Trials and Errors

by Mike Brooke

  Well, the answer came soon enough. This time we would be ‘on the road’ for a whole three days on what became known as the Midlands Tour. On to the Argosy (by now the sobriquet ‘All-soggy’ was being used in a variety of foreign accents) and our first destination was to be the airfield of Hawker Siddeley Aviation (HSA) at Dunsfold in Surrey. As usual, the high-priced help was up in the cockpit while the rest of us sat in the cheap seats downstairs. We had not been airborne long when our Fleet Air Arm (FAA) rep, Simon Thornewill, started complaining that he couldn’t see out of his ‘porthole’ too well.

  ‘There’s pink, gooey stuff all over the window,’ he moaned. As I was sitting close by I had a look. It was hydraulic fluid! An engineer was requested. Terry Jones arrived, confirmed the diagnosis, fell about laughing and then rushed up top to inform management. As we were now nearer Dunsfold than Boscombe, the whole flight being not much more than half an hour’s duration, we pressed on eastwards. Not much later the flow of raspberry juice reduced. We were full of admiration for our flight deck engineer, Lenny Moran, whom we assumed had taken the correct remedial action. After landing we found out that our confidence was misplaced; the flow had slowed because the tank had emptied! As we walked away from the sad-looking aeroplane there was an easily seen cherry red stripe down the side of the fuselage. US Naval Aviator Tom Morgenfeld said, ‘If that was a Crusader (his operational steed) we’d just go ahead and launch it.’ Vic Lockwood said that if he walked out to a Lightning (his operational steed) and it wasn’t leaking hydraulic fuel he wouldn’t take it because it was empty! We left the engineers to try to fix our sole means of onward transport and spent the day learning about Harriers and Hawks, the latter then still being in development as the RAF’s next advanced trainer.

  By teatime the Argosy had been repaired and the fixed-wing students re-embarked for our onward journey north to visit Rolls-Royce’s Derby Engine Division. This time our arrival destination was East Midlands Airport. The ‘rotor heads’ returned to Boscombe Down in an aged and clattering Pembroke communications aircraft. No second Rolls-Royce entertainment for them!

  After arrival at East Midlands Airport we were taken to our overnight accommodation at the Pennine Hotel in central Derby, where we had an hour to spruce ourselves up before being treated to dinner. Most of us used only ten minutes of that allowance for its stated purpose and spent the rest of the time in the bar! The evening passed very pleasantly with Messrs R-R living up to the standard set by their West Country brethren in Bristol: a splendid multi-course dinner, ample wine and excellent company. This all took place at the Palm Court Restaurant at Allestree in north Derby. Some of our number thought that our venerable CGI, Chalky Rodgers, was disappointed not to find a matronly string quartet playing under the eponymous palms. After a very pleasant evening the coach returned us to our hotel before we all turned into pumpkins.

  Our hosts were very kind to us the next morning. After arriving at their factory in Moor Lane we were deposited in a softly lit lecture room and regaled with all sorts of mostly useful and interesting information on the company and its two major engine projects of the time: the military Adour for use in the Jaguar and Hawk; and the giant RB 211 for commercial airliners. Crippling costs of the development of this advanced powerplant had led to the whole of Rolls-Royce, in business since 1914, being nationalised by the Conservative government in 1971. The world-renowned car division of the business had been separated from the parent company in 1973 as Rolls-Royce Motors.

  After a talk about their future aero-engine projects, a visit to the research labs and lunch, we were taken on tours of the production facilities and test rig. The most fascinating part was watching a 2ft-long RB 211 fan blade that was under test waving like a reed in a gale force wind. We were also intrigued by the precision casting of tiny compressor and turbine blades through an interesting moulding technique called ‘The Lost Wax Procedure’; this gave rise to some very dubious humour! With that highly educational gem in our heads we were conveyed back to East Midlands Airport where our transport of delight was waiting to take us on our way for the third leg of our voyage around England. This time to an airfield even us Brits had never heard of: Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, not far from Beverley and Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire. We would soon learn that it was invariably referred to as ‘HOSM’. The forty-minute flight passed uneventfully, with no reappearance of pink liquid. However, a few seconds after landing there was a very audible thump-thwack from underneath the aircraft. This was because we had passed over a rigged arrestor cable on the runway that was there for the emergency use of the resident Buccaneers and Phantoms. This event brought on much chatter from the assembly of amateur Argosy pilots in the belly of the said flying machine. That was because we all knew that the Argosy’s Release to Service only allowed it to go over (‘trample’ in the trade) a rigged cable at walking speed! We reckoned that as the aircraft was being flown by two very senior test pilots they should write a report, to be handed to the appropriate authorities (within ten days of course!), to extend that clearance. However, it might be worth inspecting the underside of our dear old Argosy before they did so!

