MAGICAL MYSTERY TOURS
DON BROWN REMEMBERS A SEMINAL YEAR
‘TIGER’ SQUADRONS MEET AT LEUCHARS, 1966
To observers on the ground it must have looked spectacular. It might even have looked spectacularly odd. People might have scratched their heads in wonder when five Lightnings, as they manoeuvred in neat, close formation positions on a fine July morning over quiet countryside near the River Tay in Scotland, suddenly should start to scatter in all directions like demented, startled rabbits. Watchers might have speculated, too, on what could have caused the lead aircraft to appear, quite promptly, to go mad. The episode occurred during our 74(F) Squadron work-up for a NATO ‘Tiger Meet’ at RAF Leuchars, Fife.
Bill Maish, Don Brown, and Dave Ligget shaking hands with a visitor (unknown) to 74(F) Squadron, RAF Leuchars, Scotland.
Earlier, we had been briefed on a careful series of manoeuvres designed to be flown later that week over Leuchars airfield. Before the display itself, when we practised our routines away from the airfield, we were keen to work up to a standard that would out-Red Arrow the Red Arrows. The display, we knew, would be viewed with critical eyes by fellow pilots. We would have to offer something special in order to impress the assembled Tiger Meet guests.
We aimed to co-ordinate our formation moves with those of the squadron aerobatics display pilot. For one of the manoeuvres the solo aerobatic man, as he led the other four Lightnings in a thunderous flypast across the airfield, would perform a sudden so-called twinkle roll while the rest of us maintained station. “It should be no problem,” the solo aerobatic man, Dave Liggett, had assured us, “my twinkle roll will take up no space at all.” At the due moment, however, when he called: “rolling…now,” his subsequent twinkle roll had taken up, in fact, a considerable amount of twinkle. The manoeuvre also had reduced his airspeed to a level well below that of the other aircraft. We should have anticipated this, of course, but we did not and as a consequence the other pilots, including myself as number four in the planned ‘box’ formation, became instantly convinced of imminent collision. While the rest of us scattered to the four winds, the solo aerobatic man was left well and truly solo.
It took some time, not to mention agitated radio calls, for us to find each other again, but eventually the somewhat embarrassed team members re-formed for another attempt. With further practice and a fair amount of percipience, we managed to refine the manoeuvre which worked well on the day itself.
The Tiger Meet was an international affair initiated five years earlier, in 1961. The original concept, which began when three squadrons with a tiger as their unit emblem had decided to meet up, had grown in popularity. By 1966 the number of participants had swelled to eight squadrons when units from Belgium, Canada, France, West Germany, the UK and the USA provided an intriguing mix of experienced operators of various aircraft types. Crews flew in each others’ dual aircraft, combat sorties between different aircraft types were flown, exchanges of ideas flowed, and discussions about operational procedures and tactics enhanced our common competence. One time, for example, when ‘attacked’ by two Lightning F3s, three Super Mystère pilots were astonished by their opponents’ ability to accelerate and climb into the attack.
The common language was English yet the diversity of accents was eclectic. After-work conversations in messes and bars were revealing. “Never even saw the sonnavabitch…came at me right out of the sun…” “Too bad, huh?” – this with a Gallic shrug – “C’est la guerre, non?” “For you ze war is over…” one of our tame squadron pilots (the tactful one) chatted with a new-found German friend.
At one point, with guests treated to the wail of Scottish bagpipes, the parley eased as attention was diverted. The sounds of bagpipes, no doubt not to the taste of all, nonetheless appeared to induce heady emotions. The curious acoustics of the hills and mountains seemed to carry the tunes to distant parts. I glanced at the faces of the different nationalities. I imagined Canadian Mounties, American apple pie, Belgian chocolat, German bratwurst, French baguette. We fed them, of course, with Scottish haggis.
Don Brown’s Tiger Meet certificate.
Bonhomie may have been bonnie, discussions spirited, attitudes generally relaxed but all of this could give no hint of the tragedy that was to follow.
