Flight Lieutenant Brian Horney. They were forced to jettison the canopy and eject when their T11 failed to respond to spin recovery within the prescribed eight revolutions. The strange thing was that, once they had ejected, the aircraft recovered into wings level flight and continued downward in a powerless glide to its destruction.
All members of my course were pretty apprehensive about flying the FB9, having learned how naughty the aircraft could be. At the same time we had reason to look forward to flying this type because we had been told it was much like flying a Spitfire without the visual limitations given by a long nose and forward-set wings. Nor was an FB9 pilot troubled by the gyroscopic swing and high torque problems that arose from the Spitfire’s huge propeller and immensely powerful, high-response piston engine.
I was the first of my course to fly solo in the T11 having flown a solo test with Flight Lieutenant Colin Graves, the Squadron Commander. This was not a once-around-the-circuit affair, but a full hour including aerobatics. When I taxiied into dispersals a reporter, who had come to cover the first ever jet solo at Thornhill, photographed me. Dave Thorne had done such a good job with the reporter that I was saved an interview and an hour later Dave himself made his first solo flight. Following my first solo, I flew a further three solos and a dual flight before moving to the FB9.
The FB9 cockpit presented difficulties for the first flight. When seated in a T11 it was only possible to see the head of a tall man standing six feet forward of the nose of the aircraft. In an FB9, in identical circumstances, the visual freedom given by the low stubby nose was such that one could see the entire man, right down to his shoes. This gave a first-flight student the problem of judging the aircraft’s attitude for climbing and steep turning, having become used to judging aircraft attitude by references to the T11’s high nose.
Flight Lieutenant Mussell had briefed me on what to expect in flight and emphasised that his main concern was that I should not pitch too high and slide the tail booms along the runway during take-off and landing. Preparation for this was very simple. When I was strapped in and ready for engine startup, eight men put their weight on the tail booms to bring the tail protection slides into contact with ground, thus raising the nose beyond normal take-off and landing attitude.
Once I was satisfied that I would remember this position, by using the gun-sight glass as my reference, the nose wheel was set down again and I was ready for my first-ever flight in a single-seater aircraft.
On take-off I was immediately aware that the lighter FB9 accelerated better than the T11. At 85 knots I eased back on the control column to lift the nose wheel and noticed the elevator was lighter than the T11 and the aircraft became airborne earlier than I expected. I retracted the undercarriage and the speed mounted normally but then settled at 130 knots instead of the normal 180 knots climbing speed. Clearly my climbing attitude was way too steep. But it was not until I had reached 15,000 feet that I achieved the correct climbing speed when the nose seemed to be so far below the horizon that I felt I should be descending. Levelling off at 30,000 feet was really strange. I put the nose down quite a bit, then some more, then some more but the aircraft kept on climbing. By the time I achieved level flight, using flight instruments, I was at 33,000 feet. For a long while I maintained level flight, looking around to get a feeling for aircraft attitude while enjoying the newfound freedom of excellent forward vision and the ability to see over both sides of the cockpit.
I rolled the aircraft inverted and pulled through gently back to level flight at 390 knots IAS (Indicated Airspeed). Again I really had to force the nose attitude way down to stop climbing. Having done this I went into a series of aerobatics using the wing tips for attitude reference. By the time I was ready to come back to base, I had acclimatised to an aircraft that was every bit as pleasant to fly as I had hoped. Circuits and landings presented no difficulty and I was a very happy young man as I climbed down from the cockpit in time to watch Dave Thorne preparing for his first FB9 flight. I gave him thumbs-up with both hands and, even though he had his mask on, I could see the huge smile in his eyes.
No 11 SSU had arrived at Thornhill and were involved in their GTS phase. My course, being the senior course, was expected to give the ‘new boys’ a Tough time. This we did. Although not obvious to us at the time, the purpose of a senior course giving its juniors a hard time was to weld the individuals of that course into a unified group.