  Back in my native Yorkshire I, for one, was hoping that this would be a fitting climax to this time away from school. I was not to be disappointed. After a group photograph was taken a coach took us to HSA’s aircraft factory at Brough Aerodrome, on the north bank of the wide, grey River Humber, within sight of the splendid Humber Suspension Bridge. There had been an airfield at Brough since the days of the First World War, when Robert Blackburn set up a factory there for the manufacture and testing of his aircraft. In the 1930s Blackburn built a side-by-side, two-seat, biplane trainer called the B2 and this allowed the company to gain a training contract with the RAF. Many soon to be RAF aces, such as Ginger Lacy, were trained at Brough. The airfield had a splendid Art Deco building on its western boundary, which was the Brough Flying Club HQ. It was in this building that we were to be accommodated and fed.

  After the by now usual rapid sprucing most course members were to be found in the bar imbibing their first aperitif of the evening. The TV was on and showing Top of the Pops. When the troop of gorgeous girls called Pan’s People appeared and started their musical gyrations Vic Lockwood was heard to call across the room to one of our air engineers, sipping his port and lemon, ‘Hey, Lennie, turn up your pacemaker and come and watch this lot!’

  Things got a bit more staid and serious when we sat down to a formal dinner hosted by the Executive Director, Mr Essex-Crosby, and many of the company’s senior staff, including CTP Don Headley and his deputy Tom Gilmore. The evening included a splendid slide show of the company’s wide range of aircraft from the 1910 monoplane to the modern Buccaneer, still being made on-site. At the end of dinner the sensible ones went to bed and the rest hit downtown Hull; I’d been there before and didn’t reckon it was worth the considerable taxi fare on a Thursday evening!

  The next day dawned fair and, by way of a change we walked to our first appointed rendezvous. This was to be a long perambulation through the factory, looking at large billets of metal being fashioned by huge precision milling machines into bits of aeroplane for the Buccaneer. There were other areas where more conventional manufacturing processes were fabricating sections of Hawk, Harrier and Trident airliner. Brough was the only place in the UK where one could still see huge blocks of metal going in one end of a factory and aeroplanes coming out of the other end. Within a few years it was to be the last.

  After coffee we were taken out onto the edge of the airfield to find that a shiny little biplane had been wheeled out for us to look at. This was the aforementioned Blackburn B2 trainer of the 1930s that the company had preserved and kept in flying condition. It was a bit like a chubby Tiger Moth but much prettier. After we had all had a good look at it our gallant leader, Gp Capt. Alan Merriman, was invited by Don Headley to climb aboard and try it for size. They went off and flew around over the airfield while we all watched jealously from below. After a coup
le of gentle aerobatic manoeuvres the machine puttered back to just outside the hangar where Pete Sedgwick was waiting for his turn. We students, however, walked back to the Aero Club to retrieve our suitcases and get ready for our departure. That was after a wonderful lunch, in keeping with Yorkshire tradition on a Friday – fish and chips, with mushy peas, accompanied by strong tea in decent sized cups! The fish was as fresh as it should have been so near to the North Sea.

  It was now time to head back to HOSM, look over and into Buccaneers and Phantoms, and inspect some of the very modern test equipment and instrumentation, which were incongruously housed in 40-year-old single-storey wartime buildings. After final chats with the flight test folk we climbed aboard the Argosy for the last time, at least this week, and were flown back to Boscombe Down. Thank goodness it was Friday. We could have two days to recover before we tackled the next set of test exercises!