There were plenty of witnesses when, at around ten in the morning on Friday, 8th July 1966, Capitaine Joel Dancel of the French air force (l’Armée de l’Air) 1/12 Escadron de Chasse took off in a Super Mystère aircraft. The weather was fair that morning and the day’s forecast was good, but conscious, perhaps, of the region’s fickle climate he had decided to run through his bad weather routine. With an imaginary cloudbase of 500 feet, this involved a series of hard turns and reversals. The Capitaine was an experienced display pilot, he had rehearsed his routine many times before. However, not long after the commencement of his sequence, when in a hard left turn, we watched in stunned silence when the Super Mystère’s angle of bank abruptly flicked off. At that instant we were uncertain what might have happened. Doubts were terribly dispelled, though, when the aircraft nose reared up with violence before the aircraft, its wings still level with the horizon, fell earthwards in a fearsome, fatal stall into a field just beyond the airfield boundary.
At the sight of a fireball and at the sound of the airfield crash alarm, some observers’ hands immediately went up to cover their mouths in spontaneous gestures of horror. As the haunting tones of the crash alarm faded away, an uncanny hush ensued, broken occasionally by ongoing gasps of astonishment, a few muttered oaths, the movement of emergency vehicles. An officer hastened towards the squadron buildings. Others started to follow though I noticed that one young pilot remained rooted to the spot as if unable to comprehend the full implications of what had happened.
Gradually, however, as brutal truths began to sink in and as gruesome fascination was forced from minds, further activity was prompted. The situation seemed surreal; events proceeded in a blur. I was aware of a lingering sense of detachment from reality. I felt myself recoil with shock – a shock that struck me like a blow in the face. I suffered a complete and inexplicable hearing loss for the period between the first sign of trouble and the sight of the fireball. I perceived the hollow pangs of dread in my belly. As if in a dream, I struggled with ethereal thoughts, complexities of human emotions at once dark, charmed, disembodied. I breathed deeply in. I glanced at my hand-held camera. I had tried to take a photo of the Super Mystère in that fatal turn but later, when the film was developed, the aircraft was nowhere to be seen. A second or so earlier and the Super Mystère would have been in the shot; a second or so later and the fireball would have been shown. The accident had been as rapid as it had been calamitous.
Difficult decisions were now needed urgently. A meeting between the RAF Leuchars station commander and the visiting squadron commanders was hastily summoned. Capitaine Dancel had been a popular man, held in high esteem by his compatriots and others who knew him. Consequently, his squadron colleagues, as well as other members of the Tiger Meet, were of the strong opinion that the air display scheduled for that afternoon should carry on as planned. It would have been, they said, Capitaine Dancel’s wish.
Don Brown flies a ‘go-around’ at the 1966 Tiger Meet at RAF Leuchars, Scotland.
That afternoon, therefore, as I flew in my allotted slot as number four in the box formation, my concentration was intense. I was fiercely focussed on the job in hand; our formation efforts, as with the rest of the display – opened by the Spitfire and Hurricane show-stealers of the RAF’s prestigious Battle of Britain Memorial Flight – worked well. Everyone applauded; hand-shaking ensued; we heard many words of congratulations. Yet I could not rid my head of what I had so recently witnessed. My bittersweet feelings, I felt sure, were replicated in one way or another in the minds and in the hearts of every person present.
It was just a few months later, when I was seated in the air traffic control tower, that I was overcome by an awful sense of déjà vu. “My God,” I thought. “Not again.”
By then I no longer viewed the green hills of Scotland or listened to the singular squawks of bagpipes. Instead, my outlook was dominated by seemingly endless acres of featureless sand; an outlook which, when seen from an altitude of 35,000 or so feet, looked like vast stretches of crumpled brown paper.
My move to Saudi Arabia had been initiated by a strange-sounding phone call from a strange-sounding gentleman. The fellow claimed that he was a retired group captain who now worked for an outfit called Airwork, but I had not heard of that company, neither had I heard of him. Money, it seemed, was at the root of all his logic.
