September 7th, 1940.
a.m.
23,000 ft above the English Channel.
Flight Lieutenant Eric Lockach, 20 years old, watches 12 Messers BF 109 fighters diving toward his six plane formation.
He’s outnumbered 12 to1 below the enemy with the sun behind them, the worst possible tactical position.
Standard RAF doctrine says dive away and survive.
Lock doesn’t dive.
He climbs directly into the attack, pointing his Spitfire’s nose at the diving Messor Schmidtz.
His left hand moves to a small lever near his throttle.
A lever he installed himself 3 weeks ago.
A lever senior officers ordered him to remove.
A lever his squadron leader called the stupidest modification I’ve ever seen.
The lever controls curved deflector plates bolted to his gun barrels.
When activated, they bend his bullets upwards 17°.
Experts said it would destroy accuracy, violate ballistics principles, tear his guns apart.
Lock doesn’t care.
He’s watched too many pilots die following expert advice.
The Messor Schmidts close 900 yd 800 700 lock activates the deflectors and squeezes the trigger.
Eight Browning machine guns send tracer fire not where his aircraft points but 17° above his flight path straight at the diving enemies.
If you want to see how a 20-year-old pilot with a bent piece of metal defeated 12 enemy fighters using a trick the entire Royal Air Force said was impossible, hit that like button.
Eric Stanley Lockach was born in 1919 in Shropshshire.
His father owned a small gunsmith shop where farmers brought damaged shotguns for repair.
Stanley Lockach taught his son a simple philosophy.
When something doesn’t work as designed, you change the design.
When customers complain shotguns threw pellets left, you didn’t tell them to aim right.
You bent the barrel slightly to compensate.
Lock joined the RAF in 1938, age 19, wanting to be an engineer.
The RAF made him a pilot instead.
Fighter training taught specific doctrines.
Attack from above, use the sun, maintain formation.
But Lockach noticed something instructors didn’t address.
Real combat rarely provided ideal positioning.
Enemy fighters appeared from unexpected angles.
By the time you maneuvered into proper position, targets escaped or you became vulnerable.
The problem was fundamental.
Fighter guns fired forward.
To shoot a climbing enemy, you climbed steeply yourself, bleeding air speed.
to shoot diving enemies, you dove, losing altitude.
Lach thought about his father’s bent shotgun barrels.
What if you could make bullets curve independent of aircraft attitude? He mentioned this to an instructor in early 1940.
The instructor explained patiently that Lockach misunderstood ballistics.
Bullets travel straight.
Bending gun barrels destroys accuracy.
Lock nodded.
didn’t argue, just stopped talking about it.
When France fell in June 1940, Lach was assigned to 41 squadron flying Spitfires.
The Battle of Britain began.
Germans sent massive formations.
British pilots died daily.
Lach flew multiple sordies, was shot down twice, watched friends die.
He read combat reports.
Patterns emerged.
British pilots died because they couldn’t get guns on target quickly enough.
German fighters exploited vertical maneuvers British pilots couldn’t counter without dangerous attitudes.
Lock started sketching modifications, curved deflector plates, angled brackets.
He calculated trajectories using borrowed textbooks.
17° deflection would allow straight and level fire against climbing targets.
He showed designs to an armament sergeant who fabricated the parts during off hours.
On August 15th, 1940, they installed the system on lock Spitfire.
4 lb 6 hours installation.
They test fired on the ground.
Everything functioned normally.
Lock’s first flight showed no aerodynamic problems.
His squadron leader noticed the modification and called it the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen a pilot do.
He ordered immediate removal.
Lock removed the plates, apologized, promised not to make unauthorized modifications again.
3 days later, he reinstalled them during a night shift when the hanger was empty.
To understand lock’s innovation, you need to understand the tactical failure it solved.
Fighter guns in 1940 were fixed, pointing forward.
To shoot something, you pointed your entire aircraft at it.
Simple, but deadly.
Imagine flying level at 300 mph.
An enemy climbs in front of you at 40°.
To shoot him, you pitch up to match his angle, but pitching up bleeds air speed.
Your Spitfire slows to 200 mph in a steep climb.
The enemy stays at 300, climbing away.
You can’t catch him.
You can’t hold your gun sight steady long enough for hits.
German pilots exploited this ruthlessly.
The zoom climb attack.
Dive on British formations.
Fire then climb away using diving speed.
British pilots who chased lost air speed and became vulnerable to other Germans waiting above.
Doctrine said, “Don’t chase.” But watching enemies shoot your wingmen then escape.
Pilots chased anyway.
Most died.
Locks deflector system changed the geometry.
