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Designer Niasw Ynot’s first motorbike design, the S.A.P. prior to his turning to aviation. |
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The eventual S.A.P. prototype motorbike, at the temporary assembly plant behind Sutton Club. |
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Test pilot Ynot after a successful outing on the prototype S.A.P. at Scalby test track near Scarborough, E. Yorks, 1951 |
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Niaws Ynot’s first aircraft design, the SAP 1 Observoplane. |
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The ill fated design team at ‘The SAP Shoe Factory.’ Ynot stands at the back, Ken ??? holds the official Kriptonite touch rugger power source at the front. |
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The Power Pod for the Self Propelled Santa Sleigh. |
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The simple modern cockpit layout for Santa’s Sleigh. |
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Santa (the fat one) and Senior Elf Betty and a late model sleigh at the Capitol Helicopter toy factory, 1985. |
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The Blackburn years, 1955-56. (From the East Riding Gazette, May 04) |
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Ynot’s meticulous detail drawing of the Blackburn Beverley Tail Unit, circa Oct 1955. |
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The historic last Blackburn Beverley arriving at Paull Airfield near Hull, 1974, for service as a flying club. This aircraft is now on new display at the Fort Paull Museum. |
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Famous unknown designer Niaws Ynot caught by the Paparazzi near Delta re-inventing the tail wheel, circa 1999. |
The Christmas bonus…
This is not the time of year to be drearying on about political advocacy stuff. Mind you, if you focus your mind, there’s plenty of it.
Did you write to Parks Canada about Banff and Jasper? Did you support COPA in its disenchantment with mandated 406 ELT’s, compulsory language testing, or other ICAO not so goodies? Well did you, do you?
Sigh. It’s a far cry from the good old days, and thereby hangs a tale. Fifty years on, once private, confidential, and secret files, are now randomly tossed to the wider world. We can now peer into the murky past of those lesser known hopeful blokes in the airplane business.
So here is the first in a series of one, of articles about unknown famous airplane design chaps.
THE UNKNOWN DESIGNER REVEALED
In the early thirties, Niaws Ynot (not his real name), was born over a chip shop in Hull, East Yorkshire, to an elegant Flapper from The Grange, and a cavalier boot-maker man-about-town, with flashy motorbikes and fast cars, who turned out to be mostly broke.
Apparently however, his beautiful curly eyelashes were enough for the girl from the Big House to set him up in the Boot Fixing business.
Time passed and war came when Niaws was five years old and already going steady with the girl next door, Maggie. They lived those happy days in her Dad’s garden shed under the pseudonym of Mr & Mrs Dumpling, under constant surveillance of her big brother John, who taught him to play trains.
They also had model aeroplanes, and Niaws had a lovely sky blue de Havilland Albatross with four spinnable propellers.
They were exciting times, and planes flew about everywhere. Back alley ‘Spotter Clubs’ were set up, and friend or foe identification tests were carried out with silhouettes in specially modified cereal boxes backlit by flashlights.
The Man Next Door, Mr. Tiplady was a particular hero because he worked at the local aircraft factory, building the famous Blackburn Skua and Rocs. Hence the proud local pilot motto… “Flies like a Roc!”
THE BEGINNING
Inspired by the numerous used planes littering the countryside, young Niaws began doodling advanced flying machines on any scrap of paper he could find. Sadly, these records were lost in a fire, but at least one ‘all tail’ wingless concept flew at a 240th scale.
There being no fuselage, a design problem arose as to where to put the pilot in the full-scale model. This would not, of course, be a problem these days.
At College, the young Ynot determined to design airplane stuff, and joined forces with Messrs Wrightson and Joy, who provided the “what if?” environment required.
Wrightson’s dad owned a department store, and Joy senior ran a bakery. They realized right off you couldn’t just start in with airplanes, so first, a number of motorbike designs came off young Ynots board.
By studying motorcycle road and speedway racing in the local area, the trio knew about these things.
Due to the expense of the stuff, it was obvious early on that petrol was ‘not on’ as fuel. An alternate power source was needed. Steam trains seemed to work well, so an ultralight version was put in development.
We are fortunate that the original design drawing for the four candlepower, SAP (Swain And Pals) 995cc, Slowgo Muzzi, is still available in the archives, and is shown here.
The Slowgo came standard with patented Hand lever steam release, front and rear Iffy brakes, (In a brilliant concept, the rear acting directly on the wooden flywheel) and complete with patented Automatic Tack Removers.
