GOOD SHOOTING?
MARCUS WILLS AT MISSILE PRACTICE CAMP
As it rose in the east, I squinted anxiously at the sun now about the width of a man’s hand above the horizon. Below, autumnal breezes swept across sand dunes, sped over taxiways and airfield paraphernalia, then hastened towards fields and distant hills; the whole countryside appeared in a state of windswept fluster as if in worried anticipation of winter. Like a lonely pariah set apart from the mainland of North Wales, the island of Anglesey’s flat expanse, a curious contrast to the corrugations of high ground beyond the Menai Straits, extended to the Royal Air Force station at Valley in the western reaches of the island where, one day in mid-October 1967, I sat restlessly in my Lightning cockpit. I cast another hasty glance at my watch. The timing for our missile practice camp exercises was tight; I had to count down the minutes accurately before engine start: too early, and we could become short of fuel; too late, and we might miss our planned slot on the firing range.
I looked across at the Lightning parked next to mine, its canopy raised, its allotted groundcrews standing nearby. All seemed on tenterhooks. This was our last day at Valley before the 111 (F) Squadron personnel would conclude their detachment and return home to RAF Wattisham in Suffolk. It was a defining moment and we all felt the pressures. Of the detachment’s allocation of Firestreak missiles, two were yet to be used and it was up to us to do our best to ensure a successful outcome. If we failed, a valuable training opportunity would be lost; missiles earmarked for practice firings were rationed strictly.
I gave a reassuring nod to my fellow Lightning pilot, Flight Lieutenant Dave Hampton, who awaited my signal to start engines. He would act as my wingman for this flight. His face was hidden behind his oxygen mask, nonetheless I could picture his mischievous grin, his fingers drumming impatiently on the cockpit coaming. Despite the pressures, however, I knew that his talents as a pilot, his bubbly character and his infectious sense of humour would remain sound. A good friend of mine as well as a squadron colleague, I knew him well. In the officers’ mess the previous night he had performed one of his favourite tricks: he would pick, slyly, an innocent-looking candidate sitting in a comfortable mess chair and who was about to enjoy a sip of hot coffee. I’d been in just such a situation last evening when he’d wandered up to me in a loose-jointed, amiable sort of way while he clutched his own cup of coffee. He’d said something like…“Ah, Marcus…” a jaunty little line, “did you hear that amazing news about…” at which point he’d pretended to trip up on the carpet, tipped his supposedly-full but actually-empty coffee cup, and aimed it directly at my lap. The shock of surprise, of course, had meant that some of my own coffee had slopped over me as I’d tried to twist clear. We’d exchanged glaring looks for a second, then the laughter had erupted. It had seemed the most comical thing that had ever happened. Accompanied by the guffaws and general merriment of others in the vicinity he’d said: “How careless of me!”
F/O Mullan, F/O Ellender, F/O Wills, S/L St. Aubyn, W/C Biddie, Capt Hall, F/O Allison, F/O Pike, F/O Mace and F/LT Sneddon at RAF Cotishall.
“Yes, very,” I’d said.
“Slippery little critters these Welsh coffee cups,” he’d gushed.
“Goes with the prevalent stink of disinfectant in this officers’ mess, I suppose.”
“Disinfectant? What’s that?”
“Try that trick again and you’re liable to find out!” More guffaws and banter had ensued.
I looked again at the waiting groundcrews. One man walked a few paces, shuffled round and glanced up at the sky before he stared at the Lightning cockpit as if willing us to start engines. Spread beside us were fire extinguishers, Houchin ground power units, wheel chocks and other miscellaneous equipment. The restive crewman checked his watch then shrugged his shoulders as if to say: ‘time to start yet?’ I shook my head in a negative motion. We’d have to be patient for a few more minutes yet.
I thought back to my training days, some of which had been spent here at Valley flying the Folland Gnat. However, my enthusiasm for aircraft and flying had developed long before that, probably back to the 1950s when my father would take me as a boy to Farnborough Air Shows, in those days held annually. With awe I would watch the likes of the Bristol Britannia, the de Havilland Comet, the Vickers Vanguard, the amazing Rolls-Royce-engined ‘Flying Bedstead’ and the Bristol Brabazon. The Brabazon, even by today’s standards, was enormous. Powered by eight ‘paired’ Bristol Centaurus radial engines, the eccentric Brabazon’s wingspan was 230 feet – some sixty feet greater even than the modern Boeing 767 400ER. Impossibly impractical, the only Brabazon ever built was scrapped in 1953. A few years later, I was intrigued by a story told by Bill Pegg, the Bristol Aeroplane Company’s chief test pilot and a friend of my father. Mr Pegg told me how, for the Brabazon’s first flight, uncertainty had surrounded the calculated airspeed at which the machine should become airborne. It was as if the Bristol Aeroplane Company had been resigned to doing what the British did best – just muddle through. When he’d taxied the Brabazon towards Filton’s runway, Pegg had asked for clearance to enter the airfield’s active runway.
“Do you intend to take off?” the Filton air traffic controller had asked.
“Dunno,” Pegg had replied. “Wait and see!”
