IN FFOLIO-FFOSTER’S F-FOOTSTEPS
MICHAEL BETTELL IN A QUANDARY
I had not looked forward to the flight. As the squadron new-boy I was required to undergo a check-ride with my new boss, a complex individual whose reputation, not to mention his embarrassing habit of brawling in the officers’ mess with the rival Lightning squadron’s CO, was hardly confidence-boosting. During the pre-flight briefing, my mercurial CO had been to the point: no small talk, no easy chit-chat to pass the time of day, nothing frivolous to interfere with the job in hand. In the end, despite an air of tension, my check-ride in a Hunter T7 (no two-seater Lightning had been available) had gone reasonably well and it was on the next flight, my first in a single-seat Lightning Mark 3 on my new squadron –111(F) Squadron based at RAF Wattisham in Suffolk – that the problems began.
The initial part of this ‘first solo’ proved straightforward enough. After somewhat cautious start-up, taxy and take-off procedures, I climbed up to an altitude of around 36,000 feet, carried out some high level work, orientated myself with local navigational features, then informed the controller that I would return to Wattisham for some practice circuits. The year was 1966, the April weather was exemplary and I was having a fine old time in my brand new Lightning Mark 3 with its innovative cockpit layout. As I flew towards the airfield, I had a strong sense of being at one with the world while I observed the Suffolk landscape, its medley of soft colours, the subtle contrasts within the coastal area to the east. Few hills or valleys were evident here, just a patchwork of flat fields with haphazard villages that gently poked and prodded their way into adjacent countryside. In time, I would grow to love this area which would become my home more or less ever since these early days. When not required for squadron duties, I would potter around on my Lambretta scooter while I explored picturesque surroundings that were markedly different from those of RAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire where, eight years previously as a thirteen-year-old cadet, I had sampled my first taste of the Royal Air Force.
Of course, I was young and wide-eyed back then, even so it was apparent at an early stage that this could be the life for me. I had loved the atmosphere, the barrack room banter, the whole scenario which seemed so much more fun than the plodding routines and heavy hassles of many civilian orbits. In the station NAAFI I could eat as much as I liked and I could drink gallons of pop to my heart’s content. I even enjoyed the visit to a fish factory in nearby Grimsby. When it had come to my turn for an air experience flight, I could hardly contain my excitement. I’d been scheduled to fly in an Avro Anson, a relic of World War 2 but used subsequently as a communications aircraft, a navigational trainer, and as a general dogsbody machine. If the aeroplane lacked glamour, it was legendary nonetheless.
Our pilot was called Flight Lieutenant Ffolio-Ffoster (yes, he really was) and he had a large handlebar moustache (he really did). He talked of chatting-up popsies and wizard prangs, and he’d told us a story of how, in June 1940, that momentous stage when Prime Minister Churchill had declared that ‘the Battle of France is over, the Battle of Britain is about to begin’, a flight of three Ansons had been attacked by nine Luftwaffe Messerschmitt 109 fighters. Despite what must have seemed like a Sisyphean task, the Anson crews had fought back heroically and aggressively. In an astonishing turn of events, the Anson men had downed two German fighter aircraft and damaged a third before the dogfight ended. All three Ansons had survived the battle. Flight Lieutenant Ffolio-Ffoster had told us, too, of a sensational scrape in Australia where two Ansons, having collided in mid-air, became locked together. In spite of this, the pilots had made a successful emergency landing at Brocklesby, New South Wales after which one of the airframes was repaired and the machine flew again.
I’d naturally been awed by such dashing tales of adventure. When Ffolio-Ffoster and his Avro Anson had launched (or what is lurched?) from Binbrook to head for the coast, I’d been fascinated by the sights of the Lincolnshire countryside that stretched sublimely into the distance, scenes of green and purple against blue skies and scattered April cumulus. As we reached the coastline, Flight Lieutenant Ffolio-Ffoster descended to low level where he conducted a ‘beat-up’ of the open, sandy stretches of Skegness beach. I had not flown before – I had not even seen inside an aircraft – and the experience was overwhelming. That night, I dreamt about flying. When I awoke in the morning, I resolved there and then that I would try to become a pilot.