A much-improved prototype tested three years later proved to be an exciting ride for the test pilot, especially with the special ‘All Direction’ front fork action. Up and down, side to side, and back and forth, simply achieved by the use of totally worn out shims and bearings.
THE FLYING MACHINES…
Flushed with success, the groups first aircraft, the SAP Mk 1, came off the board in about 1948. Envisioned as a three (or more) candlepower, three (or more) cylinder, steam driven parasol wing monoplane, many modern features would be desirable today.
Easy access to moving parts, tool rack, adjustable pilot chair for excellent look-arounds, also serving as an emergency ejector seat. A tall tail wheel fork, anticipated the ‘wheelbarrow’ stance of today’s unsatisfactory nose wheel installations, and improved forward vision. A combined tow hook and tie down was standard, and the patented Ground Oil Collection Bucket is an obvious precursor to the ubiquitous Harvard P&W drip barrel familiar to us all today.
The project was abandoned, after a major flaw was found in the power plant design. The cylinders were mounted to oscillate back and forth, but the crank turned side to side.
Many other none aviation designs were prepared for consideration. The Drop Handlebar Steamroller, a coal fired race car with a kettle powered automatic warning bell, and a Traction Engined Luxury Touring Omnibus, with built-in Mobile Bakery.
The ‘Sliding Cog’ conical motorbike vari-drive was another exciting concept.
Ahead of it’s time was a candle powered jet engine, but problems arose in keeping the flames lit in the slipstream.
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL…
As always at Christmas, there was great concern those days that Santa would run out of Red Nosed Reindeers, and the team came up with a cunning self propelled sleigh design. It was based on a simple single cylinder internal combustion engine to utilize lighter fluid.
Although this required all the usual complications of batteries, points, valve trains and such, it was ingeniously hoped that all such stuff would be obtainable from local hardware stores near the North Pole..
The cockpit area of the sleigh was a masterpiece of simplicity, and both Power Pod and the ergonomic cockpit layout are illustrated here.
To avoid injury to the pilot, during flight operations, a metal ‘Prop Deflector’ could be fitted to Santa’s wool cap. However, at an estimated RPM of maybe a half or one per minute, the Clause Company could save money by simply having Santa nod his head in rhythm with the revs.
GETTING SERIOUS
During this prolific period, Niaws’s mom left her curly eye browed man person, and must now make ends meet in a rather basic part of town. So, due to the instant need for real moolah, he left college, and ventured into the real world.
Fortunately, simply dropping his father’s name at the local Hessle Road ladies plastic shoe factory down near the fish docks, got him started as an apprentice ‘clicker’ (don’t ask) on the shop floor. The eventual goal was to be a famous cheap ladies fashion shoe designer like Gucci.
But this was serendipitous for an airplane-dreaming chap. Here was an actual operating factory, with huge ram presses, rows of sewing machine, fabric and leather stores, and lots of girls, who sang pop tunes all day. The faster the head girl sang, the faster they sewed! The perfect future plane factory!
He carefully gathered his new design team, only to find that their total interests were soccer, the pub, rugby, darts, rugby and the girls. In any order, depending. But nevertheless, it was all good experience in factory operations. He discovered how the foreman uses his whistle.
He operated the presses, cut out patterns, nearly blinded himself on the grindstone, and knocked the wall down in the men’s toilets. All good useful stuff. However, this idyllic situation didn’t last, and The RAF Draft whisked him off for pilot training in Canada. Forced to fly Tigers, Harvards and T-Birds, he returned to Vampires in England. After a couple of years, he spent a couple of months in hospital to think and recuperate from the dreaded Kissing Disease.
Then, on to the big time, whilst selling ladies shoes in a tiny Bata shop at Goole, he was invited to join Blackburn Aircraft at Brough (that’s Bruff), and was soon drawing away at airplane stuff for the Blackburn Beverley, some Meteors, and a really cool bird the NA-39, eventually named, ‘The Buccaneer.’
After a year or so, he ran away to Bristol’s in Winnipeg, Canada, DND CP Repairs in Calgary, then to Vancouver, where we hear he got involved with EAA homebuilts, met his wife Yram, and was a sometime chief Draftsman for Replica Plans on the SE5A. When last spotted, he was hanging about at Delta in 1999, haranguing pilots about COPA, and re-inventing the tail wheel.
Merry Christmas everybody… Fly safe!
Tony Swain is a COPA director for BC & Yukon. He has also been a COPA member for more than 20 years and has been an active participant in many aviation groups. He flies many types of aircraft and is concerned about the rights of sport pilots.