CHAPTER THREE
Smooth – At Least with the Canopy Closed
Most of us had been given a flight in a Vampire T11 when we were about three-quarters way through the Ternhill course, four instructors from No. 5 FTS, RAF Oakington, just outside Cambridge, flying across for a day specifically for this purpose. The contrast with the Provost was marked. Apart from an impressively better performance, the way in which the jet aircraft slipped through the air was dramatically different. With no reciprocating engine vibrations this was smoothness itself and one could almost sense the fluid nature of the airflow.
Our course at Oakington began towards the end of March 1955. We started with the usual concentrated instruction in Ground School, plus this time, an introduction to ejection seats and to the use of oxygen in the air. Flying began with a gentle forty-five-minute sortie to give us a feel for the aircraft, a look at the general area around Oakington, and some familiarisation with local air traffic procedures.
It was very apparent from the outset that the atmosphere at No. 5 FTS was going to be more pleasant than that which had prevailed at No. 6. Whether the differences were due to personalities or to principle I can’t say but we had clearly achieved some subtle change in the level of our acceptability and were now ‘students’ as opposed to ‘pupils’. And for me there was another gain; I had the good fortune to be allocated an instructor whom I liked immediately, Flying Officer Paul Gray. Paul was younger than was the norm for QFIs and was, in fact, one of a small number of pilots who had been especially selected to undergo instructor training at CFS immediately after getting their ‘wings’. The idea behind this was that they would have a clearer and more sympathetic understanding of their students’ difficulties, and perhaps more patience, than those who had had a spell on front-line squadrons. Paul was my instructor throughout the course and we became good friends.
Before we went any further with the flying however, we had to be shown the effects of anoxia and have our ability to withstand very low atmospheric pressure tested. Both were done in a mobile decompression chamber positioned at Oakington for a few days for each course. This looked like a modification of the thing in which, in half-remembered films, one had seen deep-sea divers being treated for the bends. It was a large cylinder with portholes, divided into a main chamber seating eight, and a small subsidiary chamber that could function as an air lock. For our needs the air had to be progressively sucked out of the chamber in order to simulate increasing height. I wasn’t very enthusiastic about getting into this mildly menacing device, not because I was in any way claustrophobic but rather because I didn’t like the idea of being time-locked into it. As it happened the experience was not entirely unpleasant. The routine was to take us first to a simulated 15,000 feet with our oxygen masks off so that we could experience the effects of mild anoxia. To illustrate these to us we were told to write down the figure 1,000 on a pad before reaching 10,000 feet and then to subtract 4 from this and from each subsequent answer until, finally, we were helped to put on our masks again by the safety monitor who was in the machine with us. When we had the masks on, and had had a few sucks of oxygen, it was quite a revelation to see the rubbish that we had written while believing that we had remained fully alive to what was going on. Getting our masks on and breathing oxygen was in fact doubly welcome as it was becoming very obvious as we ‘ascended’ that reducing atmospheric pressure very greatly encourages flatulence.
To complete the session in the chamber we were taken on to a simulated 25,000 feet, paused there to check how everyone was faring, and then taken to 37,000 feet where we were kept for an hour, presumably to check if any of us were likely to be afflicted by the bends while we were ‘up’ there, or ear or sinus problems on the way down.1 That sorted out, and everyone cleared, we were ready to tackle jet flying.
The Vampire T11 was not a pretty aircraft to look at. A development of the single-seat version of the Vampire family, it had lost something in the reshaping process needed to accommodate side-by-side seating. Still, it was a lot more capable than anything that we had been in before. Its Goblin Mark 3 engine, producing 3,200 lbs of static thrust at sea level, gave it a maximum speed of 455 knots and a reasonable rate of climb to 40,000 feet. It got off the ground at 105 knots, stalled at 90 clean (85 with wheels and flaps down), and its 330 gallons of internal fuel gave it an average sortie length in the training role of an hour’s duration. For anyone who really wanted to squeeze time out of it in the air it could be flown at its ‘endurance speed’ of 160 knots when it would burn fuel at a rate of 110 gallons an hour at 30,000 feet (or 180 gallons an hour at sea level).
