three hours, dropping our load of bombs within 30 seconds of our planned time was evidence of good navigation and, I like to think, good handling of the Halifax and its controls. My years spent concentrating on flying well were paying off.
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Halifax Mark III, Full Sutton, 1944 T
he Halifax Mk III operated with a crew of seven. The skipper (and the pilot was the captain of the aircraft whatever his rank) sat with his instrument panel facing him, a panel which embraced only the flight instruments and the few engine instruments needed for proper handling of the engine controls – boost pressure and engine revolutions in particular. Unlike the pilots of fighters and similar machines, the pilot was not seated on his parachute pack. He wore a parachute harness which had, on the webbing straps across his chest, two large ‘doglead’ type clips on to which his parachute itself, kept by his Flight Engineer standing immediately behind him, would be snapped by its two metal fittings if