Plane Tales

At first glance he looks to be a rather scruffy and unkempt elderly chap but behind the heavy glasses there are two twinkling eyes that reveal more than you can imagine.  Indeed, appearances can be deceiving as this retired RAF Technician could have well been a steely eyed missile man as he controlled military satellites around during the Cold War.  Meet my mate Matt!

Sputnik

RAF Oakhanger

Inmarsat equipment on board a ship

Not every launch was a success

Telstar

Voyager

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Nigel Chadwick, NRAO/AUI, Saber1983, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Dale Griffin USGS, then Science Museum and NSAS.

In the tale, the Applegate Memorandum, I described the difficult birth that McDonnell Douglas had with the DC-10 when it’s safety record was permanently marred by a cargo door design flaw that plagued its introduction.  Sadly, this wasn’t the only issue that was going to discredit the aircraft in the eye of its passengers and they would ultimately condemn the world’s first 3 engined wide body as a dangerous failure.  Although the aircraft’s problems with its cargo doors could be firmly laid at the feet of McDonnell Douglas, the next disaster that the aircraft would have to cope with was not of the manufacture’s making, but of some operators who took it upon themselves to shorten engineering procedures.

Then incident aircraft N110AA

Cutaway showing the configuration of the wing mounted engines

The DC10 cockpit

The last moments of American Airlines Flight 191

The aftermath

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Dale Coleman, Jyra Sapphire, Jon Proctor, the Bureau of Aircraft Accident Archives, the NTSB, the US Gov and American Airlines.

I left you last time after we had returned with our Hornets from New Zealand having had a very productive and interesting few weeks working with the Kiwi A4 Skyhawks.  We soon settled back into our Squadron HQ at RAAF Williamtown and started to work up some Maritime Strike tactics against the ships of the Australian Navy.  These were early days for the Australian Hornets and the anti ship missiles that were to be purchased had yet to be properly integrated into the aircraft’s weapons system… and so continues the Tales from the Old Pilot’s Log Books.

The Hornets mix it with the Navy!

It was the P3 Orion’s job to find the ships and broadcast their positions

The RAAF had yet to equip their F18s with anti ship missiles but that didn’t stop us training

We flew affiliation sorties against the RAAF Caribous so I got the chance to observe from the other side of the engagement

Called in from leave to fly an engine air test I did so with my holiday beard still attached!

The rake of the Hornet seat didn’t suit my back leading to a nagging problem

On our way to Malaysia we staged through Bali

At RMAF Butterworth we stayed in the beautiful old RAF Mess

And could frequently be found in the Hong Kong Bar

Back home in Australia I started to suffer from vertigo and wondered if the dream had come to an end

The conclusion of a chat over a pint with Wood Duck, the Royal Australian Air Force Air Attache to the Australian High Commission in London.

Images of No 2 OCU when it was equipped with the FA18

The handover of No 2 OCU Hornets to the new commanding officer and the new F35 Lightning fighters.

RSAF Hawk trainers

As a fighter pilot on the newly formed 77 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force, now equipped with brand new FA/18s, we had many experienced pilots but before long we also acquired pilots on their first operational type.  One such pilot was Woody, or more formally known as Wood Duck and flying the Hornet was just the start of a long career in aviation that took him all around the world.  Now the Air Attache at the Australian High Commission in London, Woody and I met at a local hostelry and had a beer whilst talking about old times.

The Australian FA/18B

Flypasts performed by No 2 OCU RAAF whilst under Woody’s command

Woody as a youngster in the Hong Kong bar whilst on deployment in Malaysia.

RAAF Hornets in Butterworth

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAAF, the USAF, the RMAF and No 2 OCU RAAF.

So you want to be an airline pilot? You want to travel the world, visit strange and exotic countries and immerse yourself in the wonders of foreign cultures? You want to make a good living, bring up a family and plan for a wonderful retirement driving your luxurious RV around the wide open spaces of your beloved country? Has it crossed you mind that your chosen occupation might not be the safest way to achieve your dreams?

The Old Curmudgeon rides again

Airliner crashes are rare events

Ensure that you join a recognised union that can afford you legal representation anywhere in the world

I trust that you will recall the stories from my RAF Logbook which had reached the point of my first Hornet deployment to New Zealand to work with the Kiwi A4 Skyhawks of No 75 Squadron Royal New Zealand Air Force at Ohakea.
The squadron we were working with had a rich history and I was sure I was going to enjoy my time with them.

75 Sqn RNZAF formed with Wellingtons purchased by the New Zealand government

75 Sqn A4 Skyhawk

The Kiwi Red formation team

Inverted whilst in contact

An A4 in combat firing rockets

How to fly a flat scissors

An FA18 pulls into the vertical

The effectiveness of camouflage

Low level

Attacking a splash target

The Hornet at night

The disappearance of the hook was investigated

The perp was arrested!

75 Sqn RNZAF was sadly disbanded

Images shown under creative commons licence with thanks to the RAF, the New Zealand Defence Force, the USN, CNATRA, Bernardo Malfitano and Myself.

The Right Hand Traffic Rule stated that an aircraft which was flying within the United Kingdom in sight of the ground and following a road, railway, canal or coastline, or any other line of landmarks shall keep such line of landmarks on its left.  For reasons that defeat me the rule went on to give an exception stating, “provided that this rule shall not apply to a helicopter following the Motorway M4 on a route from West Drayton to Osterley Lock!”  Let me take you back to the the birth of commercial aviation in Europe after the First World War.Daimler Airways operated the De Havilland aircraft on the Croydon to Paris route and Grands Express were operating the same route, albeit originating from Paris. The scene was therefore set and, no doubt the astute amongst you will already be speculating on what befell the Daimler Airway mail flight departing Croydon on the 7th of April 1922 and the Grand Express aircraft that left Le Bourget on the same day, just after noon.  This is that story.

The Farman Goliath airliner

The DH18

The BAS 500cc single Gold Star

London to Le Bourget

Le Bourget to London

Traffic in France drove on the right hand side

On that fateful day, the weather was poor

The Picardie accident was the world’s first mid air collision between airliners

Images shown under the Creative Commons licence with thanks to Albert Thuloup, Handley Page, BP, SADSM, The Library of Congress and Popular Mechanics.

Traditionally the phrase Brass Monkeys goes hand in hand with weather so cold that only a naughty sounding description like, “It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey,” will suffice.  If, however, you were the crew member a NATO aircraft in Europe during the tense times of the Cold War, Brass Monkeys meant something very specific!  It was a code phrase that everyone knew of and listened out for on the Guard frequency just in case it was broadcast.  Two or three minutes into the flight Rikki was super-sonic and climbing through twenty thousand feet or so when the first “Brass Monkeys” call came over the radio: “Brass monkeys, brass monkeys, aircraft heading east at high speed fifty miles east of Gutersloh, brass monkeys”. He ignored it!

The true origin of Brass Monkeys has been lost in time

The identification papers of defector Viktor Belenko

Map of the East/West German airspace

An F84

West German Navy Sea Hawk

A Lightning F3 landing

Mig 21s chasing

Returning safely

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Louis-Philippe Crépin, images in the Public Domain, the CIA, the RAF, Rosario Van Tulpe, Milborne One and Mike Freer.

Life on 77 Squadron had settled down to a routine, if it ever really could on a fighter squadron. There was certainly plenty of variety to our flying. In one month I flew some practice bombing attacks, both day and night, on the Evans Head weapon’s range north by 230 nm. This was followed by a 4 ship formation demonstration of ground attack on our own airfield as part of an Open Day celebration for the public.  Then night radar bombing on the Beecroft range at Jarvis bay about 150 nm south. Then we bombed and sank a tug boat before flying off to New Zealand.

The Squadron hours board

A head on view of the FA18A

Our Hornets in close formation

A MK82 low drag general purpose bomb

A 77 Sqn Hornet landing

RNZAF Strikemasters AKA the Bluntie

The RNZAF A4 Skyhawk

Landing at Ohakea

My old buddy John

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Myself and Greenshed.

Marvin and Rebecca’s first two flights of the day were cancelled due to high winds at Newark so they both waited in the crew room until their company dispatch released them for flight 3407 at 6pm, 4 and a half hours after their initial report time.  Certainly for Rebecca, it had been a long time since she had done more than nap in a chair.  Their flight to Buffalo was due to take 53 minutes and they were carrying 45 passengers which, along with their two cabin attendants meant that they had 49 souls onboard their Q400 aircraft. The pilots’ performance was likely impaired because of fatigue but to what extent could not be conclusively determined.  However, they boiled down to the flight crew’s failure to monitor airspeed, the flight crew’s failure to adhere to sterile cockpit procedures, the Captain’s failure to effectively manage the flight and Colgan Air’s inadequate procedures for airspeed selection, management during approaches in icing conditions and training.  This is the story of Colgan Air Flight 3407.

