Not only were FB9s without ejector seats, they had a very bad reputation for their habit of stabilising in a spin. In this situation, recovery to normal flight was impossible and the aircraft simply kept spinning until it hit the ground. In consequence, intentional spinning of the FB9 was disallowed. The T11, however, was cleared for spinning when an instructor was present. Yet, even though the twin fins of T11s had an improved profile and larger surface area to make spin-recovery more certain, there were some occasions when this aircraft would not respond to pilot recovery actions.
Such was the case on 8 January 1957 when Rob Gaunt of No 9 SSU was on an instructional flight with Flight Lieutenant Brian Horney. They were forced to jettison the canopy and eject when their T11 failed to respond to spin recovery within the prescribed eight revolutions. The strange thing was that, once they had ejected, the aircraft recovered into wings level flight and continued downward in a powerless glide to its destruction.
All members of my course were pretty apprehensive about flying the FB9, having learned how naughty the aircraft could be. At the same time we had reason to look forward to flying this type because we had been told it was much like flying a Spitfire without the visual limitations given by a long nose and forward-set wings. Nor was an FB9 pilot troubled by the gyroscopic swing and high torque problems that arose from the Spitfire’s huge propeller and immensely powerful, high-response piston engine.
I was the first of my course to fly solo in the T11 having flown a solo test with Flight Lieutenant Colin Graves, the Squadron Commander. This was not a once-around-the-circuit affair, but a full hour including aerobatics. When I taxiied into dispersals a reporter, who had come to cover the first ever jet solo at Thornhill, photographed me. Dave Thorne had done such a good job with the reporter that I was saved an interview and an hour later Dave himself made his first solo flight. Following my first solo, I flew a further three solos and a dual flight before moving to the FB9.
Peter after solo flight in a T11.
The FB9 cockpit presented difficulties for the first flight. When seated in a T11 it was only possible to see the head of a tall man standing six feet forward of the nose of the aircraft. In an FB9, in identical circumstances, the visual freedom given by the low stubby nose was such that one could see the entire man, right down to his shoes. This gave a first-flight student the problem of judging the aircraft’s attitude for climbing and steep turning, having become used to judging aircraft attitude by references to the T11’s high nose.
Flight Lieutenant Mussell had briefed me on what to expect in flight and emphasised that his main concern was that I should not pitch too high and slide the tail booms along the runway during take-off and landing. Preparation for this was very simple. When I was strapped in and ready for engine startup, eight men put their weight on the tail booms to bring the tail protection slides into contact with ground, thus raising the nose beyond normal take-off and landing attitude.
Once I was satisfied that I would remember this position, by using the gun-sight glass as my reference, the nose wheel was set down again and I was ready for my first-ever flight in a single-seater aircraft.
Note the differences in the angle from pilot’s head to aircraft nose between FB9 (foreground) and T11.
On take-off I was immediately aware that the lighter FB9 accelerated better than the T11. At 85 knots I eased back on the control column to lift the nose wheel and noticed the elevator was lighter than the T11 and the aircraft became airborne earlier than I expected. I retracted the undercarriage and the speed mounted normally but then settled at 130 knots instead of the normal 180 knots climbing speed. Clearly my climbing attitude was way too steep. But it was not until I had reached 15,000 feet that I achieved the correct climbing speed when the nose seemed to be so far below the horizon that I felt I should be descending. Levelling off at 30,000 feet was really strange. I put the nose down quite a bit, then some more, then some more but the aircraft kept on climbing. By the time I achieved level flight, using flight instruments, I was at 33,000 feet. For a long while I maintained level flight, looking around to get a feeling for aircraft attitude while enjoying the newfound freedom of excellent forward vision and the ability to see over both sides of the cockpit.
