CHAPTER ONE

Just Out for a Spin

Sitting on the top-deck of a Belfast City bus one miserably wet afternoon in January 1953, peering through its condensation-steamed windows, I found myself wondering what the hell I thought I was doing. I was on my way to Sydenham, now Belfast City Airport, to have my first experience of flying – my ‘familiarisation trip’ with Queen’s University Air Squadron. The rain was pelting down. The heavy dark cloud looked menacingly low. It had all been so totally different a few days earlier when I, and several other undergraduate would-be aviators, had spent a happy afternoon meeting the squadron instructors, having an introductory briefing, and being shown over the aircraft on which we were to be taught to fly. The prospect of flying had then been very appealing. In the present conditions it had no attraction at all and I seriously hoped that my trip would be cancelled.

About an hour and a half later, worrying weather notwithstanding, I was briefed and kitted out. I had fur-lined boots on my feet, a leather flying helmet and goggles on my head, and I had been handed a ‘Mae West’ – a bulky yellow flotation jacket – to put on. I had been supervised as I trussed myself tightly into the harness of a parachute-pack shaped to fit in the aircraft seat and, with that pack swinging awkwardly below and behind me, I shambled out from the dry comfort of the squadron’s accommodation to one of its four Chipmunks.

Climbing cumbrously into the front cockpit I was somewhat relieved to see that the rain was slackening and that the gloom was lightening away to the west – but at that moment even a totally cloudless sky might not have dispelled the apprehension I felt about going up in this mini-machine whose cockpit hardly fitted me and which, besides, smelled slightly of sick.

Oddly, although I had been impressed by an older cousin who had come to spend a few days with my parents in the mid-1940s, proudly displaying Flying Officer’s tapes and pilots’ ‘wings’ on his uniform, I can’t recall feeling any great urge to follow in his footsteps. At school I had been fired with the idea of making a career in the Army but I had been armlocked by my father into deferring that ambition in favour of reading for a degree; he had even set me up with a meeting at the home of a friend of his, a professor at Queen’s, whose task was clearly to persuade me that a university education would be a much better bet than an immediate plunge into a military career.

While it would be wrong to say that I had had no interest in aeroplanes or in flying, I had never really given any thought to the possibility of getting airborne. My interests were elsewhere and, the moment I was old enough, I had joined the Territorial Army. The idea of the University Air Squadron (UAS) came three years later and owed more to the persuasive patter of a friend than to a burning desire on my part to learn to fly. And I doubt that his enthusiasm was initially any greater than mine as his principal argument for attempting to join was that: ‘They have a great Mess and it’s open on a Saturday night long after the pubs in Belfast close.’

UASs were set up – the first at Cambridge in 1925¹ – while the RAF was enjoying a brief period of modest expansion. As the then Chief of the Air Staff² put it, by encouraging undergraduates to fly the UASs would be ‘…. a great means of enabling the spirit of aviation to spread…’, and they would ‘… give the brains of the country a chance of being used for aeronautical purposes….’They were also a means of encouraging undergraduates to consider careers in the various Branches of the RAF, and the free flying lessons provided by them was the bait for all potential officer recruits, not just for potential members of the flying, or General Duties, Branch. But the cost of providing such lessons, even with simple aircraft, had to be justified³ and anyone applying to join had to display both the aptitude to cope with flying lessons and the qualities that the RAF was seeking in its own recruits. We thus found that joining wasn’t simply a matter of presenting ourselves as keen applicants for membership of a university club.

The first hurdle to acceptance was the medical examination, a fairly lengthy affair that covered everything from the history of our health, through its current state, to possible future infirmity. During the course of it I was asked if I ever got sick in cars or on buses and this gave me a momentary twinge of concern; I had been sick every time I got into a car when I was a child, but I didn’t volunteer this last, hopefully irrelevant, piece of information as I had long since grown out of the tendency. Besides, as rough seas and boats didn’t bother me I reasoned, optimistically, that aircraft would be unlikely to do so either. Happily, we were both pronounced fit and able to see and hear to the required standards.

The next hurdle was the Aptitude Test. This required the would-be aviator rapidly to interpret a series of diagrams and photographs briefly displayed to him. The diagrams, designed to test the applicant’s ability to solve general mechanical and mathematical problems, were in the format of a standard Intelligence Test. The photographs, which showed the standard flight instrument panels of RAF aircraft doing just about everything except flying straight and level, focussed the testing process more precisely. I had no idea how I scored on the Intelligence Test but I was relieved, and indeed smugly pleased, to find that I could read the instrument panels without difficulty.