  Apart from a one-day visit to Westland Helicopters Ltd at Yeovil in Somerset we had almost the whole month of July to allay the Principal Tutor’s worries and catch up with the syllabus. Then, almost at the end of the second term we were off again! On 30 July we were taken, again by Andover, to Rochester in Kent to spend the day discovering the electronic gismos and thingamajigs that the company of Marconi-Elliott put into modern aeroplanes and helicopters. Head-Up Displays (HUDs), navigation and attack systems, automatic flight controls systems and the company’s thoughts on the future of digital technology in aircraft were all on the agenda. So was another sumptuous lunch at which the steaks that were served were definitely not Marconi sub-miniatures!

  On Tuesday 23 September, a rather special visit was laid on; but only for three of our number, plus a responsible adult in the form of Fixed Wing Tutor, Pete Sedgwick. Ted Steer drew the names out of a hat and the three lucky winners were: Edward Küs, Svend Hjort and yours truly (well done, Ted!). The visit was to be a few hours aboard the RN aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, which was working up in the reserved sea-space off Dorset. We flew to the ship in the ETPS Puma and arrived in time to be taken below for coffee. That was followed by a tour of the ship’s main operations centres finishing on the bridge. Flying was taking place and landings were about to commence so we were escorted onto the balcony overlooking the flight deck, known to all in the trade as ‘Goofers’. From there we watched Phantoms and Buccaneers arriving, some making hook-up practice landings and go-arounds, others being arrested by one of the four wires strung across the deck.

  A Buccaneer arrived and missed the wires altogether. This led to him taking off again, only just achieving sufficient lift before the deck ran out. This is known in the trade as a ‘bolter’. I later learnt that this was a Boscombe Down test pilot; his name will be withheld to save embarrassment. Then a Phantom arrived and seemed to be a bit lower on its approach than all its predecessors. Just as the aircraft arrived over the back end of the ship a wave lifted the stern and there was an almighty impact with what is known as the ‘round-down’. Bits could be seen coming away from the Phantom’s undercarriage. The pilot, no doubt a bit shaken, made a low, slow flypast with the landing gear down. The powers that be decided that he would have to return to land ashore. By now all the brave aviators were back on deck and it was time for us to depart.

  The final of our educational expeditions around the UK was to be christened ‘The Great Northern Gourmet Tour’. This excursion would go first to the British Aircraft Corporation’s (BAC) airfield and production facility at Warton, near Blackpool in Lancashire, then onwards, even further north, to Scotland, the ‘Home of the Brave’, to visit Ferranti Ltd in Edinburgh and Scottish Aviation at Prestwick in Ayrshire. As had become the norm that year the ‘Whistling Wheelbarrow’ was to be our preferred conveyance and we departed Boscombe Down at an early hour to arrive at Warton in time for coffee. But about twenty minutes after lift-off, when most of the company had dozed off, there was an almighty BANG, accompanied by a lurch and a flash. Most folk blamed Duncan Ross, but there was no accompanying bad odour. In fact the aircraft had been struck by lightning. Svend Hjort pondered that it might be Thor’s revenge for the irreverent and rowdy Viking party he had held the previous Saturday night. The captain, Wg Cdr Wally Bainbridge, decided to carry on to our destination where the airframe would be examined for damage while his passengers got on with the business of the visit to BAC. In fact, the engineers found a hole burnt into the port elevator horn, which they patched up in the tradition of their trade with linen and dope (for our younger readers – dope is a liquid that shrinks and strengthens the linen, not a drug!). What no one spotted was that the lightning had also struck the end of the long pole sticking out forward from the top of the cockpit. This carried the moveable vanes to measure angles of attack and sideslip. It wasn’t until later, during the first asymmetric handling exercise, that some very strange results were found. Expected sideslip angles were much lower than indicated. This was because the vane had been welded into its neutral position by the lightning bolt! Goodness only knows what sideslip angles had really been generated by Duncan Ross and his tutor Walt Honour!

  The visit to Warton went off much as expected. There were the usual presentations on products followed by a look at some of them: Jaguars, the MRCA prototypes and the new Combat Simulator, housed in a dome kept in shape by positive air pressure. Most of us were allowed a short attempt at shooting down an adversary in the simulator; some did well, funnily enough mostly the bomber pilots! The MRCA and its testing were probably of most interest as it had first flown only a year earlier and was still heavily involved in its development programme. Its two test pilots, Paul Millet and Dave Eagles, were very open about how the programme was progressing and what they had found to date.

