Presentation by Wing Commander Ken Wallis to West Norfolk Advanced Driving Group 27 June 2005

I don't think that I have ever before sat through 3 straight hours of someone talking without losing concentration. This by a man of nearly ninety who can only be described as "exceptional". Brave, ingenious, capable and very intelligent are other words that spring to mind. He has done so may things with his life and can still remember and describe them in a detailed and fascinating manner. He was throwing out facts and figures with such machine-gun rapidity that I know I did not manage to capture all that he said on paper but I hope the following will give flavour to his amazing career.

Before the Autogiro

His father became interested in motorcycles, motorcycle racing and then building motorcycles at the beginning of the last century. On a visit to Paris in 1908, his father and brothers saw an aircraft and decided to build their own out of steel tubing. This was wrecked after a few hops but the mechanical bug had bitten deeply by then. Pre-Great War military exercises drew the brothers into despatch riding and into the motorcycle business.

In the 1930s Ken built boats and took part in propeller-driven speedboat racing. He had particular success with an engine with no throttle, only an advance/retard lever to control the speed. This craft had the unfortunate habit of occasionally starting and running in reverse! He has built car bodies on machines as diverse as Austins and Rolls Royces.

Initially turned down by the RAF for flying due to very poor eyesight in one eye, he persuaded a doctor that he could see sufficiently and gained his civilian pilots licence (12 hours tuition, £14 cost). Luck and subterfuge gave him entry to the RAF and initially he flew Lysanders during the war, patrolling to look out for for the expected German invasion fleet. Low level work was practised by flying UNDER telephone wires!

He went onto Wellington bombers dropping propaganda leaflets as well as bombs and crashed twice, the first time parachuting from under 750 feet and the second time crash landing after an altercation with barrage balloon wires. On his second crash, the aircraft came to rest only eighteen inches from the edge of a vertical quarry face. At the time he was still building "special" cars and because petrol was difficult to get, he put together an electric motorcycle. This then led to making model electric racing cars, this fifty years before Scalextric.

Running an RAF air-gunnery training flight led to an ability at target shooting (up to the level of shooting at Bisley!), designing and making guns and then cameras. He flew over the Anzio beach head in support of allied landings in Italy but when he applied to transfer to flying Mosquitoes, his poor eyesight was found out and he was transferred to a technical branch of the service. Here he helped to develop the rotary cannon and worked with the man who invented the Sten Gun. He designed new bombs, discovered ways of penetrating the then very new jet aircraft engines with gunfire and then somehow or other got back into flying first Canberras, then Meteors and Vampire Jets. When working in the United States he unknowingly ordered General Curtis Le May out of the way of his Rolls Royce car whilst demonstrating its starting abilities. Then he was flying Boeing B36s over the North Pole loaded with nuclear weaponry on cold war patrol and in his spare time racing speedboats on the Missouri. Back in England he was given the opportunity to fly airships from Cardington.

After the Autogiro

In 1930 R. Hafner unveiled the Rotachute which was designed to allow individual troops to be pulled behind a bomber and do a controlled landing in enemy territory. This did not find success but a Dr. Benson then designed a gyro glider from which Wallis developed the Autogyro. As I understand it, this is a small aircraft with a "pusher" propellor at the back, given lift by free- spinning helicopter-like blades. It is slow (max speed about 100 mph) but very versatile and delicate in its applications.

It was first flown at Shoreham airfield on 2 August 1961. The Army Air Corps were very interested but then decided to go for enclosed conventional helicopters instead. Ken left the air force in 1964 (I was 9 then) to concentrate on the Autogyro project. He was asked to help make a "spaghetti-James Bondish" film in Brazil and after being interviewed by the media, the real James Bond people contacted him. After Cubby Broccoli saw him make an impressive short take-off, he was booked for You Only Live Twice and Little Nellie became a household name.

Ken and the Autogyro were feted by the publicity people and he performed stunts such as using the autogyro to race police cars, fly under bridges in Switzerland, and strafe terrified camera crews in Germany. In Sweden in 1969 he flew the first two-seater. Plessey developed ground-penetrating radar and this was attached to an autogyro to look for buried bodies including the still-missing Lord Lucan. A previously undiscovered Roman Temple was found in Hayling Island and underground water pipeline leaks were found. The autogyro also found roles as crop-sprayer, TV documentary film platform (no downdraft from rotor blades) and as a tracker of suspect vehicles.

In 1981 the military were once again interested and it was tested for SAS-type use and as an aircraft for use on ships too small to use conventional helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft. This necessitated Ken flying onto and off some very small decks in rocky circumstances. There was also other experimental cold war use. Recently he built a replica of his fathers first steel- tube plane and it flew.

Suddenly it was half past ten and I was released from his thrall. There are few real heroes left in the world but Ken Wallis does seem to be one of them. I hope I do him justice in this recounting of his tale.

Sandy Reid