Winds of Destruction

by Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer

  On 18 December the instructors were released from Ndola to return to normal duties. Most of the flight back to Thornhill was in bright clear skies, which was wonderful after the awful weather around Ndola. However, this changed as we approached Thornhill where we had to make independent radar approaches through torrential rain in severe thunderstorms. Bulawayo and Salisbury were experiencing similar conditions so there were no question of a diversion. Flight Lieutenant Ron Vass directed me by radar to the point where I was handed over to the Precision Radar Controller whose voice I recognised as that of Squadron Leader Bat Maskell. Without hesitation I requested to be passed to Flight Lieutenant Mac Geeringh. As always Mac guided me right onto the runway whose lights I did not see until Mac instructed me to look up for touch-down.

  Having just settled down in the crew-room with a cup of coffee, I received a call from OC Flying who asked why I had insulted Squadron Leader Maskell by asking for Mac for the final radar talk-down. I explained that there had been no intention of insulting anyone but that a few weeks earlier on an instrument let-down in clear sky conditions my student, reacting correctly to Bat Maskell’s directions, would have reached ground well to the right of the runway. The experience had badly affected my confidence in him. Mac Geeringh, on the other hand, had a very reassuring voice and a special way of coaxing a pilot down the glide slope. For me, this had always ended up smack on the runway centre-line. Considering the weather conditions during this let-down I needed this confidence. OC Flying was satisfied, I heard no more about the matter and my personal relationship with Bat seemed unaffected.

  The return to Provosts and instruction after jet flying seemed boring but it had its rewards because Dave Hume, Griff and Bruce McKerron were coming along well. But then I was very annoyed when told I would be losing my best student, Dave Hume, to take on Officer Cadet Dave Becks whose instructor had engineered a direct swap of students.

  Gwelo Gliding Club

  OUR METEOROLOGIST, HARVEY QUAIL ALWAYS provided very accurate forecasts of weather conditions until his deep involvement with the Gwelo Gliding Club, which he founded, seemed to rob him of his forecasting talent.

  Harvey Quail.

  In 1962 he persuaded me to join his club as its Chief Flying Instructor. I accepted the position on condition that all flying members were grounded until they had undergone full instruction in spin recoveries with a Bulawayo instructor who owned a Tiger Moth. This was because, in 1961, two learner pilots had inadvertently entered spins and died because they had not been taught how to avoid or recover from this flying hazard. I would have preferred to do the instruction myself but our trainer, a Slingsby T31, was not suited for the purpose.

  Every flight I ever made in a glider gave me special pleasure, even the simple instructional ones. I particularly enjoyed flying high-performance, single-seater machines. So far as I was concerned, gliding could not be compared with powered flight. It possessed a magic all of its own and two particular flights stick in my mind.

  Mrs Mungay (pronounced Mingay), a great enthusiast who was always on hand to make tea for anyone needing refreshment, asked me to take her up on a short jolly. We made a normal cable-winch launch in the Slingsby T31 tandem trainer for what was intended to be a simple circuit and landing. However, on this occasion we entered strong lift just before the normal cable-release point so I cut free and entered into a tight turn to hold the thermal.

  The initial rate of climb was impressive and, amazingly, it kept increasing. The T31 was considered to be more like a streamlined brick than a performance glider but our thermal was so potent that we climbed with ease to 11,000 feet where it was bitterly cold.

  Being in an open cockpit dressed in shorts and a light shirt did not concern me because I was concentrating on climbing as high as possible. However Mrs Mungay, using the old-fashioned voice tube shouted, “My fanny is frozen." I laughed and ignored her problem until at 11,600 feet she was pleading with me to get her back on the ground. I rolled out of the turn to break from the thermal but the aircraft just carried on climbing. A little short of 12,000 feet I placed the glider in a full sideslip that did the trick and we descended down through ever-warmer air until finally we were back on the ground.