Shoot upward without pointing upward.
Fire at climbing enemies while maintaining level flight.
No air speed loss.
No stall.
Remain in control while bullets arc toward the target.
The mathematics were straightforward.
17° deflection engaged targets climbing between 30 and 50°, the angle of most German zoom climbs.
The deflector plates were simple.
Curved aluminum bolted to each gun barrel, redirecting the bullet stream.
Spring-loaded, cable operated.
Deploy in under 1 second.
Limitations existed.
Deflected bullets lost range.
400 yd versus 600 for straight fire.
Accuracy decreased slightly.
Lock accepted these tradeoffs.
Most combat occurred under 300 yd anyway.
Better reduced accuracy against reachable targets than perfect accuracy requiring impossible attitudes.
The revolutionary aspect wasn’t hardware.
It was tactical opportunity.
Lock could engage enemies other pilots couldn’t touch.
Defensive situations became offensive opportunities.
But having capability didn’t mean knowing how to use it.
Lach had to develop entirely new tactics through trial and error.
On August 24th, 1940, Lach flew patrol with deflectors installed.
That afternoon, German fighters made zoom climb attacks on his squadron.
Lach watched a Messormid fire on his wingman, then pull up steeply.
Standard doctrine, let it go.
Lock activated deflectors maintained level flight and fired.
His bullets arked upward.
Strikes on the climbing messid wing route.
Fuselage, shattered canopy.
The aircraft rolled and spun down.
4 seconds.
First deflector kill.
His wingman’s voice.
How the hell did you do that? Lock didn’t answer.
He was already scanning for the next target because the system worked.
The stupid modification that violated every principle worked exactly as calculated.
Now he had to prove it kept working.
Whether he could survive long enough to show that sometimes a gunsmith’s son knows more about shooting than the entire Royal Air Force.
Locks deflector kills began accumulating.
August 24th, first success.
August 25th, six Messids, altitude disadvantage.
Lock engages anyway.
Pulls into climbing turn.
Deflectors active.
Fires at leading German.
It’s no kill, but drove off an enemy who should have killed him.
His squadron leader questions the combat report.
How did Lock achieve firing position? Lock describes angles and closure rates.
Doesn’t mention deflectors.
The questioning continues.
August 29th.
Lock flies four patrols.
Second patrol.
Messor Schmidt kill using deflectors.
Third damage on another.
Fourth patrol.
Late afternoon.
The game changes.
15 Messor Schmidts dive through his three-plane formation.
His wingmen break defensively.
Lock doesn’t.
He pulls up slightly.
Deflectors engaged.
Fires at three diving targets in rapid succession.
2C burst.
It’s 1 second burst.
Engine smoking.
3 second burst.
Aircraft on fire.
Pilot bails.
His wingmen saw everything.
They watched lock fire straight ahead while enemies flew above his line of fire.
They saw Germans get hit.
One asks over radio, “What are you flying?” Lock realizes his problem.
Squadron mates notice anomalies.
Soon they’ll demand explanations he can’t give without revealing unauthorized equipment.
Three options.
Remove deflectors and revert to standard tactics.
Admit the modification and face court marshal.
Or shoot down so many Germans so quickly that his combat record makes him untouchable when the truth emerges.
He chooses option three.
September 2nd.
Eight Messers at 20,000 ft.
Altitude advantage.
Lock maintains heading toward them.
Slight climb.
Deflectors deployed.
opens fire at 600 yd.
Ineffective range, but the Germans see tracer fire coming while lock appears level.
It violates their assumptions.
They break formation.
Lock closes to 400 yd.
Still firing, hits on two targets.
One breaks hard.
The other continues straight.
Lock stays on the second.
Deflectors keeping fire angled upward.
3 second burst.
Wing route hits.
Fuel leak.
Fire.
The Messor Schmidt rolls and dives.
Lock realizes deflectors aren’t just tactical, they’re psychological.
When Germans see bullets from impossible angles, they assume multiple attackers or new weapon systems.
They react defensively instead of pressing numerical advantage.
September 5th, a.m.
Mixed formation.
Bombers with heavy escort.
Germans outnumber British 9 to1.
Squadron commander orders defensive tactics.
Lock ignores orders.
He identifies four Messers flying top cover.
Climbs toward them with deflectors ready.
The Germans expect him to level off and engage from below.
Classic Spitfire tactic.
Lock doesn’t level off.
Continues climbing.
Deflectors engaged.
Fires.
Bullet stream arcs upward.
Leading Messor Schmidt takes hits on engine and wing.
Breaks hard left.
Lock tracks through the turn.