I rolled the aircraft inverted and pulled through gently back to level flight at 390 knots IAS (Indicated Airspeed). Again I really had to force the nose attitude way down to stop climbing. Having done this I went into a series of aerobatics using the wing tips for attitude reference. By the time I was ready to come back to base, I had acclimatised to an aircraft that was every bit as pleasant to fly as I had hoped. Circuits and landings presented no difficulty and I was a very happy young man as I climbed down from the cockpit in time to watch Dave Thorne preparing for his first FB9 flight. I gave him thumbs-up with both hands and, even though he had his mask on, I could see the huge smile in his eyes.
No 11 SSU had arrived at Thornhill and were involved in their GTS phase. My course, being the senior course, was expected to give the ‘new boys’ a Tough time. This we did. Although not obvious to us at the time, the purpose of a senior course giving its juniors a hard time was to weld the individuals of that course into a unified group.
When sixteen youngsters from different backgrounds, with varying characters and levels of ability are put together, they remain sixteen individuals until forced to turn to each other for mutual support. Fear of air combat and a deep hatred for the Nazi enemy automatically welded the youngsters who trained for World War II. In Rhodesia there was no such enemy or fear, so we deliberately set ourselves up as the enemy by inducing situations of discomfort, even hatred, which soon turned the juniors towards each other.
The Vampires were not due to return to Aden until early 1959. However, trouble broke out in the Middle East following the military overthrow of Iraq’s pro-west ruler, King Faisal. Americans landed in Beirut and Russia warned of a possible world war. In support of British deployments to face these situations No 1 Squadron, less the instructors, was on its way at short notice for its second tour to Aden.
For us ground school, square-bashing and PT continued routinely until we learned that our drill instructor Sergeant McCone had met with a bad vehicle accident and would be off line until after our training was completed. We were told that an instructor from the Army’s School of Infantry near Gwelo would be taking his place.
Regimental Sergeant-Major Ron Reid-Daly’s first command drew a quiet “Oh boy!” from Ian Ferguson who was next to me. His commands were the loudest I have ever heard; his posture was ramrod-stiff and every movement he made was impossibly precise. We had come to believe that we were pretty smart in our drill but Sergeant-Major Reid-Daly did not see it this way. For at least six weeks he gave us absolute hell and we hated every moment of his nitpicking and abuse. With his nose almost in contact with anyone who had not executed a movement to his liking, he would scream such threats as “If you don’t stop turning like a fucking ballerina, I will tear your bloody arm off and smash your silly little face with its soggy end… sir.”
Whenever the wind exceeded 15 knots, and that was often, the sadistic sergeant-major chose to put us through formation colours drills. For ‘colours’ we were given a wooden pole to which was affixed a heavy blanket. The wind drag on this arrangement was enormous and very tiring. Strong gusts would either propel the lighter fellows forward or backward bringing about a flurry of abuse from our instructor. But all the time we were getting better at everything and suddenly the pressure eased. We were then introduced to silent drill in which no word of command was given. Following fixed patterns of movement we moved as one and became very proficient at it. Yet for all the practice, 10 SSU was the only course not to display its silent drill skills during the Wings Presentation Parade. Sword of Honour for the best student was another aspect that was bypassed on the day we received our wings.
Ron Reid-Daly, who in the 1970s established and commanded the famed Selous Scouts, became a good friend of mine. Looking back on t
he period he had been sent to drill Nos 10 and 11 SSUs, he told me how horrified he had been when ordered to get over to Thornhill to train a bunch of ‘Brylcreem boy’ officer cadets. He remembered giving us a hard time and said that nothing he tried ever dented our spirit or determination to succeed. He found this both amazing and pleasing. His attitude towards the Air Force changed to one of respect and this was greatly enhanced during Rhodesia’s long bush war.