  Since there had been no intention to do more than fly one circuit, the aircraft had not been fitted with a barometric recorder to prove the height achieved. So there was no point in complaining that I might have been denied the opportunity to claim a world height record for a Slingsby T31, simply because my passenger’s fanny was frozen.

  My second memory is of a failed attempt to fly a Slingsby Swallow from Gwelo Gliding Club to the Salisbury Gliding Club. Progress was fine initially thanks to a starting height of 14,300 feet over Gwelo. But in the Redcliff area near Que Que I could find no thermals at all. In desperation I made for the Rhodesian Iron and Steel Company works to pick up lift around a smoke column rising from the factory. The acrid smoke made me cough and splutter and I experienced eye-watering burning of my eyes. As soon as I had sufficient height to make for Que Que I broke out into clean air. On two occasions I flew towards hawks soaring in weak thermal conditions but eventually I was forced to land in a farmer’s field and await collection. Any hope of becoming a proficient high-performance glider pilot was short lived. Club life was robbing me of time I needed to spend with my family and the cost of gliding was becoming too high.

  16 PTC

  IN JULY 1962 NO 16 PTC commenced their BFS and I was allocated Officer Cadets Graham Cronshaw, Prop Geldenhuys and Chris Dixon. All three progressed normally and I made it known that I did not wish to have any of these students taken from me to satisfy any other instructor’s will. This only worked for three and a half months before my favourite student, Prop Geldenhuys, was taken away. I was given Officer Cadet du Toit who had not been shaping up with his first instructor.

  Graham Cronshaw, Prop Geldenhuys, PB and Chris Dixon.

  I had a very soft spot for Prop Geldenhuys for more reasons than his good nature; we had experienced two serious incidents together. The first of these was when I was demonstrating recovery from engine failure on a short-field take-off.

  A short take-off required full power against brakes before rolling and forcing lift-off at around 65 knots with a steep climb out. No recovery from engine failure was possible below 200 feet, which made me wonder why this exercise that I had demonstrated many times was considered necessary. Anyway, at 200 feet I chopped the engine and pitched the nose down sharply. Talking to Prop all the time, the airspeed was increased to 85 knots before the first of two attitude changes was made to reduce the descent rate and glide angle preparatory to a normal round-out for landing.

  When I made the first check the aircraft attitude changed but the descent rate and angle remained unaltered. Full throttle was applied, but the engine did not respond and even full flap failed to prevent the aircraft from slamming heavily into the ground. This fully compressed the main wheel oleos that then forced us to rebound back into the air. Immediately the motor roared to full power, lifting the aircraft precariously with insufficient runway remaining to put down again safely. The Provost was staggering along when I realised the wings were badly distorted. Aileron control was all but lost, necessitating the use of rudder to lift the port wing. To achieve the correct climbing speed, the nose had to be depressed well below its normal climbing attitude because the distorted wings were now set at a higher than normal angle to the airframe.

  I was still sorting myself out when Prop blurted out, “Sir, this wing is coming off." I looked down my side and could see that the wing root fairing had separated from the leading edge and that there were stress wrinkles on the mainplane. Obviously Prop’s side looked the same but sun reflections on the ripples, from his perspective, must have given him an impression of imminent structural failure.

  Having assured Prop we would be okay, I waited until we were above a safe bail-out height before telling him to be prepared to jettison the canopy and abandon the aircraft without hesitatio
n if I told him to do so. Very limited aileron movement was available at each end of full application because the control cables had become slack within the distorted wings. Elevator and rudder control responses were normal so I continued climbing to 10,000 feet with a view to establishing the stalling speed and to conduct low-speed handling checks preparatory to a landing that I felt sure would be possible.

  Bob Woodward came up to inspect our Provost and reported that, apart from severely bent wings, the port tyre had burst and the tail wheel had disappeared into the fuselage. He formated on me as I reduced speed to check my damaged aircraft’s slow-speed handling characteristics. When it felt as if we were near to stalling, my airspeed indicator read 100 knots whereas Bob said his was reading 85 knots. We concluded this had something to do with changed geometry of the airframe.