“Your salary,” he said, “will be four or five times greater than the amount you’ve been earning as a flight lieutenant.”
“But I’ve already got a job lined up,” I protested.
“Bet it’s nothing to do with Lightnings,” he persisted.
“True…I’ll be flying airliners with Qantas.”
“Huh!” He snorted. “There you are then.”
“Where am I, exactly?”
“What I’m offering,” he sighed, “is the opportunity to carry on flying Lightnings. You’ll be paid a great deal and it’ll all be tax free.”
I did a few hasty mental calculations. My military gratuity of £1500 would be virtually tripled in a mere six months. With a tidy sum like that I would be in a position to buy a house in East Anglia if I changed my mind about a job with Qantas.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“I’ll call you back soon,” he said.
True to form, mystery-man called me back very soon. “Yes,” I said. “Okay, okay. Have it your own way. Consider me duly bribed.”
“That’s the idea,” he said.
Before I knew it terms had been agreed, a contract period negotiated and in early-August 1966, having bade farewell to my bemused and not-too-happy-about-what-was-going-on wife, I flew out to Riyadh Airport in Saudi Arabia. I was ensconced in American-style bachelor officer quarters at the Royal Saudi Air Force base co-located at the airport, and I was introduced to the others on the ‘squadron’. We were a group of five Lightning pilots (Airwork had been contracted to provide six pilots but never managed to achieve the full quota) none of whom, apart from myself, had any previous experience on a Lightning squadron. We were, in short, a motley crew, best described as ‘demonstration pilots’ to ‘show the flag’ (the Saudi flag). We would do whatever the Saudis wanted us to do, short of going to war; mercenaries we were not.
It was not long before I was introduced to the wiles and ways of transactions in a Saudi souk. The dress code for women in these public places was severe, even for European and American guests. Despite this, different nationalities made their presence known. The accents were unmistakeable. Sometimes I would feel twinges of nostalgia when I overheard an obviously English voice.
To barter a deal for, say, a small gold bracelet required the hide of a rhinoceros, a brain like a computer and infinite patience. I could not avoid a sense of deep admiration for the man who had negotiated the Saudi Lightning deal. This had necessitated lengthy, mind-boggling haggles between the British Aircraft Corporation, the Ferranti Company, the Bristol Company, the Royal Air Force, the UK government, Airwork and last but by no means least, an esoteric gang of princes from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s royal family. The contract included the training of aircrew as well as ground engineers and support personnel, a guided missile air defence system, a radar network and complex infrastructure. The first element of the training programme involved teaching the English language, including thousands of technical terms, to many hundreds of young Saudis. An interim arrangement, code-named ‘Operation Magic Carpet’, was designed to provide Saudi Arabia with an immediate fast-jet presence during the five or so years needed for the main contract to be progressed. I was part of the Magic Carpet team.
The man who had negotiated the deal – a shadowy character who apparently lived in the Channel Islands – must have been a genius. Regretfully, the stresses and strains of negotiation took their toll on his health and he did not live long enough to enjoy his million-buck bonus.
Our flying routines were generally humdrum, sometimes boring holes (very boring ones) in the sky just to maintain flying currency. From time to time, though, we practised four-ship formation displays for special occasions. One time, our four-ship flew to the country’s summer capital city – Jeddah on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, adjacent to the Red Sea; the wintertime capital was Riyadh. At Jeddah airfield I was astonished by the sight of one of the Saudis’ previous air forces. Old de Havilland Vampire 5 aircraft, with flat tyres and perspex canopies yellowed by the twin effects of scorching sun and high humidity, were jammed together like discarded kids’ toys. The Saudis’ oil wealth seemed to encourage a nouveau riche attitude of disdain towards anything secondhand. Whether a car, an air conditioning unit or an aircraft, if an item broke down, it would be abandoned without a thought and a new one bought.