After two sorties of ‘general handling’ we concentrated on pounding the circuit in preparation for going solo and soon found that the smoothness of the jet aircraft posed a small handling problem that we had not had to think about before: getting rid of speed. All that one had to do in a piston aircraft was to throttle back and the drag of the propeller in fine pitch acted like a brake. And, there was a new technique to be learned with the engine: because of the relative slowness of the Goblin to pick up and produce power it was necessary to anticipate the need for more throttle before the speed started dropping too low; indeed, Pilot’s Notes warned us not to reduce power below 6,000 rpm (full power was 10,600 rpm) on the approach to land. Pilot’s Notes also warned us that ‘movement of the throttle should normally be made slowly to avoid engine surging and high JPTs’. But these were minor matters and my logbook records a twenty-minute solo flight in the T11, immediately followed by forty minutes in the Vampire F5, after three and a half hours’ dual instruction in the former.
The single-seat Vampire entered service as the F Mark 1 with No. 247 Squadron in the air defence role in 1946. The F Mark 3, referred to more commonly as the F3, followed in 1948. The F5, a version of the F3 adapted for the ground attack role with strengthened wings, followed swiftly and served widely with front-line squadrons at home and abroad. By the time we were climbing into the F5s at Oakington the Vampire had almost completely gone from the frontline but was still in service with ten of the twenty then existing RAuxAF squadrons. We were all pleased to discover that most of the solo flying that we would be doing at Oakington would be in the F5s, as these former operational machines represented to our minds a real advance from the pure training aircraft that we had been flying previously. The F5 was also a more rewarding aircraft than the T11 in which to perform aerobatics, as it was lighter and more responsive. And, there was something slightly not right about the feel of the T11, possibly nothing more than the fact that one was sitting off the centre line, or possibly because widening the fuselage had distorted the original design concept somewhat. Certainly, I had not found the off-centre position in the Provost to be any problem at all; but then, that aircraft had been designed from scratch to be a side-by-side seater.
The entire repertoire of standard aerobatic manoeuvres could be done well in the F5, and the aircraft was forgiving enough to allow a fair amount of scope for experimentation. None of us were anywhere near skilled enough to produce anything really new, but we did try. I had given up falling leaves in favour of trying to perfect a vertical, climbing, slow roll followed by a stall turn. I tried for a long time to get it right but I was up against the aircraft’s advertised maximum speed – which I never did quite coax out of the Oakington aircraft – and invariably found myself running out of upward momentum before I could achieve the stall turn. That required just enough forward speed, and therefore airflow, to allow the rudder to turn the aircraft around its vertical axis. If it was done just right the aircraft rotated as it ran out of speed and fell around its axis into a vertical dive.
For the rest of the month we did a lot of circuit work, culminating in what were known as ‘bad-weather circuits’. These were flown for practice at 500 feet as opposed to the normal 1,000 feet down-wind and, because anything below the normal circuit height would involve a flatter turn from down-wind onto the runway heading, thereby raising a risk for the unwary of stalling on finals, it was felt that they justified some instruction and practice. We also did a lot of aerobatics sorties, and started onto instrument flying in the T11. In May we moved on to limited panel instrument practice, aerobatics and navigational cross-country flights (all at 30,000 feet), and ‘high speed runs’ at 40,000 feet dual, and at 35,000 feet solo. Neither the Vampire T11 nor the F5 could reach anywhere near the speed of sound, but sonic shock-waves were created by the acceleration of the air over their wings.2 In the T11 the first signs of compressibility caused by the shock-waves occurred at Mach 0.78. The purpose of ‘high speed’ flights was to let us experience these and their discernible effects on the aircraft.
The T11 was cleared for practice spinning for up to four turns and, from an early stage of the course, we were made well familiar with spinning and the techniques for recovering from spins. That is, upright spins where, in spite of all the bucking, yawing and rotating the aircraft remains basically the right way up. However, on an instrument practice trip, when trying to recover from an unusual position that had been thrown at him, one member of the course managed to get into an inverted spin. Neither he nor his instructor could get the aircraft out of it and, as a result, they had to use the ejection seats while upside down. Even when sitting firmly upright in a seat the acceleration induced by the explosive cartridge that moved it could cause compression fractures of the spine – a problem that the later rocket-propelled seats almost totally eliminated. And, as it was almost impossible to get the seat straps tight enough to avoid hanging a little way from the seat-pad when one was upside down, the seat could be moving damagingly rapidly by the time it connected with its occupant’s buttocks. Fortunately, on this occasion, neither pilot suffered permanent injury.