When sixteen youngsters from different backgrounds, with varying characters and levels of ability are put together, they remain sixteen individuals until forced to turn to each other for mutual support. Fear of air combat and a deep hatred for the Nazi enemy automatically welded the youngsters who trained for World War II. In Rhodesia there was no such enemy or fear, so we deliberately set ourselves up as the enemy by inducing situations of discomfort, even hatred, which soon turned the juniors towards each other.
The Vampires were not due to return to Aden until early 1959. However, trouble broke out in the Middle East following the military overthrow of Iraq’s pro-west ruler, King Faisal. Americans landed in Beirut and Russia warned of a possible world war. In support of British deployments to face these situations No 1 Squadron, less the instructors, was on its way at short notice for its second tour to Aden.
For us ground school, square-bashing and PT continued routinely until we learned that our drill instructor Sergeant McCone had met with a bad vehicle accident and would be off line until after our training was completed. We were told that an instructor from the Army’s School of Infantry near Gwelo would be taking his place.
Regimental Sergeant-Major Ron Reid-Daly’s first command drew a quiet “Oh boy!” from Ian Ferguson who was next to me. His commands were the loudest I have ever heard; his posture was ramrod-stiff and every movement he made was impossibly precise. We had come to believe that we were pretty smart in our drill but Sergeant-Major Reid-Daly did not see it this way. For at least six weeks he gave us absolute hell and we hated every moment of his nitpicking and abuse. With his nose almost in contact with anyone who had not executed a movement to his liking, he would scream such threats as “If you don’t stop turning like a fucking ballerina, I will tear your bloody arm off and smash your silly little face with its soggy end… sir.”
Whenever the wind exceeded 15 knots, and that was often, the sadistic sergeant-major chose to put us through formation colours drills. For ‘colours’ we were given a wooden pole to which was affixed a heavy blanket. The wind drag on this arrangement was enormous and very tiring. Strong gusts would either propel the lighter fellows forward or backward bringing about a flurry of abuse from our instructor. But all the time we were getting better at everything and suddenly the pressure eased. We were then introduced to silent drill in which no word of command was given. Following fixed patterns of movement we moved as one and became very proficient at it. Yet for all the practice, 10 SSU was the only course not to display its silent drill skills during the Wings Presentation Parade. Sword of Honour for the best student was another aspect that was bypassed on the day we received our wings.
Ron Reid-Daly, who in the 1970s established and commanded the famed Selous Scouts, became a good friend of mine. Looking back on the period he had been sent to drill Nos 10 and 11 SSUs, he told me how horrified he had been when ordered to get over to Thornhill to train a bunch of ‘Brylcreem boy’ officer cadets. He remembered giving us a hard time and said that nothing he tried ever dented our spirit or determination to succeed. He found this both amazing and pleasing. His attitude towards the Air Force changed to one of respect and this was greatly enhanced during Rhodesia’s long bush war.
When we started instrument flying, students were switched among the Vampire instructors. I was fortunate to fly with Flight Lieutenants Colin Graves (Squadron Commander), Chris Dams and Brian Horney. Most of our general training sorties were flown solo. On one of these, a long-range navigation flight, I passed out from the lack of oxygen. The oxygen-control box on the instructor’s side of the cockpit had been set to high flow but I had not noticed this during my pre-engine start-up checks. On the last leg to base, flying over an area known as the Somabula Flats, I became aware of great noise and high vibration which awakened me to the fact that the aircraft was in a steep descending spiral turn, flying at critical Mach. This is when supersonic shock waves develop on sections of a sub-sonic aircraft’s airframe, causing high drag with severe vibration. My mind was confused as I recovered from a situation I had not seen coming. In this dozy state, I dropped undercarriage, instead of activating the dive brakes as I had intended, and put out a call to Thornhill Approach. I was told later that my speech sounded like that of a very drunk man.
By the time the aircraft was in level flight at fairly low level, I was not too far from Thornhill and decided to