A Bombardier Q400

The SAAB 340

The DH Dash 8

Examples of wing icing

Stills from the NTSB accident report

Stills from the NTSB accident report

Stills from the NTSB accident report

The wreckage of Flight 3407

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Lord of the Wings, Bill Abbott, Steve Fitzgerald, NASA and the NTSB.

With thanks to listener Sam Dawson who has such interesting relatives and to Betty Goerke, the author of a book about Baz Bagby, A Broken Propeller. I am pleased to present the story of Sam Dawson’s Great Uncle Baz.

Stunt pilot Lincoln Beachey at Niagara

The 1st Aero Squadron

Early Aerial Reconnaissance

The 88th Aero Squadron

General Billy Mitchell

The start of the Great Transcontinental Air Race

Great Uncle Baz

Images under creative commons licence with thanks to the Library of Congress, the USAAC, the USAF, the RFC, the US Army, the National Archives and SADSM.

The continuation of my log book tales, otherwise known as RAF Form 414, and we are up to Volume 20.  Apart from other asides, this tale deals with my accidental overflight of a very secret satellite surveillance base run by the Australians and the CIA!

Overflying Uluru (Ayres Rock)

My arrival at Alice Springs airport

My ‘circumnavigation’ of Australia

My aircraft being impounded on arrival at RAAF Pearce

Seeing my father at the 1881 Resturant

The Great Australian Bight

Passing through RAAF Edinburgh

Looking back through the fins

Heading home to Williamtown

Images under creative commons licence with thanks to Myself, Nachoman-au and Google Earth.

The DC-10 was McDonnell Douglas’s first commercial airliner project since the merger between McDonnell Aircraft Corporation and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. It started life on the drawing boards as a 4 engined, double decked, wide body airliner that could carry 550 passengers but morphed into single deck, three engined aircraft that could carry one passenger short of 400!  In what was expected to be a knockout blow to the competing Lockheed L-1011, the President of American Airlines and James McDonnell of McDonnell Douglas announced American Airlines’ intention to acquire the DC-10. Flight 96 was en route between Detroit and Buffalo when, above the city of Windsor in Ontario whilst climbing through 11,750 ft the flight crew heard a distinct thud and dirt and debris flew up from the cockpit floor into their faces. On inspection it was obvious that the rear cargo door had detached from the aircraft.  This is the story of the DC-10 cargo door issue and the engineer who tried to warn the company of the dire problem.

The 4 Engined Douglas Proposal

The DC-10

The Cargo Door

The Cargo Door of Flight 96

The Accident Report of Turkish Airlines Flight 981

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the SDASM archives, the Douglas Aircraft Corp, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, the FAA and the DOT AIB.

Telling the tale of my flying career, I left you at the end of my F/A18 conversion course as we reformed the No 77 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron with their brand new Hornets. So far our one and only aircraft A21-5 was being shared around and everyone wanted a piece of it, either to fly or learn how to fix it.  The squadron execs were pretty busy dealing with the job of getting the new squadron personnel squared away so the rest of us got more than our share of flying.  There wasn’t much we could do with a single jet but I was happy just to play with a multi million dollar toy and get used to my new home.

The M61A Vulcan Cannon

The ‘Pig’ Australian F111

My route around Australia

Mt Isa

Arriving at Darwin

Uluru through the HUD

Pine Gap

Alice Springs

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Peter Gronemann, General Dynamics, Fhrx, and Google Maps.

Hawaii became the most recent state to join the union in 1959 and is now the third wealthiest.  Following it’s annexation, Hawaii became an important naval base for the US Navy so it is hardly surprising that they should be the first to attempt a flight from the US mainland to the island.  Aviation had already arrived at the islands in 1910 courtesy of Bud Mars, the Curtiss Daredevil.

The Hawaiian Archipelago

The annexation of Hawaii

J C Mars

Commander John Rodgers

Rodgers in the Wright Flyer

The PN9 flying boat

Rodgers and his crew survive to be welcomed into Hawaii

The Atlantic-Fokker C-2 Tri-motor

Atlantic-Fokker C-2 “Bird of Paradise” arrival in Hawaii

The start of the Dole Air Race

In all, six aircraft were lost or damaged beyond repair and ten lives lost.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Google Map Images, Bain News Service, Harris and Ewing, the Library of Congress, Hawaii Aviation, the USAF and the SDASM.

Images under Creatiove Commons licence with thanks to

It was the 13th of May 1912, a Monday, when a Flanders F3 Monoplane took off from Brooklands in Surrey, a county of England.  The pilot was the aviation pioneer Edward Victor Beauchamp Fisher and his passenger the American millionaire Victor Mason.  Fisher had an Aviator’s Certificate, the 77th to be issued, had learned to fly at Brooklands and was a flying instructor there.  He had also worked with both A V Roe (the founder of Avro) and Howard Flanders, whose monoplane he was flying at the time.  The two men had made two or three circuits of the airfield at about 100ft, the 60 hp Green engine operating well when, in a left turn, the aircraft fell to the ground killing both the aviator and his passenger before catching alight and burning.  In the early days of aviation such accidents were fairly common but what sets this one apart is that it was the first in history to become the subject of an accident investigation by an official civilian body… the Public Safety and Accidents Investigation Committee of the Royal Aero Club.

Brooklands airfield and motor racing circuit circa 1907

The Flanders F3/4

The Wright crash

Lt Frank Lahm

The 1920 Air Navigation Act

The 1926 formation of the NTSB

NTSB Investigators

The Challenger disaster

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Daimler Chrysler AG, Bain News Service, National Museum of Health and Medicine, the USAF, UK Gov, NTSB and the Kennedy Space Centre.

The 12 days of Christmas are generally thought to run from the 26th of December to the 6th of January and is an important period of religious celebration or for those of us who observe Christmas in a more secular manner, it’s more likely to be a traditional time of recovery following our holiday excesses and to welcome in the New Year. Of course, those of us in the Aviation industry often remember dates by events that occurred on a particular day and the most memorable are often the most tragic.  With that in mind I present the 12 crashes of Christmas.

The TU144

Earthrise from Apollo 8

The Lockheed A-12 Oxcart

The C-130

The Avro Ten

The Vickers Wellington

The Handley Page O

The captured bomber

Gustav Hamel and Eleanor Trehawke Davies

Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man

The Flying Machine

The Convair 440 Metropolitan airliner

Amelia Mary Earhart

Earhart’s Electra

Amy Johnson

A Finnish Fokker

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Michel Gilliand, NASA, the USAF, State Library of Queensland, the RAF, US National Archives, the Rijksmuseum, Luc Viatour, SDASM,and those images within the Public Domain.

Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier was one of two men who left the earth’s surface and flew in Montgolfier’s balloon for the very first time. He also designed a type of balloon that was given his name that flew using a combination of a lifting gas and hot air. More than 200 years later, his design would be used in the balloon that made the first non stop round the world flight.

A Rozièr balloon

Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier in a Montgolfier balloon

De Rozièr perishes in a baloon crash over Wimereux

Don Cameron led the way in record breaking and unusual balloon design

Double Eagle II

Virgin Flyer

The successful balloon circumnavigation by Piccard and Jones

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those Public Domain images available, NASA, the Smithsonian,The Virgin Group, Cameron balloons and Breitling.

Each year upwards of 2 million of the faithful make the journey to follow the path of the profit Muhammad to a number of holy sites before their pilgrimage rites are considered complete. Muslims from around the world make this journey which, in modern times, is often completed using air travel, as it was in 1991 when Nigeria Airways wet leased a Douglas DC8 operated by Nationair Canada to help them cope with the season’s increase in passenger traffic due to the Hajj. Under the hot sun of the Arabian desert, the scene was set for a disaster.

A Nationair DC8

King Abdulaziz International airport in Jeddah

The Maintenance Record analysis

The DC8 gear

A typical brake fire

Excerpt from the accident report

Excerpt from the accident report

Conditions in the cabin became unsurvivable

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Pedro Aragão, Yousefmadari, ICAO and the USAF.

They were the pioneers who trod the territory beyond the sound barrier… a place no man had ever been before and which had killed many who attempted the journey. The rocket powered, winged bullet first flew only 42 years after man’s first powered flight, an achievement that still astounds me. To think that a toddler around at Kitty Hawk who saw one of the Wright Brothers first flights, could have heard the world’s first man made sonic boom before they reached the ripe old age of 50 is a true testament to the ability of America’s finest minds and the bravery of their greatest pilots.