The real test, however, was the Interview Board. My Board comprised a heavy, red-faced, wing commander flanked by two squadron leaders, all well decorated with World War Two medal ribbons and, as a group, just a little intimidating. They were seated side by side behind a table in front of which stood a solitary chair. ‘Sit down please,’ said the wing commander, waving his hand impatiently in the direction of the chair. Clearly not one to waste time on pleasantries, or putting the interviewee at ease, he went on without a pause: ‘Why do you want to fly?’ I felt it might be imprudent to confess that the idea had only recently entered my head so I told him what an influence my cousin had been; and, actually, thinking about it now, that may not have been a totally inaccurate answer.

A range of questions followed, designed and refined by long use, to determine whether one was a good prospect as a future member of the RAF. Were you a prefect at school? What games do you play and to what standard? What are your interests and hobbies? What books are you reading? Do you take an interest in current affairs? And so on. Each answer widened the scope of the questioning and raised the risk of exposing any attempt by the interviewee to claim more knowledge, abilities, or qualities than he actually possessed. In answer to a question from one of the squadron leaders I had volunteered the information that I was keen on sailing, and the wing commander immediately asked what relationship I saw between sailing and flying. I waffled about the handling skills that I felt were needed in order to get the best out of both boats and aircraft in the media in which they were operating. ‘Really,’ he snorted, ‘I think you said you were reading Mechanical Engineering. I would have thought that someone doing that would have heard of Bernoulli. ’I had, of course, heard of Bernoulli and knew that he had shown that water accelerating through a restriction in a pipe caused a pressure drop at the restriction, but I had not had the wit to connect restrictions in pipes with the shape of sails and wings. My questioner took obvious delight in explaining the connection and, to cover my resultant discomfort, I said that I had not expected a trick question. Preparing to deliver the coup de grâce he went on without hesitation: ‘Let me sum you up, White. You are a practical man rather than a thinker. You prefer out-door activities to intellectual pursuits. For example, I doubt that I could have a conversation with you about literature.’ At that point I wouldn’t have bet on my chances of being accepted for the Air Squadron but I desperately hoped that I might yet prevent them dropping to zero. So I bit my tongue and began rapidly formulating a tactful reply. I felt that I ought to say something like: ‘I believe that we could indeed have a conversation about literature but I imagine that you would find plenty of gaps in my reading and perhaps some weaknesses in the level of my understanding of complex works.’ However, to my horror, it didn’t come out like that and I heard myself saying, as if it were someone other than me speaking: ‘If we did have such a conversation I imagine that we would soon discover how little you know.’

Perhaps the interview was coming naturally to an end at this point but that stopped it abruptly. ‘Thank you White,’ the wing commander said, dismissively. ‘Good day – and, by the way, we don’t need to ask trick questions in order to find out what we need to know about you. ’That, I thought, is the end of any hope I might have of flying with the QUAS. Then, as I got up to go, I caught sight of the squadron leaders exchanging grins and my pessimism lightened. Six weeks later I learned that I had been accepted as an officer cadet in the Royal Air Force (Volunteer Reserve), and two weeks later I was kitted out and ready for my introductory flight. I must have said something right after all. Sadly my friend with the late night thirst had not.

‘We’ll climb above this cloud,’ said the voice of Flight Lieutenant Dave Bennett from the back cockpit as we taxied out, ‘and try and find a decent bit of blue so that you can have a go at the controls.’ I didn’t have the faintest idea how high the clouds might stretch or to what altitude a Chipmunk could climb. However, the confident voice in my earphones conveyed the conviction that blue sky was there to be found and I began to shed a bit of the apprehension that I had felt earlier. We lined up on Sydenham’s main runway, tested the brakes briefly and were off. As we left the ground my attention was held more by what I could see outside the cockpit than by what was going on inside it; I was a nervous spectator rather than an attentive novice pilot. I had time to take in the fact that the airfield was littered with Sunderland flying boats, gathered post-war back to their principal place of origin, and to note the uncomfortable proximity of the cranes and gantries of the shipbuilding yard below us. But I had no idea what our take-off speed had been, what speed we were climbing at, or what our rate of climb was.

We went into cloud at what, retrospectively, I think was about 500 feet and climbed steadily, turning as we did. The lowest layer of cloud was not in fact very thick and we were soon in a clear space, albeit with more cloud above. The air was smooth, without a ripple of turbulence, and I began to relax and enjoy the sensation of being airborne, even though there was no horizon to focus on, and in spite of the fact that the new oxygen mask strapped to my face – not because we were going to need oxygen, but because the mask incorporated a microphone – smelled unpleasantly of rubber and was mildly claustrophobic.