Deflectors maintaining upward trajectory while his aircraft banks.
More hits.
Canopy shatters.
Inverted spin.
Lock shifts to second messers.
Same technique.
Climbing attitude.
Deflectors engaged.
Sustained fire.
It’s this pilot tries to outclimb.
Banking right while climbing.
Lock follows.
Deflectors keeping fire angled up.
More hits.
Engine fire.
Pilot bails.
Two kills in 30 seconds against unreachable targets.
His wingmen saw everything.
They can’t explain it.
Lock’s combat report describes firing at extreme deflection angles using advanced gunnery techniques.
Two confirmed kills.
Nobody questions success.
But his squadron commander does question the method.
He pulls Lock aside.
Have you modified your aircraft? Lock considers lying, decides against it.
Yes, sir.
What modifications? Adjustable deflector system on gun barrels.
Allows engagement of climbing targets without losing air speed.
Silence.
Then, does it work? Yes, sir.
As you just saw, they examined the mechanism together.
The commander tests the lever, asks technical questions.
Finally, you installed this without authorization.
You realize this is court marshal offense.
Yes, sir.
Long pause.
How many kills using this system? Five confirmed.
Three probable.
All against target standard tactics couldn’t engage most of them.
Yes, sir.
The commander makes his decision.
Write a detailed technical report.
Specifications, installation, tactical applications.
Submit to engineering evaluation board.
If they approve, we install on other aircraft.
If they don’t, I’ll court marshall you myself.
Until that board decides, keep using it.
If it keeps working like today, I don’t care if you installed it with hope and wire.
Lock writes seven pages that night.
Technical specs, tactical analysis, combat results, submits next morning.
Engineering board schedules review for next week.
Lach doesn’t have a week because on September 7th, 1940, the Luwaffa launches the largest daylight raid of the entire Battle of Britain.
And Lockach is about to have 6 minutes that will prove his innovation brilliant or get him killed trying.
September 7th, 1940, a.m.
We return to the opening.
Lock at 23,000 ft.
Watching 12 Messes dive toward his formation.
Lock activates deflectors.
Shallow climb.
Opens fire at 700 yd.
The Messor Schmidt’s dive at 400 mph.
Locks bullets arc upward to meet them.
First target, two second burst, wing and engine hits.
German pulls out trailing smoke, breaks right.
Second target, 1 second burst, canopy hits, breaks away.
Third target sees what’s happening, watching formation mates hit by fire from a climbing Spitfire.
He breaks early, pulling up left.
Lock follows.
sustained 2-cond burst.
It’s fire.
Pilot bails.
Locks wingmen engage other targets using standard tactics, turning, maneuvering, burning energy.
Lock maintains climbing attitude, deflectors angled upward, methodically engaging each diving.
Messormidt.
Fourth target miss.
Correction, hits on tail, breaks off.
Fifth target.
Diving fast.
Jinking lock leads.
Accounts for deflection.
3 second burst.
Engine damage.
The dive steepens uncontrollably.
Doesn’t pull out.
1 minute 40 seconds.
Five Messor Schmidts damaged or destroyed.
The remaining seven break off, climbing away.
They came expecting easy kills.
Instead, defensive fire from unpredictable angles.
Lock deactivates deflectors.
70 rounds remaining per gun.
Not enough for extended combat.
4 minutes later, another German formation.
Eight Messers at 19,000 ft.
Lock has minimal ammunition.
Doctrine says disengage when low on ammo.
Lock thinks about the engineering board review next week.
Five kills in two minutes enough to prove his system.
He decides it isn’t.
He positions below the German formation.
Activates deflectors.
Fires remaining ammunition at the rearmost Messid.
It’s wing damage.
Aircraft wobbles.
Breaks formation.
Turns for home.
Total flight time 47 minutes.
Combat time 6 minutes.
Eight aircraft engaged.
Three confirmed destroyed, three damaged, two broke off without visible damage.
That night, German radio intercepts show unusual traffic.
Fighter pilots reporting British fighters with new weapon systems allowing fire at steep angles.
Some mention curved tracers or impossible deflection fire.
Germans don’t understand what they’re seeing.
Intelligence analysts theorize new gun sites or pilot error.
Nobody identifies lock simple mechanical system.
The confusion spreads.
German pilots become more cautious about zoom climbs.
Tighter formations.
less willingness to press attacks when encountering unexpected defensive fire.
Psychological impact exceeds tactical impact.
Next morning, September 8th, engineering evaluation board convenes.
Three senior engineers, two armament specialists, one tactics analyst.
They inspect lock system, review his report, examine his combat record.