The Bell X1 in flight

The Miles M52

The X Planes

US Military astronaut wings

The X2 drop

The X2 crash

The X15

An X15 launch

Armstrong with the X15

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to NASA, the RAF, the USAF, NPRC,

It’s time for another of my flying logbook tales and it’s May 1987 and I’m on the Australian FA18 No 2 Operational Conversion Unit at RAAF Williamtown starting the final phase on course 1 of 87 before moving onto No 77 Squadron which was to be my home for the next few years.

An FA/18B with a pair of BDU33 practice bomb carriers

The Salt Ash bombing range

A practice bomb strikes the centre of the target

The CCIP aiming symbology

Mk 82 500lb General Purpose bombs

RAAF Townsville

Mk82s hitting the target on Cordelia Island

Course graduation

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Welcome Collection and the USAF.

A tribute to Sherman Smoot, friend of the APG Show, who died doing what he loved best… flying.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Capt Nick Anderson.

The First World War battle of the Somme continues, to this day, to fascinate and appal in equal measures. Much has been written about the ground war the first day of which saw the greatest number of British casualties than had occurred before in the entire history of the British Army… 19,240 were dead and 38,230 injured. The fighting over a 16 mile front lasted almost 5 months, after which the Allied troops had advanced about 6 miles. The butchers bill of casualties was horrendous. The combined Commonwealth countries number reached nearly 60,000 but was dwarfed by the United Kingdom’s casualty number of over 350,000. The battle opened on the 1st of July 1916 with a massed explosion that ranks amongst the largest non nuclear explosions in history and was then considered the loudest human made sound to date, audible beyond London 160 miles away.  It was witnessed by an 18 year old RFC pilot.

The mine under Hawthorn Ridge

Then the dust cleared and we saw the two white eyes of the craters

Going over the top

The la Boisselle mine crater now and then.

Pip’s landing

The Fokker Eindecker

Bristol Fighters

A dogfight

The battlefield

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to British First World War Air Service Photo Section, Ernest Brooks, Henry Armytage Sanders, H. D. Girdwood, the RFC and the IWM.

Robin Olds was a hard drinking, hard working man who led from the front in a way that inspired his men to become a great fighting force. He only became frustrated when he saw mistakes being made by those above him who should have known better and he went out of his way to make his feelings known. He defined what it meant to be a fighter pilot, not only in the air but on the ground with the stunningly beautiful Hollywood actress, Ella Raines, the first of his 4 wives.

The court-martial of General William “Billy” Mitchell 1925

West Point students

A P-38 Lightning

A digital representation of SCAT II

A Bf109

Olds and his P51 Mustang SCAT VI

A P80 Shooting Star

The Gloster Meteor

An F86 Sabre of the 71st, Hat in the Ring Sqn

The F4 Phantom

Robin Olds completes his 100th combat mission

Robin Olds in Vietnam after his 4th Mig kill

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those images in the Public Domain, the Bundesarchive, the USAF, Digital Combat Simulator, Ruffneck88, USAF National Museum and RuthAS.

A recent news programme caught my eye when I realised it involved our great friends at the Farnborough Aviation Sciences Trust museum. It reminded me of the group of sadistic so-called doctors who populated the Institute of Aviation Medicine and tortured generations of unsuspecting and innocent RAF aircrew in machines such as the one the article featured, a centrifuge! This aforementioned device which resembles a vast witch’s ducking stool crossed with an iron maiden, first operated in 1955 but was decommissioned as recently as 2019 and has now received Grade 2 protection.

The Institute of Aviation Medicine

The Farnborough Centrifuge

The Cecil Hotel with it’s red and white ornate frontage

The august medical journal, the Lancet

Early versions of oxygen masks

An early mobile decompression chamber

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, FAST museum, The Library of Congress, those images within the Public Domain and the National Museum of Health & Medicine.

The story of my military flying career continues with the new challenge of flying the FA/18 Hornet round the beautiful skies of Australia.

The official crest of No 77 Sqn RAAF with its Grumpy Monkey

The 77 Sqn Mirages

The helmet fitting

An FA/18A cockpit

Sunset

The Head Up Display

The location of RAAF Williamtown

Firing the gun

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Nick Anderson and Google Earth.

Featured in a Scientific magazine which offered a first look inside the USAF’s new jet fighter, the F-89 Scorpion was to have an interesting history which involved the Battle of Palmdale and a top secret Canadian UFO!

A Scientific Magazine cutaway drawing

The Fly-off competitors

The Northrop F89 Scorpion

The 437th Fighter Interceptor Squadron

An F6F Hellcat red drone

Mighty Mouse rockets

1st Lt Moncla

The Canadian UFO

The official USAF report

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Scientific magazine, the USAF, USN, NASA, SDASM, RKO Pictures and those available through Fair Use and Public Domain.

Arguably one of the most talented and innovative aircraft developers of his time, John Knudsen Northrop had long sought an aircraft design that could start a revolution… a craft with minimum drag and a level of lift unachievable in any other form. Jack, as John Northrop was usually known, pursued his dream of building a pure flying wing strategic bomber that would exceed the capabilities of anything else his less imaginative competitors were designing.

The gliders of Otto Lilienthal

The Armstrong Whitworth AW-52

The Avion/Northrop Experimental No1 pusher 

The remains of a Horton flying wing

The Northrop N1M

Nortons XB35

The XP-79 fighter

The XB-49

The YB-35s being broken up at the cancelation of the project

The final successful B-2 Spirit

Images shown under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, the Library of Congress, Northrop, National Museum of the Air Force, Michael.katzmann, the IWM, Sanjay Acharya, the National Archive and NASA.

It was an unpopular aircraft because, well… a lot of aircrew were superstitious. They were renown for carrying lucky charms, doing things a certain way and never daring to change the habit because it worked for them last time. Their machine was a B17 nicknamed Old 666 taken from the last 3 digits of its tail number 41-2666 and they were the Eager Beavers!

Old 666

The Martin B-26 Marauder

The B-17 bombing Japanese shipping North of Australia

The B-17’s waist guns

The route for their recce sortie over Bougainville

The Japanese Zero

A Zero passes close aboard

The damage to Old 666

The brave crew fight the Zeros off

Jay Zeamer receives his Medal of Honor

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAAF, Mark Wagner, USAF, USAAC, Gary Fortington, US National Archives and Records Administration, SDASM, Steve Jurvetson and those in the Public Domain or orphaned.

The conclusion of one of the hardest flying courses in the Royal Air Force, the QWI course.  What faced us was the culmination of all our efforts over the past months of flying in the form of a week of intense work, drawing together everything we had learned. We had to fly a series of missions against all comers, demonstrating our level of leadership, control, tactics, formation management, aggression and skill. These sorties were complex and demanding, involving tactics we devised to allow us to fly without the use of the radio from start to finish.

The RAF’s F4 Phantom

The East German border

The Nicholson Trophy for best student on the course

Off to a specialist burns unit in an RAF Search and Rescue Sea King

Packing up our married quarter for Australia

The delights of Hong Kong

My tropical uniform

The last leg to to Australia

Our little married Quarter at RAAF Williamtown

Meeting our neighbours at street BBQ

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF and the author.

The 1920’s and 30’s were times of radical societal changes, particularly in the freedoms that women then demanded. The suffragette movement, the contributions made by women in the first world war and other dramatic events had clearly shown that forward looking women were no longer going to be content with the roles that men decided they were suited for. Aviation played its part in allowing women the freedom to tackle challenges that were previously denied to them, a fight for equality continues to this day.  It is right that we celebrate those early pioneers who took to the air and led the way.

The Suffragette movement which paved the way for woman’s emancipation

Will Hay, one of Amy’s flying instructors

Amy’s planned route to Australia

Amy’s Gypsy Moth, “Jason”

Amy in India

Amy arrives in Australia

An Airspeed Oxford and notice of Amy’s “MISSING BELIEVED KILLED,” telegram

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those in the Public Domain, the National Library of Australia, the UK National Archives, Bob Brown, the Queenslander, SADSM and those of unknown copyright.

An air hostess calmly walked through the crashing airliner telling the passengers, “Please fasten your safety-belts. Keep your seats.” Then she returned to the galley near the tail, sat herself down… and waited. One of the passengers had seen oil spurting from an engine and on the flight deck, Captain Anderson was nursing his aircraft in. The engine had failed not long after takeoff following that massive oil leak and this aircraft didn’t have a good reputation for single engined flying.