In mid-October 1966 we commenced rehearsals for a particular four-ship air display. The display, we had been briefed, should begin with the Lightnings performing reheat rotation take-offs in a five-second stream. On start-up for the second rehearsal, one of the Lightnings became unserviceable. As I was the most experienced Lightning pilot, I decided to offer my aircraft to one of the others, Piet Hay – a Rhodesian national who had flown as a member of the Red Arrows aerobatic team. Piet was an excellent pilot but had little experience on the Lightning. I therefore made my way to the air traffic control tower where I would observe the display and make notes for a subsequent debrief.
Lightning Mk 52.
The first two Lightnings completed their take-offs and reheat rotations without problems. However, the third Lightning, flown by Piet Hay, experienced difficulties just at the point that he pulled back the stick for his reheat rotation. I could see at once that something was not right. The aircraft staggered up to a height of two hundred or so feet then appeared to stop dead in midair. It was as if some giant, invisible hand had reached out to grab the machine by its tailplane. The Lightning flicked onto its side, then the nose dropped before levelling at a position roughly in line with the horizon. Now the machine started to yaw slowly to the right; at any moment an earthwards plummet was inevitable. My heart leapt up to my mouth; I felt a cold shiver down my spine. I grabbed the nearest microphone and yelled: “eject…Piet…eject.” I learnt later that my words were wasted as the microphone was not connected to anything.
Piet, though, had not needed any words of encouragement. I held my breath as I witnessed his ejection. The cockpit canopy flew off, followed by the Martin Baker seat which, like a bullet, shot Piet away from his doomed Lightning. Within fractions of a second the drogue parachute deployed before the main parachute canopy billowed open, a last-ditch lifesaver that deposited Piet back onto mother earth. Unlike the tragic case of Capitaine Joel Dancel, Piet Hay had cheated death by a mere matter of seconds. I could breathe again; this time the chill finger of fate had been on our side.
The Lightning hit the ground just before its pilot, and not far away. I had a further moment of horror when Piet’s parachute appeared to drift towards the fireball and towering plume of black smoke, but I need not have been concerned: he landed safely a few yards from the crash crater.
The Saudis, naturally enough, were anxious to know why one of their shiny new jets had crashed. Enter, stage left, one Roland Prosper ‘Bee’ Beamont CBE, DSO and bar, DFC and bar, Croix de guerre (Belgium – awarded posthumously in 2002), retired wing commander, fighter ace shot down in 1944 and made a prisoner-of-war after his 492nd operational mission, chief test pilot at the British Aircraft Corporation, chief test pilot of the P1/Lightning test programme, Lightning ace extraordinaire and all-round good egg. The two of us got on well.
“What technique have you been using for the reheat rotations?” he asked me.
I described how, as the Lightning reached an airspeed of 240 knots after take-off, the pilot would bring the stick back sharply then ease it forward again as the aircraft achieved a nose-up attitude of about 25 degrees. The resultant climb angle felt vertical to the pilot, and looked as such from the ground. The technique, taught to me from square one, had been approved by Fighter Command and was used throughout the Lightning force.
“Hmmm,” said the great man. “That’s what I’d heard.”
“Is something wrong?”
“How much ‘g’ do you reckon to pull in the manoeuvre?”
“Four ‘g’, roughly.”
“There’s the problem then, right there,” he said. I began to feel worried. “At what airspeed will the aircraft stall,” he went on, “with 4 ‘g’ applied?”
I glanced skywards as my mind performed mental gyrations: an aircraft’s stall speed increased as the square root of the ‘g’ loading, therefore with 4 ‘g’ applied the figure would double from around 120 knots to….
“240 knots,” I said eventually. The great man said nothing. He just looked at me.
I exhaled a long, slow breath. “Oooh…shit,” I said.
“Quite,” he replied. “When I perform the manoeuvre, I apply only one to one-and-a-half ‘g’. The 4 ‘g’ pulled during your snatch technique is asking for trouble.”
“But it’s been done that way for years.”
“Then you’ve all been very lucky.”
