The Quonset Hut

DESIGNER GRAHAM DEMONSTRATES WINSTON CHURCHILL'S PERSONAL PRESSURE CHAMBER, CREATED TO ENABLE HIM TO MAKE HIGH-ALTITUDE FLIGHTS SAFELY

WINSTON’S SHELL
It was made to protect Churchill from pressure at high altitudes

To protect the precious bulk of Winston Churchill in wartime a special one-man pressure chamber was built for the personal plane which carried him many times across the Atlantic and to Casablanca, Moscow and Yalta. Churchill, who also had a private air-raid shelter under No. 10 Downing St., was warned by his doctors that it was dangerous for a man of his age and physical condition to fly above 8,000 feet. Much higher altitudes sometimes were necessary, however, because of weather and the enemy. The solution was a pressure chamber complete with ashtrays, telephone and an air-circulation system good enough to prevent smoke from the ubiquitous cigar from fogging the atmosphere. While pressures within the chamber were kept at the equivalent of 5,000 feet, the prime ministerial figure could loll comfortably like an outsized pearl within a gigantic oyster shell.

Flying Sausage Box

Postby twigsnapper on Thu Apr 03, 2008 6:15 pm

AM ..... I’ll just bet I know a little bit about Winston Churchill that you haven’t run across yet.

You mentioned Yorkshire Pudding and the cigar and the liquor .... but did you know that he could do all of that ... encased in a high pressure shell that he used to be obliged to remain in during his high altitude flights .... Casablanca, then Moscow and Yalta.

His doctors told him that he must not fly above 5000 feet. He was as you recall, invested with a generous girth and other medical problems. Because of the threat of enemy aircraft most had to fly above the 5000 ft pressure they deemed safe.
So unbeknownst to his friends or his enemies the Prime Minister was shuttled about like a pearl in an oyster shell. Believe it or not he continued to smoke and eat and be on the phone conducting business while being encased in something that resembled an overgrown sausage container. And the air purifying system that was used at that time was a super secret development. One guess.

Of course the “ oyster shell” has probably been lost to history (designed by a friend of Wrights, a fellow by the name of Graham) and of course its wonderful air cleaning system was not to be mentioned again either. Of course it was able to find a way to bubble to the surface. Perhaps someday too the entire history of it too will bubble upward.

[Snipped]

You can't control those bubbles you know. No matter how powerful you think that you are. Bubbles just wait for that opening, that chance to head for the heavens.

twigsnapper

http://www.24sqnassociation.royalairforce.net/issue11.htm wrote:....<snip>...As regards oxygen, the York was fitted with a standard RAF system, not very cunningly concealed in the furnishings, with enough oxygen for a twelve hour flight at all outlets. The York was not pressurised (neither was the Skymaster, which was to come a year later). We therefore tried to restrict our cruising altitude to 10,000 feet or below, depending on icing or other meterological circumstances, when topography allowed. There were occasions when we had to fly higher, either to clear mountain ranges or to avoid icing. Little did we know that deep in the Ministry of Aircraft Production, an organisation with precious little civil aviation experience, and certainly no experience of the whims and wishes of the PM, someone was conjuring up a small (or not so small) one man egg shaped inner pressure cabin for Mr Churchill. In this 'they thought he would lie down and be maintained at an equitable pressure height whenever we were obliged to fly high. It was first mooted in February 1943 after the Casablanca Conference, for which flight in the Liberator Commando, the PM had been to RAE Farnborough to be fitted with a private oxygen mask. Unfortunately for the boffins, by the time the Sarcophagus, as it was called, had reached prototype stage, our particular York had left the production line, and it would have been necessary to cut the aircraft in half to get it in! Where it would have been situated had not been thought through, for we found it would have occupied the whole of the Owner's cabin; if not there, then it would have halffilled the conference saloon.

It is difficult to imagine the Captain and or the Medical Adviser inviting the Prime Minister to scramble inside the egg well before the aircraft was obliged to climb above oxygen height with his cigar, brandy and his writing materials, not to mention Red Boxes etc. When he heard about it, he was appalled and expressed his views with such vehemence that the whole idea was (temporarily) dropped. Provided we climbed or descended gradually, the Prime Minister was never bothered by the few occasions when we had to go above oxygen height. Sawyers, the valet, confided in us that it was a problem of gastronomic wind with the PM, not his heart! However, this was not the end of the story. When the interior design of the Skymaster was being finalised in October 1944, the Sarcophagus was trotted out again fortunately to be killed stone dead by No 10. By the time the Skymaster was to enter the PM's service, on Christmas Day 1944, we had had eighteen months of operating experience with the York and the worst anyone suffered was a headache, and then not necessarily from the lack of oxygen! However, the project was not finally abandoned by the Air Ministry until May 1945.