formation displays were to be given at the show by the Royal Rhodesian Air Force in conjunction with displays by the RAF.
We were very excited at the prospect of flying Thornhill to Chileka in Nyasaland, then to Dar es Salaam in Tanganyika and onward to Nairobi in Kenya. Such an opportunity had not been given to any previous training course. But, unfortunately for Sandy Mutch, the inclusion of No 10 SSU resulted in dramas that disallowed future courses from enjoying flights beyond the Federation’s borders.
Twelve Vampires, in three formations of four aircraft, left Thornhill at hourly intervals. This allowed formations refuel at each destination before the arrival of the next. I was in the second formation that passed through Chileka and arrived in Dar es Salaam as planned. We had refuelled and were about to fly on to Nairobi when we received instructions to hold over in Dar es Salaam for the night.
I cannot say why this was really necessary, but it was good news for Keith Corrans, Bill Galloway and me who had not visited this part of the world before. It was extremely hot and humid and our stay, though pleasant, was somewhat dampened by the fact we could not swim in the inviting, clear-blue sea because of vast numbers of bluebottle-type jellyfish in the water and on the beaches.
The flight ahead of us had struck a snag between Dar es Salaam and Nairobi when Dave Thorne’s FB9 canopy disintegrated at 33,000 feet. It punctured the hydraulic reservoir, resulting in Dave getting red hydraulic fluid all over his flying suit. Dave immediately switched over to emergency oxygen but, though in no danger of passing out, he was freezing cold with no option other than to continue with the formation because he had insufficient fuel to complete the journey at a warmer level. Behind us, one of the third formation’s aircraft was found unserviceable at Chileka, forcing an overnight stay in Blantyre to await spares from Thornhill.
All aircraft finally assembled at RAF Eastleigh (Nairobi) where a replacement canopy was fitted to Dave’s FB9. When all the aircraft were declared serviceable, we set off for the bright lights of Nairobi. In town I met up with Dave Thorne who had borrowed his aged Kenyan aunt’s Rolls Royce shooting brake to impress a bevy of pretty girls he had in tow.
I saw Dave again the following day when we met in the Nairobi Show Grounds, the venue of the Royal Agricultural Show. An hour before the flying displays were due to start, Dave disappeared into the gents’ toilets and remained there for an hour beyond the time the flying displays had ended. He then returned to the girls with his hair dampened and his face lined with pseudo headgear pressure marks. Those of my course who witnessed this did not let on to the excited girls that Dave had not been part of the formation; though we were most amused by the antics that certainly succeeded in impressing the girls.
That night I met Flight Lieutenant Booth of the RAF who had given a single-aircraft display in a Canberra B6, following a solo aerobatic display by an RAF Javelin. He offered to take me along for his display the following day; an opportunity I immediately accepted. At the appointed time I checked in with him in my flying kit. The correct oxygen mask was fitted to my helmet and I was briefed by the navigator on when and how I must move from rear ejector seat to the fold-down ‘Rumbold’ seat next to the pilot and back to the ejector seat for landing.
As soon as we were clear of the airfield, the navigator moved from his ejector seat to his bomb-aiming position on a bed in the aircraft nose. I followed, folded down the Rumbold seat, and strapped in next to Flight Lieutenant Booth. I had to stretch my neck to see over the right lip of the large domed canopy, but otherwise was able to take in the immense beauty of the famous Rift Valley where we descended for a few practice low-level barrel rolls. These went well and I remained firmly in my seat as we pitched and rolled high over the top and back into low-level flight.
On call from the ground controller at the Show Grounds, we positioned for the display. This initially involved very low-level turns with bomb bay opening and undercarriage lowering for the crowds to view at close range. We cleared for the RAF Javelin and waited to come in for the barrel roll that required the Canberra to invert as it passed over the crowd, because their view of the sky was limited by high trees surrounding the arena.
As the Javelin cleared we were close in and commenced the barrel roll. All seemed fine until Flight Lieutenant Booth said he had started the roll too late. At this point he rolled faster to the inverted and pushed forward on his control column. The navigator, snorting and swearing, was thrown into the wiring and other paraphernalia in front of the pilot’s instrument panel. The emergency hydraulic pump handle dislodged and hit me in the face while I hung in my lap strap with my shoulder pressed hard against one of the canopy’s jettison bolts. The two parachute packs of the rear-ejector seats broke loose and deployed their silk ‘chutes all over the rear cabin.