We were introduced to low-flying in June and graduated into low-level cross-country map-reading trips – all of this highly popular with most of the course. As June slid into July we began to tackle formation flying, first in pairs and later in threes, first at 15,000 feet and ultimately, at 30,000 feet where the thinner air made engine response noticeably slower and less effective and thus good station-keeping a matter of keener anticipation on the throttle. The later formation sorties included ‘tail-chasing’, an enjoyable and safe approximation of formation aerobatics for the novice in which each pilot in a formation hung on the tail of the one in front at 200 yards distance while the leader manoeuvred about the sky.
Formal dinner-nights were held on Friday evenings at least once a month throughout the course. The dress was Mess-Kit for those who had it or No. 1 uniform with dress shirt and black tie for those who didn’t. The evening started at 1930 hours with sherry in the Mess anteroom, where we chatted reasonably politely until 2000 hours when we filed into the dining room. Dinner was served, decorum was preserved and, when the last dishes were cleared, port was passed around the table and glasses filled. At this point the most junior member of the Mess, ‘Mr Vice’(President), was invited by the President of the Mess to propose a toast to Her Majesty. This over, coffee was served and smoking was permitted. The opportunity was then taken by the President to say farewell to any staff member who was leaving the station. No one could leave the table until the President did so.3 Everyone then moved back to the Mess anteroom and, inevitably, at some stage we would get around to playing the games that had been played in Messes during World War Two, and perhaps for years before it. Some of these were quite painless: the Schooner Race, for example, where teams vied with each other to be the fastest at sinking pints of beer, each player having to down his pint before the next one could lift his glass off the table. Others were rough, such as Mess rugby and ‘Highcockalorum’. The latter required a team, usually eight strong to form a line, each person bent over and with his head between the legs of the one in front. The opposing team would then run one at a time at this human centipede, aiming to pile up on some unfortunate’s back somewhere in the middle of the line, and hope to win by causing it to collapse under them. On one evening I got the bulk of the opposing team on top of me and, trying to hold them, tore a muscle in my back. When everyone piled off I found I couldn’t get up and was half-carried off to bed by concerned, inebriated, friends and dumped there. The Station junior medical officer came up, just a little the worse for wear himself, looked at me stretched out on the bed, and went off promising to return with some painkillers. He didn’t return until Saturday evening. Meanwhile, I had managed to drag myself – twice – to the bathroom, but that was so painful I gave up all thought of doing anything further except lying flat on my back. I stayed that way until Monday when I felt sufficiently recovered to get myself to work. Things were not too good for about a week thereafter but I managed not to miss out on any flying. The thought did cross my mind on the odd occasion, however, that ejecting might be a bit painful.
We were judged ready for Instrument Rating Tests in August, to qualify us for our ‘White Cards’. These were the first in a series that went through ‘Green’ to ‘Master Green’ as experience was gained, and increasingly precise instrument flying standards were demanded and displayed during annual rating tests. The ratings qualified pilots to fly in specified ‘Instrument Meteorological Conditions’; among these, and the most significant for us, was the level down to which a pilot was permitted to fly on an instrument approach. White Cards allowed their holders to descend on an approach to 500 feet above the published minimum for the approach aid being used, or for the aircraft being flown, whichever was the higher.
I failed on the first go at the rating test having made a complete cock-up of a 360-degree turn at 30,000 feet, but happily passed without problem the following day. Both trips were with the same examiner, Flight Lieutenant Ben Unwin, our flight commander, a man known for an uncompromising approach and an intimidating manner. However, it was not intimidation that produced my first test’s result but my own lack of meticulous attention to what was happening. The T11 had enough power at high level to allow a turn to be sustained at the 45 degrees of bank required on the test, provided it was flown smoothly, and height and speed were precisely held. If either was lost it was impossible to get them back without first coming out of the turn. I let the height slip.
We began night-flying in mid-September and, as Paul Gray was away for a week, my first three sorties to the solo stage were with Ben. He was a man who cared little for social chatter and on the second sortie, in an endeavour to break the uncomfortable silence in the cockpit that I had experienced on the first, I remarked on the wide and varied lacework of lights that pointed up the spread of towns and villages across the countryside below. This seemed at the time a reasonable try at a bit of conversation. Taking a sneak look the following day at what had been written about my second night sortie – we all tried to see the notes made on us after dual sorties when an opportunity arose – I saw to my great irritation and that I had been recorded as being ‘confused by the lights below’. Vanity again.