I was seventeen years of age when my father had taken me to Banwell in Somerset to meet Bill Pegg at his home. “So you want to be a pilot do you?” the great man had asked me.
“Indeed, sir.”
“In that case I recommend that you do two things.”
“Sir?”
“Firstly, you must read my book.”
“I’ve read it already.”
“Secondly, you must join the Royal Air Force.”
Not long after that meeting I was able to tell Mr Pegg that I had been lucky enough to be selected for a scholarship at the RAF College at Cranwell in Lincolnshire. It was a heady time of my life and I could recall my first day at Cranwell clearly. When a somewhat rag-bag group of individuals were collected from Sleaford railway station by an air force bus, there’d been an air of appeal in all of our eyes as we’d gazed at each other in bewildered fashion. Then someone had said something amusing and I remember that everyone had laughed and all of our expressions had relaxed. Many years later we would understand the truism that friendships formed early in life tended to last the longest.
As new recruits, we were taken more or less directly to the camp barber after which we’d started a relentless round of slave labour to polish linoleum floors, bull-up brass taps and clean exposed water pipes in the flimsy wooden huts provided as accommodation by the Royal Air Force. We were hustled here and there by in-your-face sergeants, pestered with questions by members of the senior entry, given tasks that seemed to have little to do with military duties, let alone flying aeroplanes. We became immersed in unreality which, before too long, we accepted as eccentric but necessary. Today, our treatment back then would be regarded as outrageous bullying and would be outlawed, no doubt. At the time, though, a huge and intransigent common sense had been the secret of survival. We’d learned deep and thorough lessons which for most of us would provide invaluable tools for life.
The course at Cranwell had lasted for three years. After one year, the pilots and navigators had commenced their flying training. My flying instructor had seemed a rather humourless individual at first, though in time I’d learnt that behind his stern facade lay a keen, if dry, sense of humour. Towards the end of the course we had discussed posting choices. “What would be your preference?” he asked. I hesitated before, with a certain amount of embarrassment at the lofty suggestion, I requested Lightnings. He’d paused, looked me in the eye and grinned: “I don’t see why not!”
I realised that my preference had been taken seriously when the posting notice arrived. I’d been instructed to report to RAF Valley where I would fly the Folland Gnat. The Gnat could reach supersonic airspeed in a shallow dive, a feat that I achieved just one week after my twenty-first birthday. After Valley I was sent to RAF Chivenor in Devon for the ‘pre-Lightning’ course on the Hawker Hunter. We were taught the techniques of how to aim and fire the Hunter’s four 30mm Aden cannon against a towed target, a difficult exercise; not many managed to gain high scores.
In September 1965 my ambition to fly Lightnings had materialised at last. I was posted to the Lightning Operational Conversion Unit at RAF Coltishall, a prospect that seemed slightly overwhelming if I’d thought about it too much. Sometimes, when not on duty, I would stand at the end of the Coltishall runway to take photographs of Lightnings as they performed circuits and overshoots. I could not avoid a warm feeling of achievement. For one thing, my course colleagues and I were among the first ‘all-through’ Lightning pilots; up to now only fighter pilots with experience on other aircraft types had been selected for Lightnings.
There’d been much to learn. Often, I read long into the night to study Pilots’ Notes, bone up on technical manuals, absorb detailed documents on operating procedures. Sometimes fatigue would cause the light to swim under my eyes; words would seem to harden and slip off the page; whirlwinds of information would revolve irksomely around my head. The task, though, was imperative if I wanted to pass the course. Required standards had been high and obligatory; there’d been no short cuts. However, when prompt understanding had pierced the blur of fog, when the brain had grasped, as if a poignard had been thrust through the eye, a complex issue, the sense of satisfaction had been great.
Suddenly, I glanced again at my watch. Dave Hampton in his adjacent Lightning and the groundcrews all waited apprehensively for my signal. The moment has come, I thought, let’s get going now. I raised one hand and gave a clear circling motion. At once, lethargy was thrust aside as everyone sprang into action. Both Lightnings were soon started and I called air traffic control for taxy and take-off clearance. Gnat training aircraft in the local airfield circuit were ordered to stay clear as priority was given to our esteemed Lightnings.
Before long, when both Lightnings were ready to roar off down the runway, Dave Hampton took off some seconds after me in the stiff cross-wind. After take-off, as I initiated a climb, simultaneously I turned port onto an easterly heading while Dave closed up to an echelon position for a period before he moved into a loose battle formation while we headed towards the Menai Straits. Soon, when we reached an altitude of 30,000 feet as instructed, I changed radio frequency to speak with the radar controller at RAF Aberporth, a military base north of Fishguard. This controller would give me instructions to intercept an unmanned target drone known as a Jindivik. Powered by the same Armstrong Siddeley Viper jet engine as that used in a Jet Provost aircraft, the Jindiviks were based at Llanbedr, a Royal Air Force station north of Aberystwyth on the coast of Cardigan Bay. Remotely controlled by personnel at Llanbedr, the Jindivik towed a magnesium flare attached to the end of a very long cable. When in missile-firing range, the Lightning pilot would call for the flare to be lit; the number two Lightning pilot would verify when this had happened. In theory, therefore, the Firestreak heat-seeking missile would strike the magnesium flare and not the expensive Jindivik which would be spared to fight another day. So much for the theory.
