compounding the difficulties because the magnetic compass was awkward to read and was subject to a host of errors, even in straight and level flight.
In the latter part of every flight, my instructor would take over control and put the aircraft through a series of harsh manoeuvres to confuse my understanding of what the aircraft was doing. I tried to use sunlight moving through the cockpit from ever-changing directions, but this confused me more than it helped. Mick McLaren would then say, “You have control” which meant I had to get the aircraft back into straight and level flight in the shortest time possible. Each flight then concluded with a limited panel let-down on the Non-Directional Beacon (NDB) that then flowed into a radar talk-down to landing on a full panel of instruments.
Full panel flying seemed easy compared to limited panel flying, which constituted most of the time spent on IF. A spell of bad weather with eight-eighths cloud (no blue sky) gave opportunity to fly without the amber screen and blue goggles. I could not believe how easy it was to fly instruments under these conditions, but then it was back to the world of blue for many flights to come.
One morning my instructor lined up on the runway for a standard instrument take-off. As I powered up and released the brakes, he began criticising me and kept thrusting his finger at the directional indicator. When I eased the aircraft off the ground, I lost heading a bit—for which he cursed me in a manner I had not known before. For the entire flight I was given hell for everything I did and the names I was called would not pass censorship. My whole world seemed to fall apart as I battled to satisfy my instructor’s non-stop demands, so it was a great relief to get back on the ground.
As Flight Lieutenant McLaren and I were walking back to the crew room he asked, “What went wrong with you today?” I could not answer and dared not look at him because I was too close to tears. He obviously saw the quiver on my chin and said, “Tomorrow will be better. Have a cup of tea, then come and see me in my office for debriefing.”
The next morning I was horrified to see the Flight Authorisation Book had me down for IF with Flight Lieutenant Edwards, our OC I immediately came to the conclusion that this was a scrub check. When the time came, I was called to his office for a pre-flight briefing, but all he said was “Go and pre-flight the aircraft and get yourself strapped in. I will be with you shortly.”
When Ken Edwards climbed into his seat I could not get over the size of the man. His left arm was against mine whereas my instructor’s arm was always clear. He started the engine and commenced taxiing to the runway before telling me to relax. “Take this as just another IF flight”, he said. From then on he only told me what he wanted me to do next. The unusual attitudes I was asked to recover from were so much easier than Mick McLaren’s. The routine NDB and radar letdown were fine and we were back on the ground in less than the usual hour. As we taxied back to dispersals Ken Edwards said, “Well done, you have passed your instrument-rating test.' I was over the moon.
I had had absolutely no idea that this had been a rating test or that my instructor had deliberately set me up for it. By baiting me continuously the previous day, Flight Lieutenant McLaren had satisfied himself that I would not fall to pieces under duress, so he was quite sure I would fly a good test.
It was great to be the first of my course to gain a White Card instrument rating. Some of my fellow students struggled with instrument flying and our number had reduced to ten students by the time the last IF test was flown. For the two weeks between my test and the last student passing his, I was flying two solo sorties for every one flown with my instructor. Flying was now becoming really enjoyable!
One of the students who failed to make it through the IF phase was Ronnie Thompson. He was very depressed and embarrassed by his failure. However, upon his return to civilian life, he followed his passion for wildlife and became a game warden with Rhodesian National Parks. In a career that continues today, Ronnie proved himself to be a top-line ranger and an enthusiastic promoter of wildlife. Over the years he has featured in many wide-ranging wildlife topics on radio, TV and press.
Having achieved instrument flight proficiency, it was time to move on to night flying, which was great. The fairyland of coloured lights covering Gwelo town and Thornhill reminded me of the 1947 visit to Rhodesia by King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and the two princesses. For that royal visit Salisbury had been transformed into a dream world of coloured lights, with thousands of flags and portraits of the Royal Family. The colours, sights and sensations of the occasion are indelibly printed in my mind and night flying always induces recall of that special occasion.
Daytime navigation commenced at the same time as night flying. Now, after many years of flying and having flown with many civilian-trained pilots, I look back and recognise the excellence of Air Force instruction given from day one. Simple matters such as looking over one’s shoulder to ensure a town or other landmark was in the right relative position for one’s heading to next destination may seem obvious, but this insured against misreading the compass or Directional Indicator. Typical and sometimes deadly errors of steering, say, 315 degrees instead of 135 degrees, are thus avoided.
Initially our navigation was conducted on 1:1,000,000-scale maps that, by the nature of their small scale, provide limited topographical information when compared to the abundance of visible features along every flight path. Though this made map-reading for students difficult, it also helped to ensure that maps were read sensibly. Too often man-made features such as roads, railways, bridges, power lines and water storage dams appearing on our maps printed some years earlier were either no longer in use, had altered course or could not be seen at all. There were also many clearly visible landmarks that were not shown at all. So the need to ignore all but God- made natural features was repeatedly drummed into us.
Ever-improving navigational aids, which have become commonplace for present-day pilots, did not exist in Rhodesia in the 1950s. Non-Directional Beacons (NDBs) sited at a few main Airfields were only reliable (when they worked) close to their locations. So reading the ground with one’s Mk1 eyeballs and using map, clock and compass correctly was essential. The ability to identify correctly those riverlines drawn on our maps and interpret ground contouring and high features accurately, particularly at low level, became one of the hallmarks of Rhodesian Air Force pilot proficiency in the years to come.
Night navigation presented different problems, especially when the summer months laid a heavy haze across the country. Dead reckoning and the ability to interpret distances and angles to the lights of towns and mines were of paramount importance. The atmosphere at night with dimly illuminated instruments always thrilled me. Some nights were as dark as a witch’s heart, whereas full moonlight made ground visible at low level. My favourite night-flying condition was when the moon illuminated towering, flashing thunderclouds that sent brilliant lightning strikes to the ground. The dangers one would face in the event of engine failure on any night were deliberately pushed to the back of one’s mind.
General flying continued between night and navigational flights and on occasions solo students were flying every airborne aircraft. Sometimes this was a pretty dangerous situation because, at that time, we had all logged about 140 flying hours.
I cannot recall where I learned that the Royal Air Force consider there are specific danger periods in the average military pilot’s career. These are when overconfidence tends to peak—around 50, 150, 500 and 1,500 hours. We were in the second danger period and the warnings given to us by Squadron Leader Whyte, concerning crew-room bragging and challenges, were all but forgotten. It was Eric Cary who always sought to challenge.
Eric was an outstanding sportsman who revelled in any one-on-one sport such as squash, for which he was then the Rhodesian champion. He also liked to pit his skills against other pilots and it was he who challenged me to meet him at a pre-arranged site in the flying area for a ‘dog fight’ to see which of us could outmanoeuvre the other.
On arrival at the appointed area I was astounded to find all six students gathered in what can only be described as a bloody dangerous situation with everyone chasing everyone else. The greatest potential for mid-air collision probably came from Hoffy who repeatedly climbed above the rest of us then dived straight through the pitching and circling melee.
We had not yet started formation flying but coaxed each other into giving it a go anyway. I shudder when looking back at what we did. We had not yet learned that the lead aircraft maintains steady power and that station-holding is the responsibility of those formatting on the leader. During one illegal formation flight, I could not understand why I could not hold a steady position on Bill Galloway who was ‘leading’. Once back on terra firma, Bill said he had been adjusting power to help me stay in position. The result was that I repeatedly overtook or fell