An Airwork Viking

The Nene powered Viking

The BEA Viking that survived a bomb explosion intended to bring the aircraft down

Airwork employed a number of Vikings that flew as far afield as South Africa

The aftermath of the crash

Air Hostess Beryl Rothwell

Capt Anderson’s youngest son, Nicholas James

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Norsk Luftfartsmuseum, BAe, the Daily Sketch, the AAIB, UK Gov, Vickers and Ruth AS.

Whilst we are discussing quaint idioms, many of us trust that old American adage, “If it looks good, it’ll fly good” attributed to both Neil Armstrong and Bill Lear and is something that all pilots understand. There is something about a fine looking aircraft that makes it appear trustworthy and gives one confidence that it will perform well. Sadly, I know of one company, however, who seem to have looked at their aircraft through bottle bottom glasses… or perhaps they never got the memo.

The Dunne D5

The Type 184

The Cardington Gasbag

The Shorts S38

The Singapore

The Shorts Empire flying boat

The Sunderland

The COW gun

The Sunderland’s internal bomb racks

The Sunderland’s rest facilities

The Bombay

The long legged Stirling

The unlikely looking Seamew

Hurel-Dubois Miles 106 Caravan

The Shorts SC 7 Skyvan

The Shorts SD360

The coolest Skyvan ever… Pink!

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Marinha do Brasil, Short Bros of Cardington, the RAF, Shorts, the Library of Congress, SADSM, George Jackman, the Royal Navy, Adrian Pingstone, Tomás Del Coro and those images orphaned or in the Public Domain.

The aircraft was named ‘Flagship District of Columbia’ and was only the 12th Boeing 707 ever made. It was delivered to American Airlines in February 1959 so at the time America was taking its first steps into the void of outer space it was a mere 3 years old. It hadn’t long been out of it’s periodic inspection and with less than 8,000 hours on the airframe N7506A was expected to have a long and productive life ahead… a wish that would be dashed in a few short minutes.

The New York skyline

An American Airlines Boeing 707 at LAX

Changes in apparent span and the effects of sideslip on a swept wing when yawed

The 707 rudder control system

Wreckage from American Airlines flight 514

The Calverton crash still smoking

A New York ticker tape parade

The flight recorder trace from the American One’s final moments

A reconstruction of the track of Flight One

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Jon Proctor, San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives, the Civil Aeronautics Board and Ted Quackenbush.

The Royal Air Force’s Pilots Flying Logbook is a sturdy publication, cloth bound in blue with gold printing on the cover, on the inside of which are the instructions for use. Para 1, sub para (a) it states that the Book is an official document and is the property of Her Majesty’s Government… well, good luck trying to get this one back!

The star of the Top Gun movie

The much admired RAF Phantom QWI badge

The island of Cyprus was famous for its rough red Kokinelli wine

The 20mm SUU23A Vulcan cannon

A typical Cypriot meze

Mrs A moving yet again

Receiving my 1000hrs Phantom badge

The F4 rear office

The arrival of son No1

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Gage Skidmore, Google Earth, Thomas Fedor and Cyprus Tourism.

Last week we chatted about historic incidents that led to aircraft upsets. This week we talk to a newly qualified airline pilot who is undergoing advanced Upset and Recovery Training at a British training school. We also speak to the school’s chief pilot and one of the instructors, an ex Mig 29 pilot.

Basem undergoing upset training at BAA in a Grob

One of the BAA’s Extras

Basem off to be turned upside down!

Adrian… Basem’s ex Mig 29 instructor

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Capt Nick Anderson

With the arrival of jet powered airliners, commercial pilots entered a new world of high altitude flying in large swept wing aircraft at velocities approaching the speed of sound. They were often unprepared for the challenge and before long unexpected and unexplained loss of control events began to worry the world of aviation. These events initially occurred when an aircraft was upset from its normal benign straight and level environment and ended up in a high speed dive, something that was rare in the earlier days of straight winged, piston powered airliners. Hence, they became known as Jet Upsets.

Coffin Corner!

Upsets involve extreme attitudes

Less than perfect cockpit design often contributes to upsets

A Pan Am B707

China Airlines A300

The tragic result of the China Airlines upset

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Boeing Company, Geni, the NTSB/CAB, Guido Allieri and the JTSB.

In the world of Slavic folk tales there are giants in Ukraine but as aviators the ones we are interested are the giants that the fabled aircraft designer Oleg Antonov designed. This is his story.

The OKA1 glider

Antonov at the Leningrad Polytechnic

The OKA38 Stork

The An-2

The An-12 Cub

The An-24 Coke

The vast An-22 Cock

The huge An-124 Condor

The flight deck of the An-124

The mighty Mryia, An-225, carrying a Buran project space shuttle

The destruction of a dream, the Mryia was a victim of the Russian invaders who recently attacked Ukraine

Oleg Antonov

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Antonov Design Bureau, the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, the Central Design Bureau for Gliders, Arpingstone, Igor Dvurekov, Dmitriy Pichugin, Toshi Aoki, Yevgeny Pashnin, Vasiliy Kob and Дизайнер: А.Безменов.

It’s logbook time again and you may recall that I was as freshly a minted A1 QFI as there could be and I had just left the training world to return to the front line on my old Squadron, the Fighting Cocks. I had been in Wales for
over 4 years and in that time the faces I knew on 43 Sqn had almost all gone… it was like I was joining a unit of strangers.

The Q Shed

Additional armed aircraft ready to go onto QRA

The F4 tank limiting speeds

A Soviet Badger trying to sneak past at low level

An F4 tanking from a converted Victor V Bomber

Decimomannu Air Base

How the ACMI Air Combat Manoeuvering Instrumentation worked

The Men of Harlech near Llanbedr

The Jindavik target drone

A frame from the Jindavik cameras showing a Sidewinder about to impact the towed flare target

My new navigator, Coolhand

A 43(F) Sqn Phantom

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, the USAF, RuthAS and Mike Freer.

It was a grand sight to see another German aircraft there, a Junkers W33 with its distinctive corrugated metal skin and stylish enclosed cockpit, a far cry from his own flimsy machine. The German pilots greeted each other and marvelled at how, in 1928, they should have met in such a remote place… some 3,300 miles, 5,300 km, from the Fatherland. It is doubtful that the Junkers pilot knew much about the young 22 year old airman with his flimsy little aircraft, but the gaunt and weathered Baron was well known to von Koenig-Warthausen!

The Junkers W33

Ehrenfried Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld

Alcock and Brown preparing for their transatlantic flight

Posing in front of the W33 named Bremen

The Bremen damaged but safely across the Atlantic

The flimsy, lightweight Klemm L20B

The Klemm airborne

Baron Freidrich Carl von König-Warthausen

The Baron renamed his aircraft after his countryman Hünefeld

Images under a Creative Commons licence with thanks to Monika Hoerath, Tomas Mellies, MIKAN, The Bundesarchiv, Edward N. Jackson, L’Aéronautique magazine, John Underwood plus images in the Public Domain.

Instead of a cargo of bored business men and excited holiday makers, this aged DC-10 was carrying 12,000 gallons, thats 45,000 ltrs of bright red liquid in a huge tank attached to the centre of the fuselage. This is the story of the fire fighting water bombers.

A vast DC10 converted to flying tanker operations

A forest fire

Mixing fire retardant

A fire lookout

The Morton Lake hotshots

The dangers of a wildfire are considerable, even during an evacuation

The dangers of manoeuvring a big aircraft at low level are considerable

Other aircraft are converted into water bombers like this PBY-6A Catalina

Helicopters deliver water from buckets

One of the few purpose built water bombers, the Canadair Superscooper

The magnificent Mars water bomber

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, John McColgan, signal mirror, DarrenRD, Tim Peterson, the USN, SSgt Ed Drew, Pierre Bona and Alex Juorio.

On the last tale, Sidewinders and Sparrows we talked a little about the history of rockets and missiles but it’s a big subject so this week I thought I’d expand on the theme a little and as I’m going to mention lots of rattlesnakes and sparrows, I should probably use the correct collective nouns… rhumbas and quarrels!

Rules of Engagement

JTIDS

The result of a Blue on Blue engagement

An AIM 54 Phoenix launch

An AIM7 Sparrow in flight

The APG63 radar

Radar discrimination

AIM7 Sparrow missiles on an F15 Eagle

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, USN, Daderot and the DOD Media.

Despite their obvious differences, Sidewinders and Sparrows often went together because they aren’t just the names of flying creatures and slithering serpents… they are weapons of war.

