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The Aviation Historian
The modern journal of classic aeroplanes and the history of flying
®
MOUNTAIN TIGER
The Northrop F-5 in Swiss Air Force service
ISSUE
31
2
THE AVIATION HISTORIAN
Issue No 31
Published quarterly by:
The Aviation Historian
PO Box 962
Horsham RH12 9PP
United Kingdom
Subscribe at:
www.theaviationhistorian.com
The Aviation Historian
The modern journal of classic aeroplanes and the history of flying
®
Editor’s Letter
A VERY WARM welcome to our 31st issue, in which we
cover a typically broad selection of subjects, from the wildly
optimistic attempts of French aeronaut Louis Damblanc to
build a very early form of tilt-rotor (pages 44–52), to the story
of the epitome of the small, nimble Cold War jet fighter — the
Northrop F-5 — in Swiss Air Force service (including some of
author Peter Lewis’s eye-popping photography of the Tiger
over the Alps). Along the way, we also take in Tom Culbert’s
historical tribute to the intrepid founders of the “Hump”
wartime aerial route over the Himalayas (pages 20–29),
Lennart Andersson’s investigation into top secret inter-war
aerial chemical warfare experiments by Germany and the
Soviet Union (pages 68–74), and Professor Keith Hayward’s
political analysis of the
malheureuse
Anglo-French Variable
Geometry project
débâcle,
if you’ll pardon my French.
We also offer a welcome return to Amaru Tincopa’s
Wings
Over Peru
series (pages 54–66), in which he traces the career
of the Douglas 8A in Peruvian service, incorporating a level
of detail that was simply unavailable in English as little as a
decade ago. Being able to bring this material to a wider
audience, thanks to the sterling efforts of dedicated authors
and researchers like Amaru, is a genuine pleasure.
It is of particular poignance to me that this issue includes
the first part of an interview I conducted in 2005 with one of
Canada’s most distinguished airmen — Lt-Col Fern Villeneuve
AFC — because we received the sad news that he’d died,
aged 92, on Christmas Day 2019. Despite his extraordinary
career and remarkable achievements in aviation, Fern was
always, by account of everyone who knew him, just “one of
the guys” — and I feel privileged to have been able to call
him a personal friend.
Finally, before we head into the issue, another reminder
that everything we cover in
TAH
— including artworks and
book reviews — is included in our index, available (FREE!) as
a PDF download from the
TAH
website. Unlock your issues!
ISSUE NUMBER 31
(published April 15, 2020)
EDITOR
Nick Stroud
e-mail nickstroud@theaviationhistorian.com
MANAGING EDITOR
Mick Oakey
e-mail mickoakey@theaviationhistorian.com
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Amanda Stroud
FINANCE MANAGER
Lynn Oakey
For all telephone enquiries:
tel +44 (0)7572 237737 (mobile number)
EDITORIAL BOARD
Gregory Alegi, Dr David Baker, Ian Bott,
Robert Forsyth, Juanita Franzi, Dr Richard
P. Hallion, Philip Jarrett HonCRAeS,
Colin A. Owers, David H. Stringer,
Julian Temple, Capt Dacre Watson
WEBMASTER
David Siddall Multimedia
www.davidsiddall.com
Published quarterly by
The Aviation Historian,
PO Box 962, Horsham RH12 9PP, United Kingdom
©
The Aviation Historian
2020
ISSN 2051-1930 (print)
ISSN 2051-7602 (digital)
While every care will be taken with material
submitted to
The Aviation Historian,
no responsibility
can be accepted for loss or damage. Opinions
expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect
those of the Editor. This periodical must not, without the
written consent of the publishers first being given, be
lent, sold, hired out or otherwise disposed of in a
mutilated condition or in any unauthorised cover by way
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If you do not wish to keep your copy of
The Aviation Historian
(impossible to imagine, we know),
please ensure you recycle it using an appropriate facility.
Printed in the UK by
The Magazine Printing Company
using only paper from FSC/PEFC suppliers
www.magprint.co.uk
FRONT COVER
A stunning photograph by PETER LEWIS of a Swiss
Air Force F-5E firing off chaff in the twilight over the Alps in late
2016. His article on Switzerland’s Tigers begins on page 30.
BACK COVER
Revolutionary! A French engineer inspects the sleeve
gears of a Bristol Hercules engine. See pages 76–84.
VIA UGO VICENZI
THE AVIATION HISTORIAN
MADE IN BRITAIN
Issue No 31
3
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THE AVIATION HISTORIAN
Issue No 31
10
CONTENTS
20
98
Issue No 31
3
EDITOR’S LETTER
6
AIR CORRESPONDENCE
10
AFVG: “A POLITICAL PROBLEM FOR BOTH SIDES”
Professor Keith Hayward FRAeS continues his series on
the political aspects of Britain’s post-war aircraft industry
with a look at the Anglo-French Variable Geometry project
that frustrated the British — but ultimately led to Tornado
20
THE HUMP PIONEERS
The WW2 aerial supply line between India and China —
“The Hump” — has been covered in detail; what has not is
the establishment of the treacherous route by four very
disparate air transport specialists, half military, half civil, in
the spring of 1942. Tom Culbert sets the record straight
30
SWITZERLAND’S TIGER FORCE
Swiss Air Force specialist Peter Lewis chronicles the
career of the Northrop F-5 Tiger with the
Schweizer
Flugwaffe,
including a foldout of two of his stunning aerial
photographs of the sleek fighter over the Alps
44
CES HOMMES MAGNIFIQUES:
LOUIS DAMBLANC
76
Jean-Christophe Carbonel continues his series on some
of France’s early aeronautical personalities with the work
of Louis Damblanc, inventor of the ingenious but ill-fated
Alérion twin-engined rotary-wing aircraft
54
WINGS OVER PERU: THE DOUGLAS 8A
Latin American aviation specialist Amaru Tincopa traces the
history of the Northrop-designed Douglas 8A in Peruvian
service, in which it saw combat in several conflicts
68
DIRTY SECRETS
Despite both chemical and biological warfare having been
banned by international treaty in 1925, Germany and the
Soviet Union undertook extensive secret airborne trials
with them in the inter-war years, reveals Lennart Andersson
76
“THE MOST IMPORTANT BRISTOL ENGINE OF
ALL TIME”
44
86
. . . Thus Bill Gunston described the ubiquitous Hercules
sleeve-valve engine. With the help of his own superb CAD
artworks, Ugo Vicenzi describes its development and how
the whole pat-head-and-rub-tummy system works
86
ITALY’S FORGOTTEN AIRLINES Pt 1
Airline historian Maurice Wickstead opens a new series on
the evolution of Italian commercial aviation with the early
history of the nation’s first four “grandfather” airlines —
SISA, SANA, Transadriatica and Aero Espresso Italiana
In the first half of a previously unpublished 2005 interview
with
TAH’s
Editor, the late Canadian flying legend Lt-Col
Fern Villeneuve AFC recalls his first decade in aviation
98
HAWK ONE
110
FROM FLYING TO SPYING Pt 2
54
Phil Vabre concludes the bizarre story of the Australian
Department of Civil Aviation’s espionage activities against
the Japanese in Portuguese Timor during WW2
118
ARMCHAIR AVIATION
123
LOST & FOUND
124
BRIEF ENCOUNTER
In 1989 corporate pilot Brian Turpin was given the oppor-
tunity to swap his more usual bizjet for a B-24 Liberator —
it was love at first sight.
130
OFF THE BEATEN TRACK
Issue No 31
THE AVIATION HISTORIAN
5

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