Little Nellie pilot Wing Cmdr Ken Wallis tells of close escape

16-Sep-2006 • Bond News

He's a world famous flying legend who has been taking to the skies for almost 70 years and once flew in Brazil when the authorities said no plane would survive - reports EDP.

But 90-year-old "autogyro king" Wing Cmdr Ken Wallis - the creator of James Bond's Little Nellie - yesterday described how he was caught out by a "freak wind" which brought down one of his aircraft just a few miles from his Norfolk home.

Wing Cmdr Wallis - who has 4,660 flying hours' experience and still holds about 20 world autogyro records - escaped unscathed from the accident in May at Swanton Morley, near Dereham.

Wing Cmdr Ken Wallis, pictured at the Wallis Days event in August, has described how he was caught out in a freak wind while flying his autogyro in May.

A report into the incident was yesterday published by the Air Accident Investigation Branch. It made no recommendations for safety improvements and is taking no action against Wg Cmdr Wallis, who had sent a full report to the body on what happened.

Last night he told the EDP the incident - which happened as he performed a farewell pass for personnel at the Robertson Barracks Army base - had been "embarrassing" and caused by an "extraordinary gust of wind" which suddenly came through a line of trees.

He had flown to Swanton Morley in the 1962 Beagle Wallis WA-116 from his home at Reymerston and as he took off had made a farewell pass at 200ft.

The freak wind caused the plane to sink "uncontrollably" and it hit a set of goalposts on the playing field.

It caused severe damage to the autogyro - but Wg Cmdr Wallis, who is on his seventh RAF log book, said it had been restored and was "almost ready to fly again".

"I have flown in storms in Brazil which they said no aircraft would survive and they refused to believe I had flown. So it shows, even after all these years, what can happen."

Despite the accident at the Army base, Wg Cmdr Wallis was invited back recently to fly Lt Col Robin Matthews out of Robertson Barracks in an autogyro as part of a series of events to mark him leaving as commander of the Light Dragoons at Swanton Morley.

"I thought he was very brave!" joked Wg Cmdr Wallis. "But it all went well."

Last month a two-day event called Wallis Days was held at Shipdham Airfield to pay homage to Wg Cmdr Wallis.

An investigation report into a separate light aircraft accident published yesterday concluded that the plane crashed upside-down in a field because its carburettor had iced up.

The 1973 Cessna was written off in the accident but its pilot and passenger suffered only cuts and bruises in the crash not far from Seething airfield, near Loddon, on May 30.

The plane was being flown from Cheshire to Seething when the engine lost power in mid-air and its 43-year-old pilot had to make a forced landing in a cornfield.

The report from the Air Accident Investigation Board concludes: "The atmospheric conditions at the time of the accident would have been conducive to serious carburettor icing."

In the last 20 years carburettor icing has caused 14 fatal accidents and more than 250 other incidents in the UK.