Before the great man left Saudi Arabia he thanked me for my co-operation and asked if I’d like a job with him as a production test pilot. I felt seriously flattered. However, some months later, when I rang the telephone number he had given me, he was out of the office. I explained to the fellow who answered the phone that I was interested in a test pilot job and that his boss had asked me to call. “Oh, he’s always doing this,” came the reply. “I’m afraid there are no vacancies.”
Not long after this incident we got word that some RAF cadets visiting Saudi from the RAF College, Cranwell were in difficulty. The cadets, on an initiative exercise in the country, had run out of time, not to say initiative. Two Mini Mokes had been abandoned, one of which needed to be driven from Khamis Mushaif in the south-west of Saudi Arabia to Riyadh. What, I was asked, would I feel about taking on this 690-or-so-mile drive? “Sod it,” I thought, “it’ll be something different. I can pretend to be Lawrence of Arabia. Why not?”
The open-top, beach-buggy-style Mini Moke was, to put it politely, a spartan vehicle. I took with me just about every single item of clothing I owned and, as I set off, followed the line of what nowadays is an impressive motorway. Back then, though, the road was mostly sand and gravel and I progressed at what seemed like a snail’s pace. By about six pm, when the December sun went down, I began to feel bitterly cold despite donning all of my clothing. I cursed for a fool the clown that had dreamed up this idea – which, of course, was me, so that didn’t exactly help. I had three punctures en route but with only two spare wheels I needed to stop for puncture repair. Surprisingly, the motorway service stations had been built before the motorway itself and were open for business. At around three in the morning I pulled into one of these establishments. An elderly man came out of the building and stared at me suspiciously. His thin frame, dressed in grubby-looking robes, and his lank look made an unpromising initial impression. Looks, though, could be deceptive and before long, as the two of us communicated by a mixture of hand signals and soldiers’ Arabic, we had become firm friends.
“Hummla, hummla wahid taman,” he said (or words to that effect), and tugged at my sleeve. He led me round to an area at the back of the office where he pointed to a breeze-block structure with a sandy floor. In the centre of the floor lay the remains of a dying fire. My new friend crouched down on the dirt, blew strenuously into the embers and soon a roaring fire began to erupt. He placed a coffee pot on the fire, then left me to sip at a mug of coffee while he attended to the car. When he returned, I paid him and we chatted for a bit longer while I continued to thaw out. At length we shook hands and I was on my way in the Mini Moke again, mightily impressed by Bedouin hospitality.
By now my time in Saudi Arabia and my association with Lightnings was nearly over. By January, 1967 I had flown what I had assumed was my last Lightning flight. However, I had just returned to the UK and had been greeted in lovely green England by my lovely wife when Airwork contacted me. “We’ve got a problem,” they said.
“Join the club,” I said.
“King Hussein of Jordan is making a state visit to Saudi Arabia and they want a flypast.”
“So?”
“The thing is…” a short cough and a long pause ensued. “Well, as you know, the flypast will involve four Lightnings but we have only three pilots.”
“You cannot be serious?”
“I’m afraid it is serious.”
I went back, more or less by return of post, so to speak, on the understanding that I would be involved in that one mission and that one mission alone. Oh, and that I would receive a further tax-free bounty of £500 (a small fortune in those days – enough to buy a decent car).
The occasion went well, the King of Jordan (a pilot himself) was evidently impressed. When, for the second time, I was greeted in lovely green England by my lovely wife at Heathrow airport, I knew that this time it really was the end. A flood of different emotions ran through my head as my wife ran up to me. I was about to embark on a whole new way of life and now, over forty-five years later, when I look back fondly on a long association with Qantas (I retired from the airline at the age of sixty, then spent four years with Cathay Pacific as a simulator instructor), I recall with nostalgia the many events which followed our move to Australia. My two sons both became pilots, my daughter became a nurse, my wife and I separated. In the study at my home in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales I am surrounded by models and photographs from air force days. It does not take much for my mind to drift back to Lightning experiences and to the events of 1966 in particular – such a seminal year in my life – and my eyes begin to mist over with memories as I breathe a small sigh of wistfulness.