The Sidewinder

House Sparrows

The Rapier missile system

Chinese Fire Arrows

The Tipu Sultan’s artillery rockets

The RS-28 rockets fired by the Polikarpov I-16

The German R4M unguided air to air rocket

The nuclear AIR-2 Genie missile

A Genie launch

The AIM9 Sidewinder

The rotating reticule

The rolleron

Guidance

The warhead

An AIM 9 warhead effect demonstration

The AIM7 Sparrow

A QF4B killed by a Sparrow missile

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to images in the Public Domain, UK Defence Imagery, Wubei Zhi, NASA, Juergen Schiffmann, the USAF, David Monniaux, RoyKabanlit, U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation and the USN.

It was New Year’s Day, 2007 and the 96 passengers booked on Adam Air Flight 574 from Java to Sulawesi boarded their Boeing 737-4Q8 for their 2 hour trip. The Indonesian government had adopted a policy of deregulation in the country’s aviation industry which had resulted in a boom of start-up airlines, many of which were low cost carriers. This decision wasn’t matched with an equivalent ramp up of government supervision and control… the result was fierce commercial competition amongst the new airlines with little or no oversight.

Competition amongst the many start up low cost airlines was fierce.

The incident Adam Air Boeing 737, ready for boarding.

An Adam Air B737 taxies out.

Debris from the flight is washed up.

The USN ship Mary Sears.

Adam Air flight 172.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to FLasset for logo, marlborotosca, Dmitriy Pichugin. the NTSB, the USN, the NTSC and ERRORHUNT.

Another installment of tales from my RAF logbook. I’m about halfway through my 4 year sentence at RAF Valley instructing those RAF pilots destined for the fast jet world. The first couple of years had been far from without incident and I should probably mention that I nearly lost my greatest friend to an accident but someone was watching over him that day and he survived.

Our great friend, Glen, a USAF exchange pilot.

Flying in the Hawk

The laying on of hands by Central Flying School

The Hawk T1 trainer

The horrible Spinning explanation

The laziest A1 QFI in existence

How do you get a pilot going? Well, in the old days it started with a hand crank!

The Hucks Starter

… Cowboy Land!

The Coffman Starter

A cartridge starter on the RB-57A

The DHC1 Chipmunk

The Arnold Benz Velo

The cycle of a jet engine

RN Seahawks simultaneous use of their cartridge starters

RAF Lightnings of No56 “Chicken in the Basket” Sqn at RAF Akrotiri

The SR71 Blackbird

The Riedelanlasser starter for German BMW 003 and Jumo 004 turbojet engines

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Library of Congress, Jeff Dahl, NACA, US Patent Office, bomberpilot, Jeff Dahl, the IMW, the RAF, the USAF and Kogo. Attribution not possible for some images.

Waiting for the arrival of the December flying roster was always a tense time. Those with big family gatherings are anxious to ensure they are at home with their loved ones whilst the more carefree crew, with fewer ties, might want to be down route somewhere exotic knowing that a bevy of party goers would be flying with them. I know of one crew who flew over Christmas with great excitement… at least I believe so! Their names were Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders, the crew of the Apollo 8 space mission.

Saturnalia

Victorian Christmas

Father Christmas

The Apollo 8 Crew

The Zond 5 spacecraft

The emblem and launch of Apollo 8

Stage 3 jettison

The surface of the moon

Earthrise

A safe return

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Antoine-François Callet, Joseph Lionel Williams, Robert Seymour, Josiah King, Alfred Henry Forrester, the USSR Post and NASA.

And so Plane Tales was born with the story of the mixologist Joe Gilmore… well, kind of. There had been a few bits in the Show pre the Farnborough special but it hadn’t become part of APG like it is now. The number of Tales will never catch Jeff’s impressive half millennium but they have now passed the 300 mark and these are a few of the memorable ones.

The mixologist, Joe Gilmore

Tumble Down Dick

The flight under Tower Bridge

Parliament

Capt Ogg ditching the Sovereign of the Skies.

Bob Hoover

Major Bung Lee lands his Bird Dog on the USS Midway

Capt Andy Anderson

Hillel

Voiceover artist Greg Willits at GregWillets.com

A tribute to the crew of Lady be Good

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks given on the original episode, Thomas Rowlandson, Greg Willits and DaniKauf, the USAF, the USN and those in the Public Domain.

In the United States the Coast Guard is a fully paid up branch of the military. Its men and women have served with valour in many conflicts and I’m going to tell you about one such event, the rescue of Misty 11.

The badge of the US Coast Guard

An F100 Fast FAC Misty crew

An OV10 Bronco

Spads escorting a Jolly Green Giant

The jungle penetrator.

Landing in difficult terrain

500 saves

The approach into the valley

The rescue

Technical Sergeant Donald G. Smith

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF National Museum, the USAF, USAF National Museum, USGOV-PD, Digital Public Library of America, Defence Imagery, the US Coast Guard and US Gov.

Year two of Porridge… that’s an old term used by prisoners to describe their time inside jail but was very apt as many of my fellow flying instructors and I had not volunteered for this particular job and it was a long one.  As I leaf through the pages of my log book I recall memories from my flying career.

Flying with the Air Officer Commanding

The badge of No 4 Flying Training School, palm tree and all!

Lining up for breaks to the right when someone decided to go LEFT instead!

The fabled MON formation

How the English might have read it!

10 Hawks in echelon

Fishing!

The F4 FIRE Drill

If FIRE confirmed – EJECT

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, BAe, MOD and Mr Geoff Lee of Plane Focus.

Suddenly the black of the night that surrounded them was split open by bright tracer cannon fire that streaked by the windows with loud cracks and then came the shock and thud as some struck the aircraft. The lights were all extinguished… so in the dark, tense and alarmed, everyone waited to see what would happen next. It was the 24th of October 1956, and the first shots in a war over the Suez Canal had just been fired!

Ferdinand de Lesseps, the Father of the Suez Canal

The opening of the canal

A collection of canal views

British armed forces went great lengths to protect the canal during 2 World Wars

After a military coup in Egypt, Nasser took control of the country and seized the Suez Canal

The NF13 Meteor sold to the IAF by Britain

An Il14, as used by the Egyption Air Force

The actual Gloster Meteor used in the attack

The Ilyushin is brought down killing all onboard

The invasion by British, French and Israeli forces is a complete success but political pressures force them to relinquish the canal

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Mohamed kamal 1984, NADAR, the Tropenmuseum, the IWM, the RAF, the MOD, Lars Söderström and other images in the Public Domain.

About this time of the year, I like to do a tale that turns our minds to those who gave their lives for their countries in the many conflicts that have plagued the world.  In the past in tales such as, “In Flanders Fields and Lest We Forget” I’ve talked about the poppy, used as a symbol of remembrance in many countries, and the poem penned by the Canadian doctor, Lt Col John McCrae.  There was a gap in my story, however, that I would now like to close.  The gap that transformed the sad words of John McCrae’s poem into the adoption of the poppy as a representation of remembrance for the fallen, amongst such a large part of the English speaking world… and beyond.

Lt Col John McCrae

The Escadrille Lafayette in July 1917

Moina Belle Michael

Desk and poppy

The YWCA

In Flanders Fields written by John McCrae

An original remembrance poppy

The Poppy Factory in London

Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance in the Albert Hall

The Poppy Lady’s historic road marker

Images under Creative Commons licence under Public Domain and with thanks to the National Museum of the Air Force, the Poppy Project, Neysa McMein, Heatherannej, Nickeaglesfield, the MOD and Ember390.

Within a few days of detonating their first nuclear bomb, to the dismay of the Soviets, President Truman announced that they had the evidence to prove that within recent weeks an atomic explosion had occurred in the USSR. How the United States had obtained that knowledge was highly classified but we now know the story of the secret snoopers who sniffed the stratosphere and their spooky sorties!

The Castle Bravo test blast

The Tsar Bomba

American concerns over nuclear fallout

The WB-29

The RB-47H at the National Museum of the United States Air Force

Balloon debris

The RC-135

The long thin island of Novaya Zemlay

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to TravelingOtter, the US Department of Energy, Croquant, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Ruth AS, the USAF, the University of Texas, the SDASM Archives and NASA.

This is the concluding part of my interview with Mike Wildman, an amputee pilot who has had a fascinating career in aviation. The first part covered Mike’s life in the Royal Air Force flying, the second concerned his life changing decision to have part of his left leg removed and his fight to lead the world’s first disabled formation display team. In this final section Mike tells us about creating Team Phoenix Air and flying the stunning Yak 50.

Mike leading the Bader Bus Company team

The Ultimate High Flying Experience

The interview with Mike, filmed by Nevil Bounds

Team Phoenix Air formation display

Sherill from Team Phoenix

The Yaks

The Yaks

The proposed 2022 air show highlights

The Yakovlevs in the air

The home of the Yakovlevs

How to get in touch with Mike Wildman

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Mike Wildman, Nevil Bounds, The Bader Bus Company, Ultimate High, Team Phoenix Air and the Yakovlevs.

