Chapter Seventy Five
RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire, UK.
Flight Sergeant John Archibald wiped his brow, reflecting on the fact that changing the gun pack on a Hunter FGA. 9 had never been as hard work ‘back in the day’, at least it was not a Lightning ‘quick change pack’. If ever there was a misnamed piece of equipment that was it. Still he and the other ‘old timers’ needed to show these young National Servicemen and women how to do the job of rearming an aircraft and demonstrate that they were still up to the job themselves.
“And that, boys and girls is how we change the gun pack on a Hunter.” He paused for a second to let a patrol of Hawk T. 1A trainers, once painted in bright red and white colors, but now hastily painted grey and armed with AIM-9Ls and a 30mm gun pod, take off behind them. “Not as difficult as you might have thought, was it? “We’ll get you started on changing gun packs today and once you’re proficient on that we’ll move onto something more challenging like a SNEB rocket pod, or one thousand pound bomb.”
Before retiring from RAF service as a sergeant Archibald had been an armorer, mainly working on Lightnings and Phantoms. Amongst the milestones of his career had been when a Phantom FGR. 2 he had been responsible for had managed to accidentally shoot down a Jaguar GR. 1, and he and some colleagues had once managed to trick an airman into standing guard over a WE. 177 that was supposedly leaking ‘liquid plutonium’. His face when the ‘clean up crew’ arrived in full NBC gear had been a picture; sadly the RAF Police had been less impressed by the joke. Like so many other service pensioners once Queen’s Order Two had been signed he had found himself back in RAF blue, though at least he now wore a crown above the three chevrons of his former rank.
The RAF had deliberately chosen to form a number of new squadrons equipped with the Hunter. There were still many of them around in airworthy condition, the Avon engine was still in production for industrial use, they were rugged aircraft, not so sophisticated that they would need lots of technical support, yet fast enough to be able to deal with Harpies if necessary, and had a useful ground attack capability. The first source of Hunters that the RAF had turned to had been the one’s the service owned itself, aircraft in taxiable condition that were use for ground movements training, and British museums. After that they had gone abroad, buying some Swiss Hunters, before going as far a field as Zimbabwe, India and Chile, looking for potential airframes. Fortunately the majority of those aircraft exported were either FGA. 9s, or had been based on that model, so commonality was not too much of a problem, though the most troublesome aircraft had been the ex-Royal Navy GA. 11s which had to have ADEN cannons and ‘Sabrinas’ fitted to them, both of which were not always easy to source.
One other advantage of using the Hunter was that it was a good aircraft to teach newly qualified pilots and ground crew on. The RAF had also been lucky that the Hunter had survived in such prolific numbers and that there was no great shortage of spares. Besides learning to manufacture some spare parts on a lathe was good training for some of the conscripts. Some Hunters had already joined the Tornado F. 3s and Hawk T. 1As in performing Combat Air Patrol duties over the UK while the small number of FR. 10s and similar Photo Reconnaissance variants had already proven themselves to be a useful Tac Recce asset to CINC-Combined UK Land Forces.
One other somewhat newer aircraft the RAF had considered was the English Electric Lightning. The problem with this aircraft, however, was that apart from the former Saudi and Kuwaiti aircraft, they could only carry out the air to air mission and were rather lightly armed for the anti-Harpy role.. Still, the air force could not really afford to ignore a potential combat aircraft, at least not until more Typhoons, Tornado GR. 4s and the new Hawk FGR. 2 were delivered. Even the Tornado F. 3 had managed to diversify into the anti-Harpy mission and the RAF was now looking at adapting some of the F. 3s it had brought out of storage to carry other types of air to ground ordnance Given his experience working on the Lightning it was inevitable that as well as his duties which involved training National Servicemen Flight Sergeant Archibald would also be assigned to the Lightning Training Flight that had been established at Scampton. Once he was able to hand over supervision of the trainees to a sergeant he drove over to the dispersal of the LTF, which was currently made up of four two-seat T. 5s and five F. 6s. The air force was hoping to get a few more F. 6s and F. 53s operational, but for now this small force was it. The first problem after restoring the aircraft that the RAF had faced was arming them, while 30mm ADEN shells were plentiful enough and still in production, there were not exactly lots of Red Top missiles around. Back in the 1970s the RAF had trialed fitting AIM-9 Sidewinders to a Lightning F. 6 as a possible replacement for the Red Top, though the MoD had decided that there was no money available for such a modification to an aircraft soon to leave service. Now the armorers of the LTF were working on fitting AIM-9Ls to their aircraft and getting missile and weapons computer to talk to each other.