When we started instrument flying, students were switched among the Vampire instructors. I was fortunate to fly with Flight Lieutenants Colin Graves (Squadron Commander), Chris Dams and Brian Horney. Most of our general training sorties were flown solo. On one of these, a long-range navigation flight, I passed out from the lack of oxygen. The oxygen-control box on the instructor’s side of the cockpit had been set to high flow but I had not noticed this during my pre-engine start-up checks. On the last leg to base, flying over an area known as the Somabula Flats, I became aware of great noise and high vibration which awakened me to the fact that the aircraft was in a steep descending spiral turn, flying at critical Mach. This is when supersonic shock waves develop on sections of a sub-sonic aircraft’s airframe, causing high drag with severe vibration. My mind was confused as I recovered from a situation I had not seen coming. In this dozy state, I dropped undercarriage, instead of activating the dive brakes as I had intended, and put out a call to Thornhill Approach. I was told later that my speech sounded like that of a very drunk man.
By the time the aircraft was in level flight at fairly low level, I was not too far from Thornhill and decided to leave the gear down. The landing was normal and, apart from minor distortion on one of the main-wheel ‘D’ doors, no damage had occurred. Nevertheless I received one hell of a rocket for not having seen the high-flow selection on the instructor’s oxygen-control box and for not noticing my depleted oxygen tank reading before suffering hypoxia.
Shortly after this, Wing Commander Wilson flew me on progress checks and Squadron Leader Dicky Bradshaw conducted my instrument flying test, which was successfully flown on Wednesday, 6 August 1958. This was a day I can never forget!
Beryl and I had been engaged for fourteen months at this stage. Apart from Beryl’s objections to sex before marriage, her mother had planted a notion in our minds that made us decide to get married in secret. Beryl had turned twenty-one two days before, so parental consent was not an issue and we both believed we could keep our marriage secret.
Marriage day—what a hat! What a haircut!
Immediately after my IF test we motored to Bulawayo on the pretext of visiting my brother Tony, who was there on secondment for Territorial Army training. In reality, we had an appointment to be married in the Magistrate’s Court. At three o’clock we were ushered into a room with the magistrate and his assistant. A moment or two later two people, who worked in the Magistrate’s Court, came in to act as witnesses. One of these was a girl from Gwelo. She immediately recognised and greeted Beryl. In so doing she had blown our secret out of the water even before the marriage had taken place! But there was no way out of the situation.
Having been officially pronounced man and wife we visited friends of Beryl’s folks who lived in Bulawayo. This was part of our cover plan but it turned out to be a bad mistake. The family cat took to Beryl in a big way and nothing would induce the long-haired creature to leave her alone.
Beryl had become a chronic bronchial asthmatic as a young girl, which led her parents to move from Britain to the drier climate of Rhodesia. For the most part she had been fine throughout her latter teens but certain irritants, one of which was cats’ hair, could trigger a severe asthmatic attack. Beryl struggled for breath all the way back to Gwelo and any idea of consummating our marriage on our wedding night was lost. I had to get her home to her parents and bed. Then, back in my own single-quarter room I lay on my back and, looking at the ceiling, asked myself aloud “What have you done PB? Have you just destroyed your own future and made Beryl’s uncertain?”
Two days passed before Beryl’s mother made singsong utterings about a little bird having told her a secret. Though she would not tell Beryl what this secret was, it was quite clear that she had heard about our marriage. So we felt compelled to come clean with the folks, who both took the news very well. The Air Force would be another matter! Nevertheless, I decided I had to let Wing Commander Wilson know right away
When I went to the CO’s personal secretary to make an appointment for the following day, her face lit up and away she rushed to the CO’s office. The next moment she called out, “Officer Cadet Petter-Bowyer, the CO will see you now.” I went cold because I had not yet worked out what to say, but it was very obvious to me that the secretary was tapped into Gwelo’s gossip network.
I had absolutely no feeling below my waist. My upper body seemed to glide through the door into the CO’s office and it stopped automatically in front of his desk. An involuntary salute occurred and I could not speak until the CO asked me what my business was. “Sir, I have come to let you know that I married Beryl last week. I need to tell you this before anyone else does.” The Wing Commander’s face told it all. He was dumbfounded and seemed not to know what to say or do. Then he rose from his chair, came around the desk and extended his hand saying, “Let me be the first to congratulate you.”