  The landing was fine, the wings did not come off but the burst wheel, even with a fair amount of right-wheel braking, pulled the aircraft into a wide turn before we came to a dusty halt.

  In the hangar after replacement of the burst tyre. Note the increased wing-pitch angles outside of the undercarriage legs.

  I had just climbed out of the cockpit onto the wing with my parachute slung over my shoulder when Group Captain Jock Barber drew up behind the aircraft in his Staff car. Looking directly towards the CO, I took the normal step down from the trailing edge of the wing and nearly broke my neck and back when my foot met ground about two feet closer than usual because the trailing edge of the wing was so much closer to ground. This bad jolt, and possibly the high-impact landing, initiated spinal problems that were to plague me for twenty-four years until an orthopaedic surgeon eventually performed a successful lower lumber fusion in 1986.

  Chris Dams and Dave Thorne conducted tests in which they discovered that the Leonides engine’s response to full throttle application failed when rpm was reducing close to idling speed. This was taken to be the reason for my engine not giving full power at a critical moment. But it was the technicians who pinpointed the primary cause of the accident. The airspeed indicator on my side of the cockpit was over-reading by 10 knots. Had I been using the student’s airspeed indicator, as I should have done when instructing, a costly accident would certainly have been avoided.

  The second incident with Prop occurred during a take-off run. Prop had applied too much elevator when lifting the tail. Because the nose was too far down, I placed my hand on my control column and, easing back slightly, said “Not so much!”, whereupon Prop applied full brakes, pitching the nose down violently. Fortunately my hand was already on the control column so I was able to yank back and prevent the propeller from digging into the runway. In so doing the aircraft was forced to stagger into flight prematurely.

  I climbed and had turned down wind for a landing to have the tyres inspected when I noticed that Prop had his hand on the control column, still with brakes fully applied. A gentle tap on his arm made him let go. Even before lining up with the runway we could see the two lines of torn grass down the centre of the runway. They were later paced out at sixty-eight yards.

  Prop explained that he thought we were already airborne when he applied the brakes; anyway we had been very fortunate. Had the propeller dug into the ground at speed and full power a serious situation might have resulted.

  Pat Meddows-Taylor and Dave Thorne, seeing that I was somewhat shaken by the incident, offered me a cigarette. Not having smoked in my adult life I declined their offer; but both of them insisted I take a couple of puffs to calm me down. Foolishly I took the lighted cigarette and, under guidance, inhaled smoke. There was no coughing so I took another and then another drag before becoming dizzy.

  The first incident with Prop Geldenhuys led to major spinal problems and the second one set me off on cigarette smoking; two awful afflictions that can be blamed on nobody but myself.

  Officer Cadet Strnad, a student on 16 PTC, was one of the most troubled youngsters I had ever met. He was not my student and I only flew with him once on IF. Like the rest of his course, Strnad was not used to alcohol but, when he did drink, he became very weepy and needed to talk to anyone who would lend a sympathetic ear. In Beryl and me he found sympathy, not that either one of us could make sense of his ramblings until Beryl managed to get to the root cause of his distress. His father was practising incest on his sister who was a very unwilling participant. Not long after this Strnad, after his release from the RRAF, returned to South Africa where he murdered his father to protect his sister and then changed his name. He was imprisoned but later released when an Appeal Court judge ruled in his favour.

  RAF Trappers

  NO 1 SQUADRON CONTINUED TO undertake annual detachments to Aden and the Canberras made their contribution to Middle East Commonwealth defence by training with RAF bombers based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.

  Canberras at RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus.

  Although our Canberra pilots were Rhodesian-trained, most of the navigators had been recruited from the RAF and the South African Air Force. Rhodesian determination to turn in top results in all they did obviously rubbed off on the navigators because No 5 Squadron gave the RAF Canberra boys quite a hiding during annual bombing competitions. This seemed to intrigue the RAF hierarchy who, with the concurrence of our Air HQ, decided to look into Royal Rhodesian Air Force flying standards.