Not long after the Combined Cadet Force camp at Binbrook, I posted off my application to join the service under the Royal Air Force scholarship scheme. I was summonsed for assessment at the selection centre at RAF Hornchurch, and all had gone well for the initial phase. Regretfully, however, I was not accepted for a scholarship at the RAF College, Cranwell. In a state of considerable despondency, therefore, I left school at the age of sixteen to do what my mother had always wanted me to do: become an articled clerk to a firm of chartered accountants in London. For two years, rows of London houses and shops, curious back streets, interminable traffic, the Tube, the bus routes to the office, the office itself, my small desk in the office, formed the main horizon and track of my life, an insipid and circumscribed world. If, at that tender age, I had begun to learn harsh lessons, to think that my way of life was consigned inevitably to a certain conduit of accepted conditions, it was the bright lights of a Royal Air Force recruiting centre in Holborn, central London that suddenly raised my sights. Lit up like a colourful Christmas tree, the recruiting centre caught my eye as I sat in a taxi on my way back to the accountancy office after meeting a client. I ordered the taxi to stop, paid the driver and made my way into the recruiting centre.
As soon as I stepped inside that centre, memories of Avro Anson aircraft, of Skegness beach, of wizard prangs and chatting-up popsies, of Flight Lieutenant Ffolio-Ffoster with his handlebar moustache came flooding back. I walked over to the reception desk where a charming gentleman, a flight lieutenant with – wait for it – a magnificent handlebar moustache, greeted me like a long lost friend. Just because I had not been accepted for a scholarship at Cranwell, he explained, that did not mean I was excluded from an alternative scheme, a direct entry commission for which ‘A’ level examinations were not required. My current crop of ‘O’ levels were perfectly acceptable for the direct entry method. My God, I thought, why hadn’t someone explained this before? I’ve wasted two years. Needless to say, I signed on the dotted line in double-quick time and it was not long before I presented myself to the authorities at RAF South Cerney where I underwent four months of tough basic training.
Having passed the course at South Cerney, I entered the flying training system at the end of which – fantastic! – I was posted to the Lightning Operational Conversion course at RAF Coltishall. Coltishall, to me, was an eye-opener; probably the happiest station of my service career. For the first time I felt that the staff treated their students as adults. My first solo in a Lightning, a Mark F1, was an eye-opener, too. It was towards Christmas in 1964, the sun was low in the west and on final approach to landing I suddenly realised that I could not see properly: in their pre-flight inspection, the groundcrews had forgotten to clean the windshield; the combination of low sun and smeared perspex produced an opaque effect. Left floundering, I overshot from the approach and made a radio call to the duty instructor, Flight Lieutenant Graydon, for advice. “Try to look out of the side-windows,” he said, “you should get a better perspective of the runway.” The suggestion worked, and I managed to land safely.
Seemingly destined for problems on first solo flights, my first night solo at Coltishall was not trouble-free either. The start-up and take-off procedures worked out okay but once airborne, when I attempted to use my electrical seat-height adjustment system, the motor ran away and the seat became stuck in the fully-up position. As a fairly tall individual, this meant that my ‘bone dome’ (flying helmet) was pushed hard against the top of the canopy with my head cranked through ninety degrees. I may have felt – and looked – like a right humperdink but at the time the situation was far from amusing. There’d been little point in radioing for help this time so, in a state of considerable anxiety, I returned to the airfield and set myself up for a touchdown at around 155 knots (approximately 175 miles per hour). This high-speed hurtle into a black hole with runway lights around the ears was precarious enough at the best of times, however, fortunately the finals approach worked out that night and, fingers firmly crossed, I managed to pull off a successful landing.
Just now, as I flew across the Suffolk countryside towards Wattisham, I had a warm feeling of satisfaction. Since those dark days in London, life had turned out well for me; at long last I had achieved my aim. The heady ambition that had followed my thirteen-year-old aspirations as a cadet at Binbrook had materialised. I felt, in fact, that a small pat on the back would not go amiss at present. I spoke to the local air traffic controller at Wattisham, obtained clearance to join the airfield circuit and, once overhead, ‘broke’ hard towards the downwind leg. As part of the pre-landing checks, I selected the undercarriage down and glanced at the indicator. Normally three red lights would appear, followed fairly swiftly by three green lights. This would confirm that the undercarriage was down and locked. Nothing, though, appeared – no reds, no greens, nothing. With a prompt sense of disbelief, I stared at the indicator. In my inexperience, I had failed to note the familiar ‘clunk’ of undercarriage movement; it could have happened, but I was unsure. Suddenly, my state of pleasant reverie had turned to one of querulous quandary.
