Trials and Errors

by Mike Brooke

  We did not spend all day and every day in the classroom. That would have been too much for our tiny minds. There were other things to sort out up at the ETPS Fixed Wing Flying HQ, which was situated in offices along the front of one of the hangars. The windows there overlooked the countless acres of the concrete parking area used by the many and varied types of aircraft at Boscombe Down. We had to be issued with flying kit, including bright orange flying suits, anti-G trousers, helmets, lightweight headsets for flying the transport types and an assortment of connectors and other bits and pieces, the purpose of which would eventually become clear. The very affable man in charge of our flying clothing, including anti-G suits, was most appropriately called Tony Gee. His small empire’s HQ was located in a wooden hut in front of the second set of hangars. Like all the ground support personnel Tony was a civil servant; however, the majority of the ETPS staff were service personnel.

  The Officer Commanding (OC) was a group captain, with a wing commander Chief Test Flying Instructor (CTFI) and four fixed-wing tutors, three RAF squadron leaders and one US Navy lieutenant commander on an exchange appointment. There was also a Qualified Flying Instructor and Instrument Rating Examiner (QFI/IRE), who was there to help with conversions to type for everyone and keep the flying standards up to snuff. The Adjutant was Sgt John Hatschek and the Ops Clerk was LAC Bill Anderson, known ironically as ‘Flash’; because the only time he moved faster than a slow trot was when he drove the CO’s staff car! The Operations Officer, who helped to ensure that the daily programme ran as planned, was a civil servant called Ted Steer, who could be relied upon to point us in the right direction! There were also three air engineers who helped with the running of the school’s Armstrong Whitworth Argosy C1 turboprop transport aircraft and many other ancillary tasks within the school. They were Flt Lts Len Moren, who could often be spotted wearing carpet slippers, Terry Colgan, also the school’s entertainment officer, and Terry Jones, who, like us, had just arrived. On the other side of the airfield was the rotary-wing element, manned by RAF and RN (Royal Navy) tutors, plus a Qualified Helicopter Instructor (QHI).

  To be ready to fly the diverse fleet of ETPS flying machines we were to be issued with a barrow load of Pilots’ Notes and checklists, known as Flight Reference Cards (FRCs). There were also a handful of small, neatly typed cards that gave the essential information on flying each of the half dozen aircraft types. All these documents had to be digested rapidly, but thoroughly, before each conversion flight. Unlike the normal RAF practice of taking several months to be taught how to fly a particular aircraft type, we would only be given a maximum of two flights under instruction before we were going to be allowed off the ground as captains of these aeroplanes. The ETPS fixed-wing fleet of the day was:

  • Beagle Basset – two examples; one the standard, twin-prop, piston-engined, 5-seat light communications model and the other a specially modified version to demonstrate in flight the effects of changing parameters of aircraft design and aerodynamics. This one was known as the Variable Stability System or VSS Basset.

  • Jet Provost T5 trainer.

  • Canberra T4 and B2 twin-jet bomber and trainer.

  • Hawker Hunter T7 and F6A fighter and trainer.

  • Argosy C1 four turboprop transport and air-drop aircraft.

  • Lightning T4 twin-jet, supersonic trainer.

  The Ground School was challenging enough, but when I took the assorted volumes of aircraft knowledge home and thought about how much there was to learn in such a short time I began to wonder what I was doing here! However, that anxiety was offset by the frisson of excitement at the thought of being, eventually, let loose on such a wide range of aircraft. And it wasn’t long before that started. I was at the hangar offices of the school one morning, my head reeling from the latest mathematical revelations from Chalky. While I was enjoying a restful coffee one of the tutors, Sqn Ldr Duncan Cooke, a South African-born, ex-Harrier pilot, walked in. He had a brisk way about him and, with a friendly smile, he said, ‘I think that it’s time that you had a break, young fellah me lad. How’s about you and me flying the Hunter together this afternoon?’ My immediate response was a big grin. ‘I’ll take that as a “yes” then. Get your flying kit sorted, read what you can of the Pilots’ Notes and I’ll see you in the Ops Room after lunch.’

  It was 16 January, thirteen years to the day since I had joined the RAF and still more than two weeks before the course would start, and here I was getting ahead of the flying game as well as the academic one. This was more than all right by me. The flight in the Hunter was going to be pretty intense, very little of the usual demonstration followed by practice and correction. There wasn’t time for all the correct Central Flying School (CFS) instructional procedure that I had come to know so well over the past eight years. This was the start of test pilot training, so finding out for oneself was at the top of the agenda!

