, the British H-bomb test site in the South Pacific.

With No. 75 Squadron
Group Captain Morton, who comes from Christchurch, trained at Wigram and served with No. 75 (New Zealand) Bomber Squadron, during World War II. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross while on operations in the Mediterranean in 1942, after a previous mention in dispatches for his work in training Polish airmen.

He is a member of the Caterpillar Club, having saved his life by parachute when the instruments of his aircraft were put out of action after a raid on Kiel. Now 42 years of age. Group Captain Morton was educated al Medbury School and Christ’s College. He played Rugby at school and later for the Christchurch Football Club, and was a member of the Canterbury Rowing Club.

THE PRESS, 7 MAY 1958

[Dave Homewood]

AIRCREW FOR CANBERRAS

High Standards Required

New Zealand pilots converting from fighters to Canberra medium jet bombers will require to have high standards of navigational ability and mental and physical endurance. A former Wigram pilot and now assistant-commandant at the Royal Air Force Flying College (Group Captain J. E. S. Morton) said this in Christchurch yesterday.

Group Captain Morton, who has been taking part in a long-range Canberra exercise from Britain to New Zealand and return, said that long flights of eight and a half hours could be done, although normally Canberras flew on four-hour legs. Between Britain and Nairobi on the present exercise one stretch of 4300 statute miles was flown.

“The Canberra generally does not have an automatic pilot and that means you have to ‘fly’ the plane yourself the whole way,” he said. “But I understand now some planes are getting the auto pilots.”

Few Changes Envisaged
Group Captain Morton said he envisaged few changes within the R.N.Z.A.F.’ with the introduction of two Canberra squadrons during the next year or so. The main change would be from the single-seat fighter to a plane that required a crew of three — two of the crew being navigators.

“But you already have that to some extent with the Sunderland maritime squadron so it should not be too difficult,” he said.

The plane that Group Captain Morton flew to Christchurch from Ohakea, by way of Invercargill and other South Island towns (including Akaroa and Lyttelton) yesterday morning is the same type that will be seen in one of New Zealand’s Canberra squadrons: a bomber. Planes in the second squadron will be designed for an interdictor role.

Assisted by a “man-sized tailwind” Group Captain Morton’s aircraft flew across the Tasman sea on Tuesday from Melbourne to Ohakea at “just under 600 miles an hour.”

“Cannot Take Risks”
Group Captain Morton said the Canberra was a nice plane to fly easier and more pleasant than a piston-engine aircraft.

“You cannot take risks with them at high speed, though,” he said.

Performances of the Canberra were still under security, but the plane used with British N.A.T.O. forces was known to have a “nuclear capability,” he added. Group Captain Morton, who was educated at Medbury school and Christ’s College, left New Zealand in 1939 and, apart from two months’ furlough in the Dominion in 1946, has not been home since.

“When I came in 1946 I thought the place had shrunk; now I can see the way it is expanding,” he said.

Another thing he saw was the South Island from the air for the first time. “The weather was perfect yesterday and visibility was 100 to 150 miles at 20.000 ft. It looked beautiful."

Group Captain Morton landed at Harewood at 11.16 a.m. yesterday. He stayed with his brother-in-law, Dr. E. H. Taylor, of Leinster road; and will take off at 10 o’clock this morning to return to Ohakea on the way back to Britain.

THE PRESS, 8 MAY 1958