This is the second part of my interview with Mike Wildman, an amputee pilot who has had a fascinating career in aviation. The first part covered Mike’s life in the Royal Air Force flying, amongst other aircraft, the C130 Hercules. In this part we hear about his life changing decision to have part of his left leg removed and his fight, not only to get back into the cockpit of an aircraft but to lead the world’s first disabled formation display team.

Recording the interview with Mike in front of a Yak 52

Mike, a Captain with Virgin Atlantic Airways

Mike after his life changing decision to have part of his left leg removed

Aerobility, the organisation that got Mike back into the air as an amputee pilot

Sir Douglas Bader, a double amputee WWII Battle of Britain fighter pilot

The pilots of the world’s first amputee formation team

The Bader Bus Company Still Running formation team

Mike climbing out of his Yakovlevs Yak 52

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, Aerobility, the Yakovlevs, the Bader Bus Company and Mike Wildman.

Mike Wildman is an amputee pilot who has had a fascinating career in aviation. This tale is about his time in the Royal Air Force flying the C130 Hercules in some very challenging theatres. His story will both amaze and inspire, particularly in the later parts when we will cover his work as the leader of the world’s only fully aerobatic amputee formation team… TeamPhoenixAir.com

Mike, learning to fly

Mike during his RAF basic flying training

Mike was posted to fly the C130 Hercules

Low flying over the desert

Mike, the captain of a Belgium Air Force C130 during his exchange tour

The EPTS Andover that Mike flew

The Boscome Down Comet 4 named Canopus that Mike flew to the North Pole

The day at RIAT when a Mig 29 crashed onto Mike’s aircraft nearly killing him and the others who were watching the show from the top of the fuselage!

Contact details for Mike and Team Phoenix, the world’s only disabled aerobatic formation team

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Mike Freer, RuthAS and the RAF.

The Old Pilot ventures back to the little airport where his career in aviation began nearly half a century previously, meets the young lady now doing his old job and recalls some adventures from his early days.

Many thanks to Nev of Plane Talking UK for providing the audio visual equipment

Grace talks about Synergy Flight Training

The Old Pilot does his thing!

Thanks to those who came

White’s is the oldest and most exclusive Gentleman’s club in London its members have included more Earls, Dukes, Lords, Barrons, Princes, Knights, Viscounts. Marquesses, heads of industry and notable politicians than you could shake a stick at. The name we’re interested in, though, is that of Lord Edward Grosvenor, the youngest son of the 1st Duke of Westminster. It was in White’s that Grosvenor had the idea to form an RAF Squadron of wealthy aristocratic young aviators all of whom were already amateur pilots and members of the club… this is the story of that Squadron.

Hot Chocolate, the drink that started it all

Chocolate and Coffee Houses were known for anarchy, licentiousness, gambling, hobnobbing, and politicking.

White’s, the oldest and most exclusive Gentleman’s club in London

The French Foreign Legion

The Gordon Bennett Balloon Race trophy

An officer and a gentleman

The Avro 504

No 601 Squadron the County of London

Swapping cockpits

Billy Fisk III driving the 1932 US Olympic bobsled team

The Hawker Hurricane

Canadian Sir John William Maxwell Aitken

The Millionaire’s Hurricanes over England

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Library of Congress, Afro Bighair, Anthony O’Neil, the National Archives, Deutsche Fotothek and the RAF.

The world of a pilot is different to any other. They see things from a different perspective and view the world from places that even the mightiest birds cannot reach. All their faculties of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing experience sensations unique to their position whether they are manoeuvring a mighty airliner or sliding through the air on sheets of silk in a slippery sailplane. When they get a chance, even the most professional and conscientious pilots will take a moment to marvel at their world. These are treasured moments that they will lock in their hearts and only bring out in quiet moments of contemplation, perhaps when they look back and realise what a life of wonder they have led.

The gear

The brain

Cordite

Passengers

Switches

Gloves

Goon suit

Size

Saraha

Ice rivers

Ice bergs

Streets of cumuli

Skyscrapers

Noctilucent

Glory

Trails

Moon

Sunset

Steph

Rick

Atlantic

Touchdown

We all have our favourite flying movies, whether it’s a black and white classic with biplanes wheeling around the sky flown by actual World War One flying aces, comedy cult movies from which we can quote our favourite lines (Shirley you don’t mean that) or modern thrillers which employ state of the art computer generated imagery. This is a story of a much loved actor who didn’t just act in an aircraft crash, he became an unwilling participant.

Favourite movies

Ancestor William Bradford

Army swimming training

Going AWOL, a black mark for the squad

The Douglas AD-1Q Skyraider

A ditched Skyraider

A single seat dingy

The coast off Point Reyes

The RCA station that took him in

Clint Eastwood

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Glasshouse, coolvalley, Impawards, MGM, the US Army, US Navy, the Produzioni Europee Associati and the NPS GOV.

The work the Young Tiger crews performed during the Vietnam War was monumental. With an average fleet of 88 tankers over a 7 year period they performed nearly 180 thousand missions offloading 8.2 billion lbs, thats over 3,700 million tons, of fuel. A staggering achievement only surpassed by the hundreds of aircraft saves they achieved, preventing many of their fellow aircrew from falling into enemy hands.

The Lockheed L193 tanker proposal

A B52 of SAC refuelling from a Boeing KC135

The KC135 Flying Boom

The Flying Tigers in Vietnam

The F105

A KC135 refuelling F105s

Navy Whales

The Daisy Chain

An F111 tanking

The Flying Tigers at work

Images shown under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Lockheed, the USAF, NAID, the US Government and the US Navy.

Forty years ago, four RAF pilots graduated from Central Flying School and became fast jet Qualified Flying Instructors. They hadn’t been together at the same time since then. When they did, they shared some more stories.

Four QFIs then

Dave

A typical course photo

How Dave’s Hawk might have looked!

The Hawk canopy showing the lines of Miniature Detonating Cord MDC

Dave after receiving his Green Endorsement

Dave’s Green Endorsement

Nij

An F4

Barry

An RAF Canberra

Four QFIs now

Images shown under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Airwolfhound, the RAF and JohnnyOneSpeed.

Sadly there are also many who think that ‘Boy Scout’ honesty is something that should be left behind in childhood but luckily not many that do take on the responsibility of becoming a career pilot. When I discovered recently that there is a name for this capacity to openly admit guilt for one’s mistakes, it didn’t come as a surprise that it was named after a pilot. Captain Asoh.

Tokyo airport

A DC8 on approach

A JAL Captain’s hat

The DC8 cockpit

The miraculous accidental landing of Shiga

The ditched JAL DC8, repaired and flying again for Okada Air

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to SAS, Felix Goetting, Werner Friedli and Pentti Koskinen.

Forty years ago, four RAF pilots graduated from Central Flying School and became fast jet Qualified Flying Instructors. They hadn’t been together at the same time since then. When they did, they shared a few stories.

Four QFIs back then

The Hawk in close formation

The English Electric Lightning

The Lightning F3

Loch Ness

Four QFIs now!

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Mike Freer, Bob Adams, RuthAS and the Director General of the Ordnance Survey.

Defenceless, it relied on its unmatched performance to provide vital data for the USA and NATO on some of the most sensitive parts of the globe. One of the regular missions flown by the SR71 Blackbird out of a base in the United Kingdom, RAF Mildenhall, was East across the North and Baltic Seas towards the territories of the Soviet Union; these flights were known as the Baltic Express. All went until one day…

The SR71 at Mildenhall

The original A12

The Baltic Express track

The Saab 29, nicknamed the Tunnan

The Draken

The Saab AJS 37 Viggen

The Vig was also capable of operating from unusual locations

Shockwave formation during an unstart.

An SR71 pilot in his pressure suit

The Mig 25 Foxbat

Three of the 4 Viggen pilots involved receive their Air Medals

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Digital Public Library of America, USAF, John5199, Blockhaj, Alan Wilson, Guenter KONZ-BEYER Bad Erlach, NASA, Alex Beltyukov, Defence Imagery and the US Gov.

The crew come clean on some of their layover hotel experiences. After Part 1, the Good, comes Part 2, the Bad and the Ugly!

Capt Nick’s hotel in Mong Kok, the epicentre of the SARS pandemic.

The New York hotel nicknamed the Transylvania!

The Kentucky Derby.

ACME B-727 Flight Engineer Jeff.

His room resembled a monk’s cell.