The Lightning Pilots’ Notes were unequivocal on the subject of undercarriage problems: in the event of undercarriage failure, the Lightning should be abandoned because the aircraft was likely to cartwheel on landing. No ifs, no buts – just fly to a suitable area and eject. I asked the controller if he could see whether my undercarriage was down but, in a somewhat unhelpful reply, he declined to say one way or the other. It crossed my mind that his mega-huge, mega-powerful and no doubt mega-expensive binoculars could be put to good use at this moment, but I had no stomach for argument. “Is the duty pilot available?” I asked timidly.
“We’re trying to find him,” said the controller.
Meanwhile, I set up an orbit above the airfield while I waited for the duty pilot to arrive. I wondered whether I should attempt a further undercarriage selection, but decided this may not be a good idea. As I flew in circles above the airfield, I gazed gloomily at my Lightning’s fuel guages. I began to calculate the amount of fuel required to climb to an altitude of around 10,000 feet while I headed towards the coast for a suitable ejection area. I would aim to point the Lightning out to sea before I pulled the ejection seat handle. I prompted the controller again: “any sign of the duty pilot yet?” but the reply was negative.
By this stage, with my fuel state close to the level I had calculated for the ‘ejection’ option, I was becoming seriously worried. There seemed little point in operating the undercarriage emergency lowering system, on the other hand I reckoned there was little to lose. I glanced down at the yellow and black painted handle positioned low in the cockpit. This handle, I noticed, was placed immediately, and inconveniently, next to another, also daubed in yellow and black. Still in a state of fluster, I reached for what I thought was the correct handle and tugged it upwards. At once, I was aware that I had mistakenly jettisoned the Lightning’s fuel ventral tank. The tank, observed by the controller, apparently fluttered down like a leaf before landing harmlessly in a field.
At about this point the duty pilot’s breathless voice called me on the aircraft radio. After a few terse exchanges, he confirmed that he could see that the undercarriage was down. “Turn downwind and land immediately,” he instructed. With trepidation, I carried out the order and felt a surge of relief when the undercarriage system withstood the landing.
It did not take long for the engineers to establish that the fault had been a gauge error and that the undercarriage system itself was fully serviceable. A more experienced pilot would have been aware of the undercarriage ‘clunk’ when the wheels were lowered; a fair degree of pointless panic would have been avoided, as well as the lamentable loss of a fuel ventral tank.
I signed in the aircraft after landing, then awaited the inevitable summons to the boss’s presence. This occurred quite quickly and as I made my way towards his office, a black cloud of doom seemed to form above my head. I tried to cheer myself up with thoughts of the evening when, with a squadron colleague no doubt, I would head for the officers’ mess bar to drown a few sorrows. I imagined that tonight’s conversation would be brusque, like the one I was about to have with the CO:
“Beer?”
“Yes, beer please.”
“Cheers.”
“Cheers!” We would lift our glasses and drink.
“Awful beer.”
“Yes, awful beer.”
“Bad day?”
“Yes, terrible…”
At about this point, I reached the CO’s dreaded door. I hesitated for a moment or two before entering. I placed my hat on my head and tried to make sure that it was straight. When, eventually, I felt sufficiently prepared, I knocked timorously on the door. A bold voice from within commanded: “Come!”
I entered the room, closed the door behind me, then turned round as I came to attention smartly and saluted. The squadron leader had an earnest, energised air. His expression of rage seemed to be accompanied by strange snorting and sucking noises. A pilot of renowned ability, he was a large, good-looking man with a dark, open face which did not hide anything. His eyes, bright and dark, were rarely still unless staring into your own. His hair was black and swept back.
“Well?” he said.
As I attempted to launch into defensive explanations, he raised one hand to demand silence. He then began a vehement one-way conversation at the end of which I was offered no chance to reply. After a few moments of awkward silence, he raised one hand again in a small gesture of anguish then let it drop by his side. “You’re grounded,” he said.
And so it was: grounded for a period, as well as two weeks of dreary orderly officer duties. Looking back, this punishment was inappropriate and unduly harsh. However, I was young, impressionable, ingenuous. Furthermore, I felt disinclined to pick a fight with a dragon, especially one who was experienced in the art of bar brawling. Later, I had other opportunities when the CO’s undoubted talents encouraged my progress on the squadron. At the time, though, I took the punishment on the chin and with the positive thought that it was better, at least, than two years spent as an articled clerk to a firm of accountants in London.