  Central Flying School of the RAF ran a team of testing officers nicknamed ‘The Trappers’. The team was comprised of highly rated instructors who roamed RAF squadrons testing other instructors as well as fighter, transport, bomber and helicopter pilots. When the Trappers arrived in Rhodesia to test our pilots, absolutely nothing was known of their presence or purpose until, unannounced, they appeared in every squadron crew-room.

  Two testing officers came to 2 Squadron, one to test Vampire instructors and the other to test Provost instructors. Each selected three of us at random and I was one to be tested by Flight Lieutenant Grimson. He asked for pre-flight briefings on three nominated flight exercises prior to flying. In the air he tested my teaching techniques on the entire range of daytime exercises, excluding formation and navigation. In the Officers’ Mess bar that evening I found him to be a very pleasant individual, quite unlike the austere Trapper I knew in briefing room and cockpit. He uttered not a word to anyone about his assessment of those he had tested and would not be drawn to express opinion of our flying standards.

  From Central Flying School our Headquarters received detailed reports revealing that, with the exception of No 4 Squadron, RRAF flying standards were equal to those of the RAF. The report made recommendation that an instructor be posted to 4 Squadron with a view to bringing its pilots up to standard. I was selected for this task and was posted to New Sarum.

  No 4 Squadron

  JUST PRIOR TO MY LEAVING Thornhill, my very first student Terry Ryan, then serving with 4 Squadron, was killed whilst flying unauthorised low-level aerobatics to impress his friends who were visiting the Snake Park near Salisbury. Apparently he was attempting a left-hand stall-turn that went pear-shaped and the aircraft slammed belly first into the ground close to the main Salisbury road. This was a sad prelude to my arrival on the squadron whose commander was Squadron Leader Ozzie Penton. Until this time I had only known him as a short cocky man who flew Canberras and revelled in baiting navigators and pilots who were six foot and over. From pilots serving under him I learned that he was tops as a squadron commander.

  Ozzie Penton had flown Spitfires during WWII and became one of the most colourful individuals in our force. His small build, cocky attitude and loud voice were endearing characteristics of a man who shunned administrative posts and only wanted to fly aeroplanes.

  He made me feel welcome the minute I reported for duty and insisted that my corrective instruction would start with him. He said that between the two of us we would raise squadron standards to the point where 4 Squadron would be the next winner of the Jacklin Trophy. This we succeeded in doing.

  Ozzie receiving the Jacklin Trophy from AVM Raf Bentley. Upon his
retirement from service, Air Vice-Marshal Ted Jacklin had given this floating trophy to Air HQ for presentation to the squadron adjudged to have turned in the best performance or made the greatest advances during each year.

  Flight Lieutenant Ted Brent.

  Ozzie claimed that he was the ugliest man in the force and established the ‘Uglies Club’ with Doug Bebbington as his first though somewhat unwilling member. When six-foot-tall Canberra navigator Flight Lieutenant Don Brenchley suggested to Ozzie that his looks qualified him for Uglies Club membership, Oz raised himself to everything of five foot four inches and answered Don with spaced words loudly spoken saying, “Not a bloody chance mate! We may be ugly but we do have our standards!” Had Don been a pilot or technical man this would have been different!

  My task in bringing flying standards up to scratch was a pleasant one that required no more than two months of fairly intensive effort. Under Ozzie’s unique style of leadership the squadron’s discipline was tightened and already high spirits amongst air and ground crews soared.

  Flight Lieutenant Ted Brent was both ‘A’ Flight Commander and Pilot Armament Instructor responsible for all weapons training. He arranged a ten-day weapons training camp at Kutanga Range for all pilots using all twelve Provosts on squadron strength. This was my first introduction to the delivery of weapons from a Provost.