CHASING THE UNKNOWN
ALAN WINKLES’ MYSTERIOUS SCRAMBLE
If the ghosts of time bear particular poignancy early in the year then the month of January 1968, in my own case, provided apposite evidence. It was the last day of the month and as a member of 5 (F) Squadron based at RAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire, and as a keen young Lightning pilot on my first tour, I was anxious for action even though, at first, such action seemed woefully absent on that day.
While I waited in the QRA hangar and while I listened to the steady tick of the ‘Telebrief’ device with its direct connection to the ground radar controller at Patrington, near Hull, I could not avoid a sense of impatience. Outside, the clear winter weather looked ideal for flying even if Binbrook’s notorious winds persisted to whistle eerily through the hangar. The entire structure creaked and clattered as if in quarrelsome conversation with its surroundings. Fickle gusts would appear from nowhere, scoop up the remnants of autumn leaves, hustle them along while personnel caught in the open would wince when cold nipped at noses and pinched ears red.
In my small crew room I lounged languidly as I waited. I listened to the radio, read painful comment on the Vietcong’s Tet Offensive in Vietnam’s ongoing war, read the views of worthy individuals. I might even have checked alternative views of even worthier individuals in Hugh Hefner’s mighty Playboy magazine. And I seem to recall that I nodded wryly when the radio presenter mentioned some droll quote about it being hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depended on him not understanding it.
My colleague that day was an experienced Lightning pilot but, despite the wintry winds, he had decided to work on a problem with his car which was parked by the QRA set-up. As a consequence, I had been nominated as ‘Q1’ (the first to fly in the event of a scramble order) while he held ‘Q2’. Regardless of my best psychogenic efforts to urge the telebrief to say something of interest, time seemed to drag. The device’s interminable, tiresome tick merely emphasised the morning’s unhappy monotony. My sense of impatience was hardly helped when I thought about Lightning pilot colleagues based at RAF Leuchars in Scotland where frequent scrambles to intercept Soviet aircraft would produce remarkable and exciting tales to which we Binbrook-based fellows could only listen with envy.
It was while such thoughts swirled around my head that my pulse suddenly quickened and my mouth, I suspect, became as wide open as my eyes. The telebrief tick had stopped; a voice within now cried: “Binbrook this is Patrington. Alert one Lightning.”
I needed no further encouragement. I acknowledged the order, activated the scramble klaxon and dashed towards my aircraft. In nearly no time at all I skipped up the steps of the ladder on the side of the aircraft, wriggled slickly into the Martin Baker ejection seat and eased my bone dome (headset) over my ears. While I buckled up the seat straps I spoke with the Patrington controller. “Vector 130 degrees,” said the controller without further preamble, “climb to angels one zero, call Neatishead on stud twelve…scramble, scramble, scramble.”
“Blimey!” I thought, barely able to believe my luck. In case the controller should change his mind, my procedures seemed even faster than normal as I confirmed the scramble details and signalled ‘engine start’ to the attendant groundcrew. The trusty Rolls-Royce Avons both sprang into life when, in sequence, I pressed the engine start buttons. Soon, I was taxying clear of the QRA hangar as I hastened towards the runway. “Clear for immediate take-off,” said the air traffic controller at which, with a last glance around the ‘office’ to confirm completion of pre-take-off checks, I moved directly onto the runway, advanced the Lightning’s throttles and felt the characteristic thump in the back as the aircraft accelerated.
As I climbed up that day I noted a hard, clear winter sun above immaculate ‘CAVOK’ conditions (cloud and visibility okay). To my left I glanced at the frost-covered confines of RAF North Coates, a surface-to-air missile station. I could make out four, out of a section of sixteen, Bloodhound missiles move steadily as they tracked my south-easterly course. This was an unusual heading; normally a scramble would have taken me north and east. I confirmed my heading, therefore, when I checked in with the controller at Neatishead, a radar unit in Suffolk. “Maintain 130 degrees,” said the controller, followed simply and astonishingly by: “Buster”.
“Buster?” I asked. The instruction meant ‘full speed ahead’ and with maximum reheat applied I would break through the sound barrier in a matter of seconds. As I was still over land, this would have created all kinds of damage and despondency below me.
“Yes, buster. I repeat buster,” said the controller urgently.
“Buster acknowledged,” I said, though I thought to myself: okay, sunshine, whatever you say; on your head be it.
Soon speeding along like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof (or some such expression), I was headed at supersonic airspeed towards the Wash and the north Norfolk coast. Suddenly, the controller changed his mind: “The target’s slowing down,” he cried. “He’s in your twelve o’clock position, heading due west. His current range is 55 miles and he’s slightly above you. Intercept and identify.”