“Maintain your altitude and turn onto a heading of 150 degrees,” said the controller in his lilting Welsh accent. On my right side, the Llyn Peninsular formed the northern boundary of Cardigan Bay; ahead, I could spot various lakes, including the distinctive four-mile long Bala lake, set within the Welsh mountains.
Firestreak missile launch at missile practice camp, RAF Valley, late 1960s. Note smoke trail of Jindivik in the background (Photo taken by Roger Beazley).
“The target is on your left, crossing left to right,” said the controller. “Increase your airspeed slightly and standby for a right turn.”
I nudged the Lightning’s throttles forward: the engine revolutions edged up, the jet pipe temperatures reacted. I re-checked the altimeter…30,000 feet as required, no problems there. My airspeed had settled and the controller’s calm voice commenced count-down: “The target is still on your left at a distance of ten miles,” he said. I searched briefly but the small Jindivik was hard to make out. After a hasty glance at the other Lightning, I concentrated on accurate flying. Soon the controller went on: “Target now at eight miles, on your left side. Turn onto a heading of 170 degrees. This will be a 90-degree interception.” I checked below as I turned and noted how the sea’s slate-grey surface had been roughened by the wind. I searched again for the Jindivik but still failed to see the machine. Then, when the controller called: “Target now at a distance of five miles”, I glimpsed at last the unconventional flying machine reminiscent of the V1 ‘doodlebugs’ of WW2.
“Visual with the target,” I told the controller.
“Copied,” said the controller. Normally at this point I would have called ‘Judy’ to indicate that I’d assume control of the intercept geometry. Today, however, I would remain under close control – very close control – until I was ready to fire the missile.
“Commence a right turn now,” said the controller after a pause. “Roll out on 260 degrees.”
“Copied.”
“The firing range is confirmed as clear,” said the controller. “You’re authorised to continue.” Sometimes firings were held up at the last minute if shipping vessels had wandered into the range.
“The target is now three miles ahead of you,” said the controller.
“Acknowledged.” I carried out a further quick check around the cockpit to make sure that my ‘switchery’ was correctly set.
“Target at two miles.” I made a nervous adjustment to my radar picture.
“Target at one-and-a-half miles.”
“Light the flare!” I commanded.
After a moment or two, Dave Hampton cried: “Confirming that the flare has lit.”
“You’re clear to fire!” said the controller.
Now, with the target’s range down to about one mile, I made a final check of my cockpit switches before I called excitedly: “five…four…three…two…one…FIRING!”
I was aware of a momentary pause, followed by a muffled bang. Then I saw the Firestreak accelerate ahead of my Lightning, a trail of smoke snaking behind the missile. The sight both startled and fascinated me; recollections of endless hours of interminable training seemed to career through my mind. It was as if justification of all that effort had been condensed into a fleeting interval of time. I felt elated, triumphant – but not for long. Abruptly, after about five seconds, the sense of jubilation was exchanged for thoughts like ‘this can’t be happening’. I knew that violence and destruction were about to succeed order and control: my recalcitrant Firestreak missile had bypassed the towed magnesium flare and locked itself onto the Jindivik’s jet pipe. With a sense of dread, I witnessed an explosion followed by the Jindivik’s sad, expensive remains fluttering down to the Irish Sea’s surface below.
A stunned silence dominated the airwaves for what felt like an eternity. Meanwhile, I had to apply a high angle of bank to avoid dangerous clouds of debris. I knew that any kind of explanation to the controller would be superfluous: he would have deduced from his radar screen exactly what had happened. There was nothing to be done except turn towards Valley, initiate a descent and sneak back to base.
In the afternoon, for the second missile firing, Dave Hampton took the lead and I was his number two. As before, initial proceedings went well. The Aberporth controller set us up for the intercept and confirmed that no shipping vessels had wandered into the firing range. The parameters looked good, everything seemed wonderful. Until, that is, the point when Dave called for the magnesium flare to be lit. I stared intently ahead as he began a countdown to firing. The magnesium flare, however, failed to ignite; a second Jindivik was in dire peril. “Don’t shoot!” I cried, an expression which, on reflection, seemed somewhat over-dramatic; perhaps I’d been watching too many cowboy films on TV. In any case, the call was wasted; Dave’s countdown dominated the airwaves; no-one heard my warning. This time, the Jindivik’s destruction was even more spectacular than before as Dave Hampton’s missile, unlike mine, had been fitted with a full warhead.
That evening in the officers’ mess, when I went through recent matters in my mind, I could not avoid tiresome twinges of guilt. It had been quite a day – a day of expensive errors in hapless succession. While the misfortunes had hardly been my fault, the weight of conscience seemed to bear down on me like a storm cloud. But then, I thought suddenly, perhaps I should concentrate on the bright side of things. I should maintain a positive attitude, just as I’d learned at Cranwell. After all, I was one of life’s optimists; a confident type; a glass-half-full merchant. I would live to shoot another day.