Stouffers in its heyday.

Steph’s famous A sign!

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Chong Fat, Maximilian Dörrbecker, Dr Fred Murphy, ArnoldReinhold, PandamicPhoto.com, Carol M. Highsmith, Zarateman and Oliver Pitzke.

Over their careers, airline pilots, and doctors come to that, will have stayed in a myriad of loggings during their overnight stays and the vast majority will have merged into a conglomeration of memories but every now and then one or two will stand out from the rest. In this tale, the crew have kindly shared some of their experiences starting with the Good… the Bad and the Ugly will follow on next week so be sure to tune in!

Capt Nick landing in Hong Kong

The Langham Place hotel

The amazing vertical mall.

The original Tim Ho Wan dim sum resturant

The Bird Market

The C141

American Samoa

The Rainmaker Hotel

The Boeing 767

The Intercontinental Tahiti Resort

The Leeward Island of Montserrat

Olveston house

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Langham Place hotel, the USAF, NOAA, Jerry & Roy Klotz MD, Intercontinental Hotels and Olveston house.

It was the 19th of January 1915 and the people of the English towns of Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn were woken by an eerie throbbing sound from above them. No-one there had ever heard it before, this deep rumble of powerful engines in the sky, slowly approaching in the darkness. People left their homes and looked into the inky black sky but nothing could be seen. The noise grew and, now alarmed at this strange roaring, they began to run but nobody was sure which way would be safe… they didn’t know if they were running towards danger or away! Then the blackness was cracked wide open by a bright flash, soon followed by the thunder of an explosion as bombs dropped on the defenceless people below. The full horror of aerial warfare had been unleashed on the people of England and when the smoke cleared, the first deaths revealed.

The bombing of Kings Lynn and Great Yarmouth.

A British recruitment poster.

A commemorative wall plaque.

Newspaper headlines of the day.

The Buckingham bullet.

Lt Warneford’s downing of the first Zeppelin by a fighter aircraft.

The L23 capturing the Norwegian bark, Royal.

Using Zeppelins in support of the German Navy was a primary mission and crashes became commonplace.

The world’s first deck landing on an aircraft carrier, the converted Battlecruiser HMS Furious.

Sopwith Camels onboard HMS Furious prior to the Tondern raid.

The aftermath of the Tondern raid on the Toska hangar.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to The Library of Congress, Christopher Braun, Geni, Crosby F Gordon, The War Illustrated, the Imperial War Museum, Marshall Everett, the Ministry of Defence and for images in the Public Domain.

Lieutenant Colonel Rob Sweet, after a 33 year career flying the Warthog, completed his final flight on the 5th of June 2021 at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia. As he climbed out he was met with a shower of champagne. I don’t regret going over there, fighting and getting shot down, Sweet said, that’s what I took an oath to do. The Air Force Chief of Staff, General Charles Brown said, with your retirement, it will be the first time in the history of our Air Force that we will not have a former POW serving. Thank you for all you’ve done.  This is the story of Rob Sweet.

The venerable Spad (the A-1 Skyraider).

General Electric GAU-8/A beside a Volkswagen Beetle!

A comparison of size between a .303 round and that of the GAU-8.

The smoke created by the GAU-8 could be a problem when ingested into the engines.

An Iraq Republican Guard armoured vehicle.

The SA-3 Strela.

Rockeye bomblets.

Lt Col Sweet is finally released.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USN, USAF, Samf4u, Defence Imagery, Department of National Defence, Vitaly V. Kuzminand and Johnny Saunderson.

Another foray into the log book as the Old Pilot starts work as a Qualified Flying Instructor at No 4 Flying Training School, RAF Valley.

Another course of newly minted QFIs

A Hawk T1 over RAF Valley on the island of Anglesey

Hawks in close formation

The Reds doing it properly in cloud and everything!

Flying solo in the Hawk

The Hawk doing aerobatics

The RAF Valley Summer Ball

Yours truly, B2 QFI

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the UK Ministry of Defence.

Looking back on the final years of the second world war its easy to forget that nobody knew quite when the conflict would end. Many aircraft were constructed and flown and were thought to be the pinnacle of fighting science at the time but we know little of them nowadays because the war ended and they never made it into service… they were no longer required. Here are a few.

The Supermarine Spitfire

The Republic Rainbow

The Martin Baker MB3

The Martin Baker MB5

The CAC Boomerang

The CA 15 Kangaroo

The HO 229

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, SDASM, USAF, Insomnia Cured Here,  RAF, Martin Baker, IWM, Australian War Memorial collection John Thomas Harrison,  US Army, Tomás Del Coro and the NASM.

A favourite old tale of the checkered history that brought about the Phonetic Alphabet and Op Brevity Code… retold.

A early radio

Send three and fourpence!

An early Army signals book

N for November

The NATO Phonetic Alphabet

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the US Army, an Unknown cartoonist, US Mint, Matthäus Mérian, Daiju Azuma, Screenland, Elmer Eustice Bucher, Generali, Master of Jean Rolin II, Mcj1800 and the Auckland Museum.

Air Law is something that all pilots must have some knowledge of or they wouldn’t be awarded a licence or certificate… it’s required knowledge. Having said that, it’s a long way from being simple and even a qualified Air Transport pilot will only have scratched the surface. In the Air Force, one might have assumed that things would have been pretty tight and mutiny unheard of.

Let me set you straight!

Early balloons

An aircraft Commander

The Signals Corps in a balloon basket

The Freeman Field mutiny

Lt Bill Terry

The RAF in Karachi

The RAF mutiny

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Library of Congress, US Army,the RAF and the RAF Museum.

The Vulcan bomber only had ejector seats for the two pilots… the rear crew made do with an escape slide, a level if inequality that killed many and resulted in questions being asked in Parliament. This is the story of the Vulcan and a look at the USN Skyknight which had a similar escape system.

The rear crew compartment of the Avro Vulcan

Malta

Malta

The Vulcan

The Vulcan air brakes

The crash site

Avro Vulcan XV770

The Vulcan rear crew escape hatch

The F3 Skynight

Skynight bailout trials

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Isaac Bee, Anton Zelenov, NASA, DFST, RuthAS, the RAF, Roland Turner, US Navy, Ultra7 and the USAF.

The noise of flying machines can be a source of joy or annoyance. Let’s have a look at what makes that noise and how much progress has been made over the years!

The F-84F Thunderbirds team

The XF-84H ‘Thunderscreech’!

The Boeing Dash 80, prototype of the B707

Noise creating vortices coming from an airliner’s flaps

The Bypass section of a RR Trent

A possible Airbus blended body design

An APU exhaust

The Gyrodyne Rotorcycle

Images are displayed under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Dreamstime.com – Airbus, the USAF, Boeing Dreamscape, David Monniaux and the US DOD.

The final few letters of a look at aviation through the alphabet.

A model of the original Flettner 282 Helicopter

Flettner helicopters have the unfortunate potential to decapitate the unwary!

A cutaway of the Spitfire with it’s remarkable Rolls Royce Merlin V12 engine.

The Allison V-1710 V12 engine

The Daimler-Benz DB600 V12.

The X Planes

The Napkin ring

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Raobe001, Ball wallpaper, the National Archives UK, the Smithsonian archive, the USAF, NASA,

After last week’s tale, here are a few more letters of the Alphabet to ponder on!

The Martin Baker Mk7A seat with adjustable rocket pack!

The US Army working under flares

Aircraft registrations

Working on the RR Merlin engine

The aircraft convenience!

Varig Flight 820

The Queen’s Flight

Rolls Royce

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Martin Baker, US Army, Richard Stone, David, Sapeurs Pompiers de Paris and the MOD.

The language of aviation is treasured by those of us who use it, especially since it separates us from those poor earth bound souls who don’t spend their lives with their eyes cast skyward. In the spirit of fairness, particularly to spouses who stand impatiently, eyes rolling as we converse with our avgeek friends about how pretty that Wedgetail is, here are a few pointers to help you join in the conversation.

The axes of an aircraft

Flight Bag

Drag!

An Empennage

Flaps

A Chinese Follow-Me car

A world record hail stone

Hi is for Hangar

The angle of incidence

The F8 “Last of the Gunfighters’.

The Jetway!

Images under the Creative Commons licence with thanks to M9matr0902, ZeroOne, Comicship, Olivier Cleynen, NiD29, NOAA and Wallsworth.

I apologise to you all but it’s time for my tatty old RAF log book to come out of the cupboard again. It was a sad, sad situation but for the recently promoted Flight Lieutenant Anderson, his departure from flying the Phantom on 43 Squadron was a reality that he had to face up to. Central Flying School is an august establishment that will proudly inform anyone with an interest (or not) that it is the world’s longest existing flying training school. It was to this anachronistic institution that I was bound!