“Acknowledged,” I said as, hastily, I cancelled both engines’ reheats to curtail attendant problems of high fuel consumption. I turned the Lightning in order to offset the target to one side and decided to descend so as to place the incoming machine slightly above me. During the manoeuvres the Neatishead controller announced: “Your target is now very slow moving – about one hundred knots.”
“One hundred knots?”
“Affirmative. And the target is still heading due west.”
“Okay,” I said, “one hundred knots copied.” I swallowed hard and thought: ‘damn’. My aircraft’s stall speed was around 150 knots; this was going to be difficult.
At a range of 23 miles on my radar B-scope indicator I spotted the incoming target’s ‘blip’. Faint at first, the blip soon developed into a nice, fat radar return. I therefore called ‘Judy’ to the Neatishead controller, a codeword to declare that I would take over the intercept geometry: no further assistance required. I turned the Lightning to offset the target to the right-hand edge of my B-scope indicator and simultaneously I started to reduce airspeed. Initially, as I aimed for about 200 knots, all appeared to be working out. In a progressive turn onto the target’s heading, and with ninety degrees to go, I decided to glance up from my B-scope; a truism in the Lightning world stipulated that one quick peep could be worth a score or more of radar sweeps. To my surprise, however, I saw nothing – not a dickey bird. Quickly, I re-buried my head in the B-scope’s rubber shade in order to concentrate on the radar information.
With the blip still clearly indicated on the B-scope, I continued my turn until I rolled out at a range of approximately one mile behind the target. At this stage, at an altitude of some 14,000 feet, I was, as planned, slightly below the target. However, I was catching up fast – too fast. I therefore reduced my airspeed to 180 knots and initiated a weave; by allowing the target to drift out to an angle of about thirty degrees before a turn reversal, I further compensated for the disparity in airspeeds. At a range of 500 yards, just as the target crossed my centre-line, I looked up. I expected to see a small aircraft, a Cessna or some such machine, but I was mistaken. There was nothing there; the scene was blank; I was apparently alone in the sky.
“I’ve lost contact with the target,” I said brusquely to the Neatishead controller.
“Understood…standby…” said the controller who then gave me a series of instructions. Within just thirty or so seconds the target’s clear, plump blip had returned to my B-scope.
“I’ve regained contact,” I said. “Has the target started to accelerate?”
“Affirmative,” said the controller. With a small sense of relief, I realised that this should make the next visident (visual identification) easier. I advanced the Lightning’s throttles and continued to follow my B-scope indications. The procedures went smoothly enough and soon, as I closed up once again to a range of 500 yards, I looked up to see what was there. As before, however, I saw not a thing. This cannot go on, I thought; it’s crazy; the situation was humiliating – absurd; it seemed like a trap…an enigma that gnawed at the mind’s division between fantasy and reality so that almost anything became possible. It was as if mirages in the sky were fighting battles amid illusory creatures and unidentified flying objects. I even adjusted the height of my seat in vague, fruitless attempts to place whatever or whoever was there against a backdrop of sea.
A third, and final attempt was equally unsuccessful, after which the controller ordered me to return to base. I felt very downhearted; I’d done my best but I’d failed. Worse still, I could offer no explanation for the failure. Perhaps Neatishead regarded me as some kind of pariah pilot – a feeling that was hardly helped when I heard the other QRA pilot, the more experienced Lightning man, check in on the aircraft radio. Neatishead had scrambled the ‘Q2’ Lightning to offer a second opinion in this strange situation.
It was about an hour later that my colleague returned. As he entered the small QRA crew room his expression revealed a mix of irritation and perplexity. He shrugged in reply to my enquiring look. “Didn’t see a bloody thing,” he said tersely. “Like you, I just ended up chasing my tail.”
I was about to respond when I felt a gust of cold air on my back. A window had blown open and an icy Binbrook blast had begun to rush in.
“I’ll close it,” said my colleague.
“Don’t worry, I’ll do it.”
In a couple of strides I crossed the room to where the window had swung on its steel frame. As I grabbed the window handle I stared for a moment at the airfield’s open expanse, the bleak Lincolnshire acres beyond. Somewhere, far away, I thought I heard an unusual sound, like the hum of an engine, but it might have been in my imagination. I tried to make out the source but saw nothing so I closed the window and turned round. As I turned, a sharp, spontaneous shudder went down my spine. I noticed that my colleague’s face had grown uncommonly pale. It was almost as if he had seen a ghost.