  I had flown in the two-seat, dual-controlled version of the Hawker Hunter on three previous occasions: twice during a visit to the Royal Navy’s Fleet Requirements and Direction Unit at RN Air Station Yeovilton and once when I visited the RAE at Farnborough. I had gone there before I attended the ETPS Selection Boards to find out what the test pilots at Farnborough did to earn their crust. One of them was Flt Lt John Sadler, an old mate who had been on No. 16 Squadron at RAF Laarbruch in Germany with me. When I had flown the Hunter T7 with John we had climbed out over the English Channel so that we could make a dive and go supersonic without annoying people with our sonic boom. That was the first time I had seen a Machmeter exceed one; admittedly by not very much! During those three trips the pilots had let me fly the aircraft for some of the time.

  Now I was walking round the very attractive aeroplane that was one of Sir Sydney Camm’s aesthetic creations, being shown what to check before getting on board. Once that had been achieved I strapped into the left-hand seat and then looked around. It all seemed somewhat familiar because the seat procedures and the cockpit layout reminded me of the Canberra T4 trainer in which I had spent so many hours in the last three years. The view of the outside world was a little better, but not much, especially when the cockpit canopy had been lowered and locked into position. The Canberra familiarity continued when starting the engine. Essentially it was the same R-R Avon engine that I had used in the Canberra B(I)8 and was started by the identical cartridge system. All the flight and engine instruments were about the same; the only difference was that the aircraft was controlled from a single central stick, and not a yoke, and there was only one throttle.

  By the time we had reached the holding point of Boscombe’s south-westerly runway, I had got used to using the handgrip brake and rudder to turn the aircraft. After carrying out the pre-take-off checks we lined up for departure. One new principle was that I didn’t need to learn the checklist sequences, in fact it was positively discouraged. Because we students would be flying a multitude of very dissimilar types, often three on the same day, then the FRCs were the only way that we could be sure that we had done everything correctly.

  Another new approach was that there would be very little demonstration of techniques. Accordingly, I lined up the Hunter on the runway and Duncan just monitored things as I did the take-off. The acceleration was much like a Canberra: positive but not startling. At the briefed speed I moved the stick back, quite a long way it felt, and I was a little taken aback that nothing happened. Soon, though, the nose wheel started to lift off the ground. I held the slight nose-up attitude and at about 150kt we were airborne. Then I squeezed the brake lever and raised the undercarriage. At this point a gentle side-to-side wing rocking started, which I couldn’t seem to stop. In fact my attempts at correction were making it worse so I just held the stick central while the landing gear retracted. Once it was up I raised the flap.

  The wing rocking had stopped and it was now very easy to hold the aeroplane still and let it accelerate to the climbing speed of 350kt. The wing rocking after take-off was all down to the relationship between t
he higher breakout force to initiate movement of the ailerons and the very low friction once the stick was moving. Like all Hunter pilots before me, I would see for myself that pilot compensation was the cure and after a couple of sorties I knew what to expect and how to avoid it instinctively. It was my first lesson that no aeroplane ever built is absolutely perfect in every respect.

  The flight itself was an exploration of the Hunter’s flight envelope, although we didn’t go supersonic. We stalled, with the wheels up and down, the flaps up, part down and fully down. At best the stalling speed was about 110kt. Then a few aerobatics, looping from 400kt, rolling at 350kt and all the while the control forces were very light. Hard turns revealed that the maximum rate of turn at about 360kt was found as the airflow started to separate from the back of the wings, which caused a very clear and perceptible vibration, known as buffet. The resultant increases in G-force inflated the anti-G trousers, squeezing my legs and my lower abdomen: another new sensation for me. It was great to be zooming around considerable amounts of sky in such a responsive and exciting jet.

  Probably because I was enjoying myself too much Duncan said, ‘OK, let’s fly straight and level at 300kt.’

  I duly adjusted everything and then Duncan reached out and selected two double-pole switches from the up position to down. The controls stopped working. The control column became a rigid rod sticking up out of the cockpit floor.

  ‘That’s what it’s like when the hydraulics fail,’ explained Duncan. ‘Now try a turn.’

  I forced the stick to the left and pulled slightly to hold the nose up and stop the jet descending. ‘Roll into a turn to the right,’ came the next instruction. I had to use both hands to do that. A gentle chuckle with a slight South African accent emanated from the right-hand seat. Eventually we slowed down, dropped the undercarriage and then the flap and manoeuvred some more. After five minutes of this my arms were getting tired, particularly after dealing with the changes of trim with the flaps moving up and down.

