Pilot narrative by a wartime Spitfire test pilot.

Sigh for a Merlin

Henshaw, Alex

Biographies & Memoirs

Arrow Books, Ltd.

Sigh for a Merlin: Testing the Spitfire

Engineering & Transportation

Engineering

Hamlyn

Alex Henshaw spent the early days of World War II at Eastleigh, England, testing the immortal Spitfire fighter with Jeffrey Quill before being appointed Chief Test Pilot at Supermarine's new factory in Castle Bromwich. Thousands of Spitfires were tested and manufactured at this site throughout the war, by the end of which 37,000 test flights had been made with Alex Henshaw flying an estimated ten percent of all Spitfires ever built. Often landing without aids of any kind, his breathtaking aerobatic style and complete mastery of the aircraft were to save his life on several occasions.

Transportation

Society of Automotive Engineers

Sigh for a Merlin : Testing the Spitfire

History

Military

Crecy Publishing

Alex Henshaw was awarded his private pilot's in 1932 and made a name for himself during the 1930s competing in the air races which were to popular at the time. At the start of World War II he became a test pilot first for Vickers Armstrong but was then invited by Jeffrey Quill to test Spitfires at Eastleigh. In June 1940, Henshaw moved to the Castle Bromwich factory in Birmingham shortly afterwards becoming Chief Test Pilot there. In the years that followed, he flew thousands of the Spitfires and Seafires which were built at the plant, sometimes test flying as many as 20 different aircraft in a single day. By the end of the war, 37,000 test flights had been made with Henshaw flying an estimated ten percent of all Spitfires ever built. It could be hazardous work and two test pilots working from Castle Bromwich were killed in crashes. Often flying in poor conditions and landing without aids of any kind, Henshaw's breathtaking acrobatic style and complete mastery of the aircraft were to save his life on several occasions. This is a new impression of a classic book about a truly classic aircraft. Much has been written about the Spitfire but as the reviewer of Sigh for a Merlinin Pilot Magazineput it, 'If you only buy one Spitfire book, make this it.'

Sigh For A Merlin: Testing The Spitfire

Crecy Classic

Alex Henshaw had the luck to grow up in the '20s and '30s during the golden age of flying. The Blue Riband of flying in the British Isles between the two World Wars was the King's Cup: Henshaw set his heart on it, developing a technique of racing which extracted the very maximum from his aircraft: firs the Comper Swift and then the DH Leopard Moth. Parallel with his search for speed was an obsession with making accurate landfalls, and he developed this blind-flying taken deliberately in a flying partnership with his father on many carefully planned long-distance survery flights. His exciting apprenticeship in these two skills was crowned by the acquisition of the Percival Mew Gull G-AEXF in 1937. His amazing solo flight to Cape Town and back in February 1939 established several solo records that still stand today, almost 60 years later. This feat of navigation and airmanship must surely be one of man's greatest flights - 12,754 miles over desert, sea and jungle in a single-engined light aircraft.

The Flight of the Mew Gull

The Crowood Press, UK

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Books by Henshaw, Alex