We continued climbing through and above the next layer of cloud before levelling out. I can’t recall how high we went, and probably didn’t note it at the time but, thinking now about the Chipmunk’s capability, and the total time we were airborne, I think it can’t have been much more than 4,000 to 5,000 feet. Having levelled out, and performed what he described as a clearing turn, Dave Bennett invited me to ‘follow’ him through on the controls. This meant, and means throughout the flying-training world, the student lightly holding the control column, with his feet on the rudder pedals and, possibly, with a hand on the throttle, while the instructor continues to fly the aircraft explaining as he operates the controls what he is doing and why. We did this for a few minutes, climbing, descending, and turning, with me trying to respond in a manner that suggested I fully understood what I was being shown. I was then told, in a phrase that was soon to become very familiar ‘you have control’. I can’t recall that I felt a surge of delight as I took it, more a touch of nervousness about what I might be expected to do. My first impression was that the ‘stick’ was remarkably light and the controls much too responsive for my indelicate touch. After about five minutes of pushing and pulling with a bit of gross over-controlling to try to maintain a constant altitude I managed to make myself begin to feel somewhat seedy. I was therefore not at all unhappy to hear Dave say that it was time to head back and to let him take control again. However, I was totally unprepared for his next move. With a cheery ‘keep your hands and feet clear of the controls while I get us down the quickest way ’ he put the Chipmunk into a spin.

I had no idea then what a spin was – but quickly concluded that it was a manoeuvre for masochists. To produce a spin the aircraft has first to be stalled. That is, the angle between its wings and the airflow (the angle of attack) has to be increased to the point where the layer flowing over them becomes turbulent and breaks away. This can be achieved by reducing airspeed and increasing the angle of attack to try to maintain the lift necessary to hold the aircraft’s chosen flight path at the lower speed. Or it can be induced by pulling into a turn at a constant speed, vertically or horizontally, thereby requiring the wings to produce more lift to counter centrifugal forces. If the rudder is harshly applied at the point of stall the aircraft begins to roll, pitch, and yaw, concurrently – and lose height. The motion can be disorientating in a clear sky, and very disconcerting to a newcomer in cloudy conditions.

I was totally disorientated by it but, as it didn’t turn my self-induced seediness into anything more serious as we descended, I can’t believe that Dave can have done many turns before bringing the aircraft out of the spin and ‘levelling off’. What mattered to me at the moment the world righted itself again – for clearly a tiny doubt had remained in my mind as a result of the question about buses – was that I had been thrown about in the air and had not thrown up.

We were back on the ground a matter of moments later. The entire trip, from take-off to landing had lasted just twenty-five minutes and, apart perhaps from the gyrations of the spin, I had enjoyed the experience. My early uncertainty had been replaced by enthusiasm – and I wanted more.

I got airborne for a real working flight eight days later. The man in the back, once again Dave Bennett, did the take-off and climb to height. As we levelled off, he launched immediately into a practical demonstration of the things that he had covered on the pre-flight briefing: the effect of elevators, ailerons, and rudders, and how engine power settings and speed affected the balance of the aircraft. He then handed control to me, as on the familiarisation trip, and invited me to do things for myself. This time, however, he was clearly determined that I should try to be precise in what I did, and not just move the stick about tentatively. I had to move it positively and continue doing each thing he tasked me with until he was satisfied that I had got the message. He was also insistent that I try to maintain rudder balance as I varied throttle settings, reminding me constantly to ‘ keep the ball in the middle’. He was not too fussed initially about height and speed-keeping but as the trip progressed he wanted these too. So I sweated away, anxious to show that I could do it and, unsurprisingly, came nowhere near giving him the accuracy he was asking for. His insistence on what appeared to me to be perfection was my introduction to the ethos of the Central Flying School (CFS), the alma mater of all RAF flying instructors.⁴

I flew again the following day, eager for more, but it was another three months before I achieved what I really wanted: to get off the ground on my own. The squadron’s flying was done mainly at weekends, and good weather conditions were very much needed for the instruction of the inexperienced; not many Belfast winter weekends produced the right conditions and the consequent lack of continuity stretched out the pre-solo syllabus of stalling, spinning, ‘circuits and bumps’ and emergency landings over-long.

From my third trip, and for the rest of my time on QUAS, my instructor was Flight Lieutenant Harry Dodd. Harry was a small constantly cheerful man who taught with a happy combination of patience, gentle persuasion and insistence on precision. I later realised that this was true of most of the graduates of CFS – but not all.