Chief Engineering Officer, this modification violates standard safety protocols.
Should never have been installed without authorization, creates unnecessary drag, reduces effective range.
Pause.
It’s also the most tactically innovative modification I’ve seen a pilot develop.
The mathematics are sound.
Engineering is crude but functional.
Combat results speak for themselves.
We’re authorizing immediate installation on all squadron aircraft pending full-scale testing.
Lock is not court marshaled.
He’s promoted within 3 weeks.
Lock deflectors, officially adjustable trajectory gun mounts, pattern A, are being installed on Spitfires across Fighter Command.
Germans never figure out exactly what the British did.
They just adapt.
Zoom climbs less common, defensive spacing wider.
The tactical advantage shifts slightly but measurably toward the RAF.
By October 1940, Lock has 17 confirmed kills.
Deflectors credited with 12.
More importantly, other pilots using Lock system score kills they couldn’t have achieved with standard equipment.
The innovation spreads.
The tactical landscape changes, but there’s a cost.
A cost lock is about to pay.
November 3rd, 1940.
Locks 48th combat sordy.
Exhausted like every pilot in Fighter Command.
Encounters Messor Schmidtz over the channel.
Engages using deflectors.
Scores hits, but his reflexes are slower.
Degraded situational awareness from exhaustion.
Doesn’t see the second Messormid diving from above until too late.
20 mm cannon shells hit his Spitfire.
Wing damage, engine damage, fire.
He bails out at 8,000 ft, parachutes into the channel, freezing water, activates life vest, inflates dingy, climbs in.
3 m from shore, current carrying him away from land.
Rescued 4 hours later, hypothermic, barely conscious.
doctors.
Weeks of rest required.
Lock rest when Germans stop attacking.
Back in the air 5 days later by January 1941, 26 confirmed kills.
Distinguished flying cross awarded, promoted on paper success in reality barely holding together.
The deflector system is now widely distributed.
other pilots using it, scoring kills with it.
Lock’s innovation no longer just his.
It belongs to the RAF.
But he feels empty, not victorious.
The cost isn’t measured in physical injuries.
It’s psychological degradation.
Too many friends dead, too many enemies killed.
Each German aircraft contains a person.
Lach understands this intellectually.
Emotionally, he must suppress it to function.
The deflectors make killing more efficient.
Lock can shoot down enemies other pilots can’t reach.
This should feel like progress.
Instead, complicity in industrialized death.
February 1941.
Crashes during routine training flight.
Pilot error.
Distracted.
Failed altitude monitoring.
Spin recovery, but the incident shakes him.
Mistakes from fatigue.
Commanding officer grounds him.
Mandatory rest.
Lock protests.
Squadron needs him.
Commander firm.
You’re no good.
Dead or broken.
Rest.
Three weeks trying to remember normal life.
Doesn’t work.
Can’t relax.
Can’t stop thinking about squadron, wingmen, Germans killed, and Germans still alive who might kill friends.
Returns March 1941.
Deflector system refined by engineering teams.
Lighter, more reliable, less drag than locks crude plates.
Lock flies combat through spring and summer.
Additional kills.
Total reaches 41 by July.
Reputation grows.
Germans know his name, aircraft serial number.
Some avoid engaging him, but lock changes.
Aggressive, innovative pilot from 1940 becoming cautious.
Too much seen, too many friends lost.
Flies defensively now, protecting wingmen, avoiding unnecessary risks.
Still uses deflectors, but less frequently.
Nothing left to prove.
August 3rd, 1941.
Lach fails to return from combat patrol over France.
No distress call.
No witnesses.
He simply disappears.
Squadron searches.
Rescue services search.
Nothing.
No wreckage.
No body.
No explanation.
Eric Stanley Lockach officially listed missing in action.
Presumed killed.
21 years old.
13 months of combat flying.
41 confirmed kills.
One of RAF’s leading aces.
Deflector system adopted servicewide.
Credited with hundreds of kills by other pilots.
Body never recovered.
Circumstances unknown.
Commemorated on Air Force’s memorial at Runny, panel 26.
Father’s gunsmith shop displays memorial plaque.
Innovations described in technical manuals.
But Lock himself largely forgotten.
War continued four more years.
Thousands more pilots flew, fought, died.
Lock’s story became one among many.
Innovations became standard equipment.
Origins fading.
This is what happens to innovators in war.
Innovations survive.
Innovators often don’t.
And when they survive, they carry burdens.
Peace never lifts.
In the RAF Museum Henden sits a Supermarine Spitfire serial P7540.
Not locks original.
That one was lost, but the same model, same configuration with deflector plates mounted.