  ‘Right, that’s enough,’ Duncan said. ‘Switch the hydraulics back on and we’ll go home and do a few circuits. On your next trip you’ll do much more of that. I would have thought that a Canberra pilot would have found that flying in manual2 quite easy.’ My wry look at him across the cockpit was sufficient answer.

  Soon enough I flew the Hunter T7 again, with lots of manual flying and practice of the forced landing pattern onto the airfield; no landing this machine in fields like I had practised and taught in the Chipmunk! The Practice Forced Landing (PFL) was quite a plunge at the ground starting at about 6,000ft over the upwind end of the runway and ending with a rapid and steep descent at the other end. Once the flaps were fully down it was very easy to unintentionally initiate a wing rocking motion and firm but careful use of the stick and rudder was the only way to stop it.

  I was also introduced to something called the One-in-One radar guided approach, used when the engine has failed and the weather precludes the visual PFL overhead the airfield. This involved matching the distance to touchdown given by the controller with the height: 1,000ft for every mile. No great mental strain then, but plenty of physical strain flying it in manual. Nevertheless, I must have done everything to my mentor’s satisfaction because, a week later, I walked into the Ops Room and found my name on the programme board to fly Hunter F6A XE 587.

  I had already been warned to read up the Pilot’s Notes and so I felt ready to take to the air for the very first time in a single-seat jet. As I walked out to the pretty red and grey painted fighter I felt like a kid in a sweet shop. I made sure that nothing was obviously amiss, that it had the right number of wings and wheels and then climbed the short, narrow ladder to get aboard. After the ground crew had helped me strap in I took a minute just to look around the cockpit. Some things were very familiar, some new. There was a switch marked BRIGHT/DIM. I didn’t know what it did but I set it to BRIGHT; I didn’t want to be dim today. The starting system was different in that it did not use cartridges but AVPIN, a very volatile liquid. I had experience of this system when I had flown the Canberra PR9, which had the more powerful Avon 206 engines. The Hunter 6 also had more thrust than the T7, another thing to look forward to.

  After start-up, with the engine idling nicely and all the electrical and hydraulic systems checked I put my oxygen mask on and switched on the microphone. Oh, no! I thought. The wretched thing’s not working. I can’t hear myself. I hate it when the jet’s all ready to go and something breaks!

  Nevertheless, I thought that I’d call for a radio check with the control tower. As soon as I pressed the transmit button on the throttle I could hear myself talking. The controller came back immediately with, ‘Tester 70, you are loud and clear.’

  Of course! This jet doesn’t have intercom. Why should it? Idiot!

  After that I just got used to not hearing myself as I ran through the checklist. Soon enough I was lined up at the beginning of runway 24, ready to slip the surly bonds of earth in a really meaningful way. I opened the throttle to about 80 per cent of full power, released the brakes and then put the throttle on the front stop. Two things happened: first an awesome howling noise emanated from just outside the cockpit and then we set off down the runway like a scalded cat. Both effects were due to the bigger Avon engine and the lighter weight of the single-seat model of the Hunter. I was up and off in no time. I climbed out to the west and proceeded to have a wonderful time! I did all the things I had been briefed to do and, after forty-five minutes of unbridled enjoyment, landed. As I turned off the runway and despite the fact that I could not hear myself I shouted, ‘What have I been doing for all these years when there were jets like this to fly?’

  The following day I flew a second sortie in the F6A. It was just as much fun as the first, although my first attempt at a PFL in manual was hardly text book; but I would have landed safely eventually and probably stopped just before the end of the 10,000ft runway! After a relaxing trip in a T4 Canberra, for which the management had decided that I didn’t need a dual check, the time for the official start of our course was getting imminent.

  Notes

  1 As described in Follow Me Through published by The History Press, 2013.

  2 ‘Manual’ was the term used when the hydraulic pressure to the flying controls was not available.