Archie Wilson was well known for his handshake and many stories have been told of the agony suffered by many an unprepared hand. Those who knew him well made quite certain that they put their hand in rapidly to avoid his snap-action vice-grip from trapping their fingers. I was taken by surprise because his hand trapped my fingers so fiercely that all feeling returned to my legs and I was in such pain that I found myself almost on tiptoes. There was silence between us as he looked me directly in the eye, maintaining his grip on my severely graunched fingers.
“I did not have to get married, sir”, I said in a high-pitched voice. Whereupon the CO let go and said he was relieved to hear this. He invited me to take a seat as he returned to his own. Then, rubbing his chin and looking blankly at his desk, he remained silent. I piped up again, this time in a normal voice, and told him why I had got married. He seemed impressed by Beryl’s attitude to premarital sex and understood my response to this.
Very quietly he told me that I was to continue as normal and he would handle Group HQ in his own time. I was instructed to let the members of my course know my situation and ask them to keep my news to themselves. I found my course mates at Station Equipment Section drawing their wings and pilot Officer-rank braid for our forthcoming Wings Parade.
Two days later Wing Commander Wilson conducted my final handling test for wings. I passed and together with my ten colleagues received my wings on 19 August 1958 from Sir Roy Welensky, the Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. There was no presentation of the Sword of Honour for the best student on 10 SSU but Dave Thorne was presented a book by OC Flying to acknowledge the fact that he attained the best all-round position on our course.
This photograph was taken just before I went to see the CO. Left to right: Ian Law, PB, Gordon Wright, Eric Cary, Murray Hofmeyr, John Barnes, Bill Galloway, Ian Ferguson, Dave Thorne and Keith Corrans.
PB receiving his wings from Sir Roy Welensky.
This was quite a day for Bill Galloway to receive his wings and promotion to acting pilot officer because it was his 21st birthday. The Wings ball that evening was the first such occasion for the Royal Rhodesian Air Force at Thornhill, the forerunner of many to follow.
Operational Conversion Unit
ON 10 SEPTEMBER, MY COURSE moved into the Operational Conversion Unit (OCU) phase, which was the final stage of our two-year course. This was by far the most interesting period of training, during which we learned to use our aircraft as weapons platforms.
First Flight Lieutenant Ted Brent taught me to fire 20mm cannons, He and his wonderful wife Di were to become very close friends to Beryl and me. Ted was a gentleman through and through and his manner appealed to me from
the moment I met him. On the ground and in the air his instructional techniques were very detailed and polished, which made learning a pleasure. In flight, he suggested corrections to my dive angle and aiming errors in a manner that helped me bring my strikes to target without ever making me feel pressurised or foolish.
Flight Lieutenant Frank Mussell (John’s elder brother) was a good Pilot Armament Instructor (PAI) too, though his superior manner somewhat undermined the confidence I thought was needed between instructor and student, particularly during advanced training. Frank introduced me to the delivery of 60-pound rockets. Next, I flew with a very different instructor who had come from the RAF.
Flight Lieutenant Sandy Mutch, then the Flight Commander heading weapons training for No 1 Squadron, was bulldoggish in appearance and during his pre-flight briefings. In line with his personality he was very harsh in aircraft handling. He instructed me in low and high dive-bombing. When I made attacks, he had the nasty habit of grabbing the controls when my flight line was not to his liking and pressing his bomb-release button before I could press mine. This had never occurred with my other instructors so I was pleased that my solo bombing results were better than during instruction.
Having said this, I must say how grateful we were when Sandy persuaded Group HQ to let our course accompany elements of No 1 Squadron to Nairobi for that city’s annual Royal Agricultural Show. Aerobatic and formation displays were to be given at the show by the Royal Rhodesian Air Force in conjunction with displays by the RAF.
Winds of Destruction Page 7