  After the completion of the visit we were taken to the Fernlea Hotel in St Annes for the usual routine of changing and preening. At the appointed hour we were taken from there into Blackpool and the evening’s watering hole, the Savoy Hotel. En-route our overseas guests were able to marvel at ‘t’ lluminations’ and the famous Blackpool Tower. However, our Frenchman, Gerard Le Breton, appeared underwhelmed by the latter, which he found to be an inferior copy of Monsieur Eiffel’s original. BAC had reserved a room at the Savoy for our dinner. However, just after our arrival some souls ventured a look around inside other parts of the rather grand edifice. It transpired that the annual conference of the Labour Party was being held in Blackpool that week and on that evening many highly recognisable political faces could be spotted in the hotel. One of our number was later seen dragging the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, by the arm in our direction. However, the Right Honourable Gentleman was heard protesting that our company was far too young for him to join! It was probably all a bit right wing for him as well.

  After a very enjoyable dinner with our hosts, several of our number had been told by our hosts that the place to seek for further amusement was called Jack Pye’s Club: an establishment where ladies publicly divested themselves of their garments. During their search, a local Bobby (police constable for foreign readers) was accosted with a demand for directions to the said establishment.

  ‘We closed it down two weeks ago,’ came the reply.

  Someone piped up with another similar place of entertainment that he had heard about, ‘What about Jack London’s?’

  ‘Not open on Wednesdays,’ replied the officer of the law.

  ‘Is there anywhere like those places open?’

  ‘Not really. You could always try the disco,’ came the reply.

  The scouting party decided to go where the BAC hosts and our less adventurous companions had said they were going: a nightclub called ‘The Lemon Tree’. Like most such establishments the beer was sold in half-pints for the price of a pint, any other drinks needed a small mortgage and the women there were only slightly more attractive than the men!

  The following morning started with an amusing conversation between Gerard Le Breton and the spotty youth serving us breakfast. When asked what he would like to eat Gerard replied, ‘I weel ’a
ve ze scrambled eggs, s’il vous plaît.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t do scrambled eggs,’ came the reply.

  ‘But you ’ave eggs. My friend ’ere is ’aving poached eggs, n’est ce pas?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir, you can have your eggs poached or fried – which do you want?’

  ‘I want ze chef to take ze eggs and break zem into a bowl and stir zem up to make scrambled eggs,’ was the insistent answer. ‘Or per’aps an omelette?’

  ‘Poached or fried, sir,’ was the next bargaining position in this escalating war of culinary words.

  Gerard knew when he was beaten (unlike his desired eggs). ‘Sacré bleu! Just toast!’ came the exasperated denouement.

  Those who had stayed out late, sampling the dubious delights of a midweek night out in Blackpool, had ample time to catch up on their beauty sleep as we droned even further north from Warton to Edinburgh Turnhouse Airport. As we did so Duncan Ross became definitely perkier, and the braw twang in his speech definitely became more noticeable. However, the welcome he had no doubt hoped that our company would receive on his native turf was less than full of warm Scottish hospitality. We spilled off the Argosy to await a coach that, after ten minutes, still had not appeared; and it was perishing cold out on the tarmac. ‘I speak the lingo, so I’ll go and find out what’s happening,’ declared our son of Scotia. The rest of us retreated out of the cutting wind back on board the Argosy. Duncan was obviously successful as, eventually, a coach arrived and took us to Ferranti’s Crewe Toll factory on the outskirts of Scotland’s capital city. Those that had still not caught up sufficiently on their shut-eye were able to continue the quest in the warm darkness of the lecture room into which we were led. Those that stayed awake were given the opportunity to learn about such esoteric airborne electronic equipment as Inertial Navigation and Attack Systems (INAS), Military Lasers, Airborne Radar and Ferranti’s wish list for the future. Lunch was taken on site and after a tour of the factory we were whisked away to our final overnight accommodation, which was the modern and upmarket King James Hotel in downtown Edinburgh. The evening was rounded off by an excellent dinner, much like a service dining-in night, back at Crewe Toll. There was an open forum of after-dinner jokes, hosted by ex-RAF tp Bill Morrison (Gp Capt. retired), Ferranti’s military liaison man. Those gags offered by Vic Lockwood were definitely the worst!