  2 AND SO TO SCHOOL

  Monday 3 February 1975 was the first day of that year’s ETPS graduate courses. There were actually three courses running concurrently. In 1975 they were: No. 34 Fixed Wing (FW) and No. 13 Rotary Wing (RW) for the pilots and No. 2 Flight Test Engineer (FTE) course for a handful of scientific civil servants. All three courses would finish on Friday 12 December. That seemed so far off as to not be worth thinking about. Stamina was going to be a key to survival. We had all been instructed to gather at the Officers’ Mess at 8.30 a.m. from whence we were to be transported by coach to the ETPS Ground School building. This would be the only time that we would be afforded such luxury. From the next day onwards it would be bicycles, cars or Shanks’ Pony. Some of us, the ‘Select Few’, had already been together over the past three weeks, getting our brains sharpened through the ministrations of Wg Cdr ‘Chalky’ Rodgers and his staff. Now we were all together, settling into our desks for the next nine months or so. There was the usual plethora of formalities to be completed and, at 10 a.m. promptly, we were greeted by a series of the great and the good of Boscombe Down.

  It is worth explaining how this large and diverse organisation worked in the mid 1970s. At the top of the tree was a senior RAF officer, the Commandant, an experienced test pilot and at that time Air Commodore A.D. Dick, OBE, AFC, MA. He represented all the military services’ involvement in the establishment’s work in the assessment and development of air vehicles for the three armed forces. He worked alongside a senior scientific civil servant known as the Chief Superintendent, who wasn’t a policeman, but oversaw and took responsibility for all the scientific work of the establishment. And that bore the grand title of the Aeroplane and A
rmament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE or colloquially A²E²), even then a somewhat archaic title, as the establishment dealt with all types of aircraft, not just aeroplanes, and there was not much in the way of experimental flying done there any more. That was more the preserve of the various RAE sites across the UK.

  ETPS had its home at Boscombe Down and the Establishment provided all the facilities it needed. In the chain of service command down from the Commandant was the Superintendent of Flying, an RAF group captain, and the three test squadron COs, who were all wing commanders, or other services’ equivalents. ETPS was under the supervision of its OC who was, at the time, an RAF group captain. All the customary support services for military personnel at Boscombe Down were provided by the RAF Unit and commanded by an Administration Branch RAF squadron leader.

  After listening politely to the CO of ETPS, Gp Capt. Alan Merriman, the CTFI, Wg Cdr Wally Bainbridge and, last but by no means least, the Chief Ground Instructor, the aforementioned Wg Cdr John Rodgers, we started a whole new round of interviews. The first was with Gp Capt. Merriman, who had already grilled me twice before, when I had attended the ETPS Selection Boards in 1973 and 1974! Still, it was nice to chat again in a much more relaxed atmosphere. He was friendly in that special way that senior officers have of making you feel simultaneously at ease but keeping you aware that you are in ‘the presence’. When he asked what my ambition for the course was I answered, ‘To be at the McKenna Dinner, sir.’3

  That evening we all met up in the Officers’ Mess for a ‘Meet and Greet’ with all the staff. There were guys from many nations among the student body. From the USA was Lt Cdr Tom Morgenfeld, a US Naval Aviator fresh from flying the F8 Crusader. With his black hair and moustache, Tom had a look reminiscent of a Mexican bandito; which was very strange considering that he was from upstate New York and had a German surname! From Denmark was Capt. Svend Hjort, an F-100 Super Sabre driver; a real fair-haired Scandinavian with a fighter pilot’s blue eyes and lantern jaw. Then there was a French fighter pilot with an excess of Gallic charm and a total lack of Gallic hair – Commandant Gerard Le Breton, lately from a Mirage F1 squadron of the French Air Force. Gerard would soon become the focus of attention of most of the wives and girlfriends whenever he walked into a room! Later in the course he would turn things around by bringing his excessively beautiful French wife over; then it was the boys’ turn to gawp! There were also two guys from Germany, both civilian German Ministry of Defence pilots – Udo Kerkhoff and Eddie Küs. Udo was a very amusing and amiable chap with a mop of blonde hair that was rarely in good Teutonic order. Udo was a transport pilot latterly with the Franco-German Transall. Eddie was a good-looking but follically challenged helicopter pilot. Another pair who shared their nationality were Indian Air Force pilots ‘Rusty’ Rastogi and P.K. Yadav, both from MiG-21 squadrons. Then there was an Italian, Bruno Bellucci, who had come from the F-104 Starfighter but was actually going to become a helicopter test pilot. I think that all the Fixed Wing students felt very sorry for Bruno; it was going to be hard enough doing the course in another language, but to also have to learn a whole new way of flying at the same time was a very big ask! The final legal alien was our Antipodean, Fg Off (yes, a Flying Officer) Mark Hayler RAAF, ex-DHC Caribou and Mirages; a good background to come here and fly the variety of aeroplanes we were going to use. He was also my next door neighbour on the married patch.