The day for ‘going solo’ eventually arrived. I had an early Saturday morning trip with Harry and then went up with the squadron commander, Squadron Leader John Brignell, expecting nothing more than a progress check. However, when we landed and taxied in he told me to keep the engine running, got out, did up his seat straps, pointed to the sky and walked away. I mumbled through the pre-taxi checks, rather as one might recite a prayer, rechecked the tightness of my straps, tried to make my voice sound nonchalant as I called for clearance to taxi, and set off for the take-off point. I wouldn’t say that I was exactly nervous about getting off the ground on my own for the first time but, as I opened the throttle and began to move down the runway, I was afflicted for a moment by a sudden irrational crisis of confidence: the thought that I might not be competent enough get the plane safely back on the ground.

The sheer elation when I did, one circuit and a landing later, was intoxicating. And, of course, there was the splendid thought that I would now be free to go off on my own without the voice of precision and discipline constantly correcting from the rear cockpit. This was not, of course, exactly how it was going to be, for solo flights were interspersed with instructional dual trips, and also with periodic checks by the chief flying instructor and the squadron commander.

We were required to concentrate during our solo trips on practising and consolidating what we had been taught on the duals and warned not to go off on frolics of our own. But, initially at least, it was difficult not to stretch the bounds of discipline a little to indulge in a bit of showing-off. For we newcomers this mostly involved nothing more than arranging to be overhead a particular place at a particular time, the hey-mum-look-up-it’s-me moment of glory. Some months later, however, the risks inherent in the casual infringement of flight discipline were brought home to all of us by the death of one of the more experienced members of the squadron, Brian McClay, a close friend in my year in the Faculty of Applied Science. He had joined the squadron when he first went up to Queen’s and had just qualified to fly the one Harvard on the unit’s strength. He stalled it while circling at low level and rather too slowly over his girlfriend’s house, spun, and went into the ground without recovering. Oddly, the loss of the Harvard seemed to matter more to the experienced members of the squadron than the loss of one of their number. I recall wondering at the time whether this apparent indifference to death was just undergraduate bravado or something that we thought was expected in a Service that had learned to live with heavy losses during the War.

The Harvard looked – and sounded – rather more interesting than the Chipmunk but it was also more of a handful as it was heavier, had a higher stall speed, and among other traps for the inexperienced, had a retractable undercarriage and a constant speed propeller. The Chipmunk, on the other hand was ideal as an initial – or in the jargon of the Service, ab initio – training machine as it was virtually viceless. Its Gipsy Major engine was reliable; its fixed pitch propeller speeded up and slowed down in simple direct response to throttle movements; its fixed undercarriage was a boon for the potentially forgetful; its gentle landing speed of 45 knots (52 mph); and its light and responsive controls could hardly have been bettered. While it might not have won any major aerobatic competitions it was fully aerobatic and, in those days, cleared for spinning. There was enough rudder control to allow good slow rolls to be accomplished – that is, holding a precise height while rotating slowly around the aircraft’s longitudinal axis – and loops, barrel rolls and stall turns were all readily performable.

In August we went to RAF Biggin Hill for a fortnight for the squadron ‘summer camp’. At the time this former Battle of Britain Station was commanded – very appropriately – by a distinguished fighter pilot, Wing Commander ‘Splinters’ Smallwood, DSO, DFC. It had one resident RAF fighter squadron, No. 41, equipped with Meteor Mark 8s. It was also the home base of the two City of London Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadrons, Nos 600 and 615, also equipped with Meteor Mark 8s. The members of the Auxiliary outfits, most with war-time experience, back in the atmosphere of planes and flying, and away from their professional lives in London for the weekend, created a splendidly lively spirit in the Mess – well led on a Saturday night by ‘Splinters’ – and gave Biggin back something of the feel one imagined it had during the ’40s. And, of course, apart from sharing in the ‘operational’ atmosphere of the Station, there was the pleasure for us of getting airborne several times a day, every day, over the summery countryside, exploring it, throwing the aircraft into aerobatics distinguished more by exuberance than by precision, soaring and zooming – and wondering as we did what it must have been like for those who operated out of Biggin in very hostile skies not so many years before.

I greatly enjoyed all of this, the flying, the comradeship and, not least, the apparent promise of pleasurable sociability as exemplified by the jolly crowd in the Biggin Hill Mess on a Saturday evening. That I was so taken by the whole package was perhaps naïve, but having seen what I assumed to be a fairly representative sample of Service life I decided that I wanted more of it. I had happily taken the UAS bait and was hooked. One month later, tossing aside without regret all thoughts of a career in engineering, I resigned from Queen’s, and applied to join the RAF.