The following night Ben sent me solo and I have often wondered what he wrote about me after that flight, for I failed to lock my aircraft’s canopy as I taxied out for take-off. The T11’s canopy was a clam-shell, hinged at the back, motored up and down electrically, and locked in the closed position by a handle located centrally at its front end. I had closed the canopy but did not complete the locking action. As I reached take-off speed, and was easing off the ground, the canopy lifted in the airflow, ripped away with a startling whoosh and disappeared behind me. I felt like a total fool, but there was no time to worry about the likely later consequences of my carelessness. The immediate need was to decide whether to put down again or to continue the take-off and sort things out in the air.
The problem with trying to stop in these circumstances is the likelihood of more damage to the aircraft if there is not enough runway left to stop on and it careers off the end. It is sometimes better to get airborne and sort things out in the air – but not always. I wasn’t entirely sure that I could stop but, as I had no way of knowing what damage the disappearing canopy might have done to the tailplane, stopping and staying firmly on the ground seemed the better option. I shut the throttle, hit the ground, applied the brakes, transmitted ‘aborting take-off’, and managed to stop with a yard or two of runway to spare. I expected Ben to have a few choice words to say when I was delivered back to the crew-room, but that was to come later. Once the runway had been checked for fragments of the canopy, and swept clean, he allocated me another aircraft and told me to go and complete my solo trip. I never again forgot to lock a canopy, or indeed skimped on completing any checks on the ground or in the air.
Only a few sorties were left to be completed over the remaining days of November, including a navigation test, an instrument flying test and the final handling test – and the course was over. The eighteen who had started it finished it and, on 30 November 1955, we were formally awarded our ‘wings’. My final interview was not entirely comfortable and its message could be summed up as ‘could and should have done better’. A bit of a drop from Ternhill, but at least I was deemed worth a posting to the fighter world.
A few months before the course was due to end I had proposed to my girlfriend from university days, Esmé Magowan, and had suggested a date for a wedding to coincide with the leave that I expected to have at the end of the course. She had agreed and we had gone ahead with the necessary arrangements. When I applied formally for permission to be married, a requirement that I thought was simply a matter of courtesy, I was interviewed by the CFI and told quite firmly not to be a silly ass. In his opinion, and this view was still shared by many who had served before World War Two, no one should seriously contemplate marriage much before the age of thirty. Besides, he pointed out, an officer did not qualify for a Marriage Allowance or for a Married Quarter before the age of twenty-five. I felt, with all the arrogance and confidence of the inexperienced, that at the age of twenty-three I was perfectly capable of making up my own mind about marriage and about my ability to cope both with a young wife and with my responsibilities within the Service – and of course I did not acknowledge any connection between concerns about marriage arrangements and forgetfulness in the cockpit. And, I didn’t entirely share the view – held mostly by those who had graduated through age and rank to live in Married Quarters – that a young officer should necessarily be with his fellows in the Mess.
I was not refused permission to go ahead with my plans but it seemed more than a coincidence to find, as I did a day before the course finished, that I alone of its members had been posted to begin the next stage of training three days later. The other seventeen members were off on four weeks’ leave. When I went to say farewell to the man in charge of Station rugby, Flight Lieutenant John Malloy, a friend as a result of my immersion in the game while I was at Oakington, I mentioned my predicament, more as a conversational grumble than as a plea for help. I didn’t expect any favours and didn’t intend to ask for any. However, John, who was also the station Adjutant, got quite indignant about ‘a bit of an underhand deal’ for one of his team and went stomping off to speak to the Station Commander. Later that day a grinning Malloy sought me out in the Mess to tell me that everything had been sorted out and that I would be getting the same spell of leave as the rest of the Course.
That night we had the customary end of course dining-out night and, after the formal bits, we relaxed in the bar in splendid celebratory style, challenged to far too many Schooner races and other damaging games by the junior courses. However, we went to bed happy, me particularly so because of the eleventh hour amendment to my leave schedule. The following morning, in spite of one or two sore heads, we paraded smartly before an audience of relatives, friends, and the visiting Inspecting Officer, our recently bestowed ‘wings’ proudly pinned to our chests. After lunch with our guests and a final round of farewells we were off. I left accompanied by three close friends from the course, John Carter, Jacko Jackson, and Paddy Foyle, all heading for the Liverpool to Belfast boat, and my wedding.