“How’s it going?” He asked another Flight Sergeant armorer once he had arrived.
“It’s not bloody well going, Jack. The ruddy missile will fit.” He said pointing to an AIM-9L attached to the nearest Lightning. “But the bloody plane’s weapons computer, such as it is, doesn’t want to know. Damned thing has less processing power than my watch.
“I don’t suppose somebody has found a bunker full of Red Tops so we can knock this on the head by any chance.”
“Sadly not, this is something we’ll need to crack on with. You be nice to the Lightning and it will eventually do what you want it to.”
Archibald shook his head, perhaps the Lightning was going a step too far. It was just at the awkward point of development, too complex to run as a simple gun-truck like the Hunter, not complex enough to carry modern equipment. That brought him to the next item on his list of duties, one he was looking forward to. He had to go to Nottingham and pick up a cache of electronics equipment and technicians then bring them back to this base. It really was amazing what the RAF had stashed away over the years and, in many cases, forgotten that they ever had it. Perhaps the idea of a bunker full of Red Top missiles wasn’t so outlandish after all. Anyway, he had to take a small convoy of trucks over and that was the pleasant bit. Just over 100 kilometers and petrol rationing meant that the roads would be clear. A pleasant drive in the countryside was just what was needed to take thoughts of the Lightning’s balky computer out of his mind.
Three hours later, he was on the outskirts of Nottingham, doing the unthinkable. He was asking directions. His little convoy had managed to take a wrong turning and somehow got hopelessly off course. The problem was that somebody, in a fit if excessive zeal or perhaps ingrained memory of anti-paratrooper precautions from World War Two, had taken down all the street names. Rather than waste precious petrol he’d stopped at the first large store he’d seen, a garden supply center, and gone in to find out where he was and what he had to do to go where he was supposed to. His uniform had got him some quick attention.
“Twelve sacks of fertilizer.” The voice came from behind him, from a man speaking to one of the service clerks.
“Any particular kind sir?”
“Nutrafin.”
That made the staff pay attention and Archibald’s ears pricked up. Nutrafin was an ammonium nitrate fertilizer and, while not exactly a controlled substance any more, it was an ‘object of interest’ when purchased in bulk. Twelve sacks of the stuff were more than slightly ‘bulk’. That made the purchase more than slightly ‘interesting’.
Discretely, Archibald turned around and looked at the would-be purchaser. He was unkempt, dirty, disheveled, well, a man who spent his time working on other people’s gardens and didn’t get paid more than a very basic wage could well look like that. There was something else about him though, something that Archibald couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was as if he wasn’t quite here, as if a part of him was detached. Perhaps he was educationally sub-normal and this was the best job he could get? But if that was the case, why would he have been trusted with what had to be a major purchase?
“I’m afraid we’ll have to get an order that large from the warehouse Sir. It’ll take a while, would you mind waiting? Or perhaps you’d like to come back for it?”
“I’ll wait. And hurry up, the Goddess is waiting.”
Normally a remark like that would have added at least 30 minutes to his wait time but the garden center staff had noted there was something odd about this man as well and wanted him out. Archibald sympathized with them but the incongruity of the remark nagged at him. A worker might well refer to an imperious and demanding female manager as “the goddess” but there was something in the man’s voice that belied that explanation. There had been