As the aircraft passed the inverted position, the nose pitched very steeply and I was absolutely certain we were going to crash into the ground. However, the roll rate was increased with full rudder and the aircraft pitched out of the dive ever so close to the treetops. Fortunately, the ground beyond the Show Grounds dropped away somewhat; otherwise we would have been history. Loud abuse from the navigator and endless apologies from the skipper continued all the way to landing and for some time beyond.
After a splendid stay in Nairobi, our return to Rhodesia went fine until the third formation arrived at Chileka. I was standing with other pilots on the balcony of the Chileka Airport bar and watched the standard formation break that extended the line of aircraft for the usual descending turn to land. Unfortunately, however, Gordon Wright as No 3 was a bit too tight and slow when, in the final stages of his approach, he hit slipstream from the aircraft ahead. The FB9 impacted the ground about sixty metres short of the raised shoulder of the runway.
No 4 had seen the problem coming and powered up for an overshoot before Gordon’s aircraft bounced from its first impact point, clearing the rising ground and impacting ground again in a broadside at runway level. A huge cloud of red dust marked the aircraft’s passage but smothered it from our view as it slid to a halt on the lip of a storm-water drain. Another three feet and Gordon would almost certainly have lost his legs. As it was, he was lucky to get away with a badly damaged ego, which he showed by throwing his helmet down in frustrated anger. The aircraft was quite severely damaged and was transported to New Sarum by road for repair, and flew again. But it took a long time for people in Air HQ to forget Gordon’s error.
Back at Thornhill we resumed our weapons training. I continued flying with Frank Mussell and Ted Brent and also flew with three new instructors whom I can only describe as salt-of-the-earth individuals and good PAIs (Pilot Armament Instructors) too. Flying Officers Peter McLurg, Randy du Rand and Justin Varkevisser had totally different characters but were pleasant instructors and great marksmen to boot.
The accurate delivery of air weapons takes considerable understanding, practice and in-built skills. Speed, firing range, angle of attack, allowance for gravity drop and wind lay-off, all have to be spot on. For the likes of myself this needed great effort and practice. However, there were those few pilots whose actions and judgement were instinctive. Justin Varkevisser was one of the few. He was deadly accurate with any weapon he delivered. Largely because of his teaching and example, a number of future pilots acquired his unique abilities.
Apart from delivery of air weapons, we were introduced to new operational flying requirements. Formation tail-chases were necessary to experience the effects of opening and closing speeds when climbing and descending as we learned how to loosen and tighten turns to open and close on potential enemy aircraft. Quarter attacks from high level onto lower flying aircraft were easy enough to fly, but holding the centre graticule of the gyro gun-sight on the target aircraft, while matching its wing-span by twisting the range controller on the throttle to cater for rapidly closing distance, was another matter altogether. Apart from Justin, the only pilot I remember doing this with comparative ease was Randy du Rand whose gun-sight camera records gave him ‘kills’ off most of his attacks.
This is a short section of one of Randy’s camera records. The lack of clarity in these gun-sight shots was typical of those days, but the outer ring of diamond-shaped spots can be seen to match the target’s wing-span. This matching determined the range of the target.
We flew a great deal of high- and low-level battle formation, usually in flights of four aircraft. This involved aircraft flying a wide ‘finger four’ pattern (as per tips of fingers on a spread hand) which allows all pilots flying about 500 meters apart to detect incoming enemy aircraft on other aircraft within the formation.
I enjoyed flying ‘bandit’, either solo or as a pair, and seeing a ‘friendly’ formation commence its attack. Response to this resulted in a call such as “Red, bandit four o’clock high—break”, whereupon our formation would disintegrate into tight defensive turns and manoeuvre for a counter-attack or break away to ‘safety’.
During the OCU phase Eric Cary was challenging me, among others, to the odd meeting out in the flying area. Stupidly I agreed rather than risk being considered a wet fish. One of Eric’s favourite challenges involved flying fast, at ultra-low level, one beside the other, directly towards the base of a high Selukwe mountain range. At