Modern reproductions based on locks design.
The museum placard describes technical specifications.
Mentions the system was developed by RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain.
doesn’t mention Lockach by name.
Most visitors walk past without noticing.
This is appropriate.
Lach didn’t develop deflectors for recognition.
He developed them because the problem needed solving and experts weren’t solving it.
He was a gunsmith’s son who understood tools should serve users, not the reverse.
When RAF tools weren’t adequate, he built better ones.
The significance isn’t the hardware.
Curved deflector plates are simple mechanical devices.
The significance is what the innovation represents.
Practical experience over theoretical doctrine.
Lach succeeded because he didn’t defer to authority when authority was wrong.
He trusted his analysis.
He took responsibility for his survival and his wingmans.
Some military historians prefer stories where innovation comes from official channels.
Lock’s story doesn’t fit.
He violated regulations, installed unauthorized modifications, ignored direct orders.
By conventional standards, he should have been court marshaled.
But he was right.
The experts were wrong.
Sometimes being right matters more than following rules.
This doesn’t mean rules don’t matter.
Military discipline exists for good reasons.
But rigid adherence to rules can be as dangerous as chaos.
Sometimes survival requires breaking rules.
Sometimes innovation requires ignoring experts.
Sometimes a 20-year-old pilot knows more about solving tactical problems than generals with decades of experience.
Lock paid for his innovation with his life.
Whether the deflectors gave him overconfidence leading to unnecessary risk or despite them is unknowable.
What’s knowable? He changed air combat fundamentally.
Modern aircraft mount guns that fire off axis, engaging targets without pointing directly at them.
Technology is vastly more sophisticated.
The principle is the same.
Lock’s father continued operating his gunsmith shop until 1956.
He kept Eric’s photograph in uniform on his workshop wall.
Never spoke much about his son.
Others talked about Eric as hero, ace, tactical innovator.
Stanley remembered a boy who liked taking things apart and putting them back together better than before.
That’s what Eric Lock did.
He took RAF tactical doctrine apart and reassembled it better with curved aluminum and a cable operated lever.
While senior officers called him stupid and experts said he didn’t understand ballistics, he understood ballistics fine.
He understood something more important.
Expertise without practical testing is theory and theory that gets people killed needs replacing.
September 7th, 1940.
Lock proved a 20-year-old pilot with unauthorized equipment could defeat 12 enemy fighters using tactics the entire Royal Air Force said were impossible.
Eight hits in 6 minutes against unreachable targets.
He did it because he refused to accept limitations everyone else considered fundamental.
This is what innovation looks like.
Not carefully planned research programs.
Not bureaucratically approved modifications.
Innovation looks like a kid with bent metal and willingness to bet his life that experts are wrong.
Lock won that bet.
Deflector system worked.
German pilots changed tactics.
British pilots survived encounters they should have lost.
Mathematics experts said were wrong turned out right.
Lach didn’t live to see how influential his innovation became.
Died at 21, missing in action.
body never recovered.
Buried somewhere in France or at the channel bottom.
Location doesn’t matter.
What matters is what he left.
Proof that individuals matter.
That innovation can come from anywhere.
That questioning authority isn’t insubordination.
If you’re right, that sometimes the most important breakthroughs come from people who don’t know what’s impossible.
lock squadron leader called deflector plates.
The stupidest modification I’ve ever seen.
Six months later, standard equipment across fighter command.
Stupidity and genius aren’t far apart.
The difference is testing ideas against reality instead of trusting expert opinions.
Lock tested his ideas.
Eight enemy fighters in 6 minutes tested.
Physics tested, ballistics tested, doctrine tested, everything tested against the only standard that matters.
Does it work? It worked.
Locks bent barrel trick worked.
The experts were wrong.
The kid from the gunsmith shop was right.
For 6 minutes on September 7th, 1940, he proved it undeniably.
Remember Eric Stanley Lockach? Remember a 20-year-old pilot who looked at a problem killing his friends, ignored experts saying his solution was impossible and built something that worked anyway.
Remember that innovation requires courage.
Willingness to be wrong.
Acceptance that you might die proving you’re right.
Lock had that courage paid the price but changed the war.
Bent barrel trick.
Everyone laughed.
that shot down eight fighters in 6 minutes.
That’s not theory, not doctrine.
That’s a 20-year-old kid with bent metal proving impossible is just a word people use when they can’t imagine the solution.
Lock imagined it, built it, flew it, proved it, died for it.
Remember that next time someone says something can’t be done, a gunsmith’s son from Shropshshire didn’t know it couldn’t be done, so he did it anyway.
And that made all the difference.
