30s

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Using converted bombers

In early 1930, Flight Refuelling Ltd bought three Handley Page Harrow bombers and had them modified as tankers. The early development of these bombers can be seen at this website:
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=50251

Here is a typical unmodified HP Harrows bomber:

harrow bomber

Because the tanker flew above, ahead and slightly starboard (right) of the receiver, it would normally be difficult to see what was going on. For this reason, large windows were added to the port (left) side of the tanker's fuselage as shown below:

Without the window:

without  window

With the window:

with window

These bombers were given British Civil Registrations as G-AFRL, G-AFRG and G-AFRH in February/March 1939. They were equipped with the extra internal fuel tanks of 1000 Imperial gallons, impressive for the time. It should be noted however that the role of these tankers was not to increase flying distance of the receiver but rather the payload. Imperial Airways Empire flying boats were already able to fly a transatlantic service via Ireland and Botwood, Newfoundland, but only with a heavy fuel load and therefore smaller payloads.

Gander gets involved

The tanker G-AFRL was based at Rineanna (Shannon), Ireland and the two other Harrows were shipped as deck cargo to Montreal on the steamer SS Bedford which was part of the Canadian Pacific Shipping Line.
They were then uncrated and reassembled in Longueuil, the Fairchilds Aircraft base, and were then flown to "Hattie's Camp" which became Gander. Spare parts were also sent to Gander and the aircraft and team were fairly self sufficient, though for a part of the time a railway box car was used as accommodations.

After considerable testing, the first real success came on August 5, 1939 when a weekly mail service was inaugurated. Even the prime Minister of Ireland, M Éamon de Valera, was present for the departure. Two Imperial Airways Short S-30 flying boats flew on the Southampton-Foynes-Botwood-Montreal-New York route, refuelling in the air twice—once over Ireland and once over Newfoundland. Refuelling took place shortly after takeoff. On their return flights the flying boats were refueled by G-AFRG and G-AFRH, after take-off from Botwood.

It took generally less than 15 minutes, depending on weather conditions, to transfer the fuel between the two aircraft flying on average at about 125 mph.

These flights went so well that Imperial Airways repeated it 15 times. Before this advance could change commercial travel though, World War II ended these experiments.

A very nice still photo of an in-flight refueling operation can be see here;

http://www.rafmuseumphotos.com/in_flight_refuelling_trials_1939/print/1194631.html

An absolutely splendid video of a Flying Boat being refueled by a Handley Page Harrows can be seen here, a beautiful thing to watch !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOlgtozYPh8

Mystery photo

But there is once again a mystery to be solved! Somewhere along the way I came across the photo below which shows the tanker G-AFRH. The very hard to read caption indicates that this airplane is in Gander. However to my recollection, the tower was not on the roof of the hangar but rather a free standing construction built on the end of it. So is my recollection wrong? Was the position of the tower changed? Or is this some other place, perhaps in England, Ireland or even Longueuil? The photo below show 2 Harrows in Gander

mystery pic

Harrow

The end of the Harrows

In any case, the Second World put an end to trans-Atlantic commercial flying. The three Harrow tankers did not stay around for long. The tanker based in Ireland G-AFRL was returned to Ford Aerodrome, Littlehampton, Sussex, UK, where it was destroyed by a Luftwaffe bomber attack on August 18, 1940, along with other aircraft of the Flight Refuelling fleet.

The two tankers in Newfoundland were kept in Gander for a number of tasks but mainly to be used in runway snow-clearing experiments and landing trials on compacted snow. They were taken over operationally by the RCAF at the end of 1939 with an official transfer date of 21 October 1940. They then were used by the RCAF Test and Development facility in Rockcliffe near Ottawa. The tanker G-AFRH was grounded for lack of spare parts on 22 January 1941 and was used to keep G-AFRG flying. However G-AFRG was also scrapped on 17 November of the same year.

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