The crest of the Central Flying School of the Royal Air Force

The Staff of the Central Flying School

The Red Arrows

The island of Anglesey

The Britannia Bridge

The BAE Systems Hawk T1

Flying the Hawk

The Great Orme and Llandudno Pier

Llandudno Pier

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to CFS, the RAF, the National Library of Wales, Tim Felce, Defence Imagery, Google Maps, Noel Walley and images within the Public Domain.

The subject of UFOs became a very popular theme in the press, on the television and in film, something that Intelligence services quietly encouraged. There were many, very secret projects that the US Government was investing enormous resources in, and any alternative explanation was preferable than the truth. One such project was the Silver Bug, a US Black version of the Canadian Avrocar. However, the Silver Bug’s true capabilities were about to be discovered!  But beware… not everything may be as it seems!

Sightings given credibility by the Swedish Air Intelligence Service

Everyone was caught up in the new UFO phenomena

Henri Coanda, discoverer of the Coanda effect

Jack Frost of Avro, the designer of the Avrocar

USAF regulations relating to UFOBs

The Canadian Avrocar during tests

Groom lake in Area 51

Technical Report on the Silver Bug

The Silver Bug’s special Jet Stream aerodynamics

The Silver Surfer

The Silver Surfer accelerates

The Silver Surfer crosses the coast

The Silver Surfer completes its secret flight around the planet

The Soviet Aпреля Один (Aprelya Odin)

Images under Creative Commons Licence with thanks to the USAF, Bzuk, National Archives UK, Instituto Geográfico, Invencion propia, Doc Searles, William Bill Zuk, Phylyp and the USGov.

It takes about 12 seconds for the human body to reach terminal velocity.  At that speed they will see the earth’s surface approach them at 177 feet or 54 meters every second.  These are the stories of a few survivors who have fallen from an aircraft, without opening a parachute… and survived!

The remarkable Juliane Koepcke

Nicholas Alkemade

RAF Lancasters

The Ju88 nightfighter

The Il-4

B17 Flying Fortress bombers on a mission over Europe

The B17 ball turret

Vesna Vulović and a JAT DC9

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, SDASM, IWM and clipperarctic.  Other images are in the Public Domain or considered Fair Use.

The landing gear, or undercarriage, of a big airliner is a massive and powerful system. In modern times stowaways, have frequently attempted to hide within the undercarriage wheel-wells of airliners. The chances of surviving such an ordeal are remote in the extreme as the hazards are many. If someone attempting such a dangerous journey isn’t crushed by the movement of the gear as it stows or fall to their death when the undercarriage doors open to raise or lower the gear, then the environment will present an almost insurmountable hazard. Some, however, still survive!

The landing gear of a B747

The forces that the undercarriage assembly is subjected to are considerable

The landing gear assembly and doors of a B747

FAA guidance on times of useful consciousness

Stranded near Newfoundland in the ice

A Douglas DC8

The DC10

Japanese troops in Timor

A 1950’s airport similar to Kupang

A Netherlands Air Force C47

Darwin Hospital

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Adrian Pingstone, Faisal Akram, Alf van Beem, Australian War Memorial, Fotoafdrukken Koninklijke Luchtmacht and kenhodge13.

The Hovercraft is something of a rare beast. This story examines the many engineers and scientists who contributed to the development of a vehicle that is lifted on a cushion of air and is capable of travelling over land, water, mud, ice, tarmac, sand and many other flattish surfaces.

The Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg is known to have sketched the first hovercraft design in 1714.

Dagobert Müller von Thomamühl’s Luftkissengleitboot, a surface effect boat.

How a hovercraft functions.

Ford’s efforts at hovering cars.

The L1 hovering tank.

Charles Fletcher’s Glidemobile.

Cockerell’s hovercraft patent.

Sir Christopher Sydney Cockerell.

SRN1.

SRN4.

The US Navy LCAC.

The Soviet Zubr class ACV, the biggest in the world weighing in at 555 tons.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those in the Public Domain, Technical Museum Vienna, Messer Woland, the Ford Motor Company, Ad Meskens, GB Patent Office, The National Archives UK, USN, Andrew Berridge and Mil.Ru (LightZone).

Out of the gloom of thick cloud, through their windscreens, the pilots suddenly saw the tops of pine trees but it was too late to pull up. They ploughed through them as the branches smashed into the left wing shattering the navigation light. One of the passengers onboard was the President of the airline, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker… this is his story.

An Eastern Airlines DC3

Atlanta had poor weather and it was close to midnight when the aircraft crashed

Eddie Rickenbacker

The findings of the inquiry

Racing in San Francisco

Rickenbacker becomes CO of the 94th, the Hat in the Ring gang

After receiving many decorations, Rickenbacker returns to the US a hero

The Rickenbacker motor company

Rickenbacker survives a second crash, this time in a Boeing B-17

Capt. E.V. “Eddie” Rickenbacker wearing the Congressional Medal of Honor

Images published under Creative Commons Licence with thanks to Jack Delano, the Library of Congress, CAB, SF Public Library, NARA, Rickenbacker Motors, the USAFand the USAAF.

This is the final part of the Red Flag tales which carries on directly from Part II where we heard some exploits from participants of Exercise Red Flag. If you haven’t listened to the previous taleson this subject, it would be worth going back them.  My thanks to Jaguar Pilot Nij, Tornado pilot Gasher, Tomcat RIO Scott and RAAF F111 Nav Abs.

The E-3 Sentry AWACS.

Break Right Chuck, there’s one in your 6 o’clock!

A Smokey SAM.

Live weapons being dropped during Red Flag.

A Tornado drops flares.

An RAAF F111 puts its wings back and goes!

The Jaguar pilot’s favourite dance.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, Photo-Concepte.de, the RAF, the USN,

In the first part of the Red Flag tales we talked about the reasons for the formation of the USAF Fighter Weapons School and the subsequent creation of Exercise Red Flag. Now we get a chance to hear from some of the participants.  Firstly there is Nij who took time off from his Nuclear QRA duties to fly his RAF Jaguar in Flag exercises.  Then we have a Tornado GR1 pilot, Gasher, who also participated on behalf of the RAF.  Jack was an F15 pilot who took part as a wingman, formation leader and also as a Fighter Weapons School graduate.  Scott was a Tomcat RIO who was part of Red Air during Flag exercises and Abs, a navigator from the Royal Australian Air Force flew with the F111 force and was even a Blue Force Commander during the exercise.

An RAF Jaguar

An RAF Tornado at Nellis

The mighty F15 Eagle

The USN F14 Tomcat

The RAAF F111

The Nellis ranges with Area 51 marked in red

The Nellis Air Force Base

A Red Flag briefing

The symbol of Exercise Red Flag

The EF-111A Raven

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Steve Lynes, Finlay McWalter, the USAF, USN, Ken Lund, the National Museum of the Air Force and the MOD.

The Korean War had been a successful period for the US Air Force but a decade later in the Vietnam war their success rate had gone from 10:1 down to 1:1. Something had to be be done.  This is the story of the creation of the USAF Fighter Weapons School and Exercise Red Flag!

The F86 in Korea

The F4 Phantom II

Wreckage of a B52 in Hanoi

The Weapons School graduate patch and an example of dissimilar combat between an F16 and Mig21

A Soviet Surface to Air missile system

A captured Soviet Mig in USAF markings

The F5 Aggressors

Richard Suter

The Nellis Ranges

A ‘Smokey SAM’

IAF F15s, one of the many nations that are invited to take part in Ex Red Flag

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, Mark Limb, US DOD, US Gov, US Defence Imagery, USMC, Finlay McWalter, National Museum of the Air Force and Srđan Popović.

It is the beginning of 1981 but for me it was the conclusion of my first front line tour of duty. When my posting came I was devastated. I had been sent to instruct at No 4 Flying Training School, RAF Valley on the island of Anglesey in North Wales. A remote corner in the middle of nowhere doing a job I didn’t want.

An F4 Phantom FG1 of No43(F) Sqn.

The Hawker Harrier GR1.

Survival Scramble.

 The A10 Warthog.

The BLC Malfunction emergency checklist.

Greek Gunboats!

My posting to become a QFI loomed!

My much loved Yamaha along with our poo coloured Rover!

Climbing Mt Snowdon.

Dave would perish during Exercise Red Flag when he crashed his RAF Jaguar avoiding a simulated SAM engagement.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Mike Freer, Senior Airman Matthew Bruch, CC BY-SA 3.0, the USAF, the RAF and myself!