take them along with you.” I was going to refuse when I realised that Debbie and Paul had already been ushered aboard, their faces full of expectancy. I relented and Beryl came in to sit beside me.
By its very nature a helicopter is too easily misused. Some pilots had given rides to unauthorised persons, but this was the first and only time for me and it troubled me for ages until I felt certain I had got away with it. The children never breathed a word though they must have longed to tell their friends.
This, their first flight in any aircraft, started out under patches of low cloud on our route along a green valley in the high ground running to open sky on the lip of the escarpment where the Zambezi River exits the Kariba Gorge. The spectacle was breathtaking as could be seen in the facial expressions of my family.
We had just descended to follow the river at low level when I spotted the SAP helicopter approaching up- river towards us. As I turned to climb back up the escarpment, the other helicopter came into loose formation adding more excitement for the children. Having been airborne for just a short time, I decided to fly another five minutes by routing back to the airfield through an area that carried plenty of wildlife. I was showing the various animals when eight-year-old Debbie pointed ahead saying she could see a rhino. Butch Phillips and I could not see the beast but Debbie kept pointing directly ahead. I held track for over three kilometres before seeing the rhino at the edge of bush that was yet another kilometre ahead. Debbie’s eyesight amazed us all.
Training Norman Walsh
FLIGHT LIEUTENANT MIKE GRIER ACTED as OC of the squadron for the month between John Rogers’ departure and Norman Walsh’s arrival. There was need to get the new OC converted onto the helicopter in the shortest time possible and, as ‘B’ Flight Commander, the task fell on my shoulders. Norman’s training started on 9 January 1968 and was completedin record time on 21 February.
Of all the pilots I instructed on helicopters, none was more frustrated by the learning process than ‘steely- eye jet pilot’ Norman Walsh.
He simply could not understand why he could not control the Alouette III in the hover and muttered angry words to himself when the aircraft failed to respond to his bidding. During his second flight he was attempting to keep theaircraft stationary at about three feet but, as happened to all pilots, Norman was over-controlling on cyclic. The aircraft would pitch nose down and move forward, followed by overcorrection so that the nose pitched up and the machine moved backwards before the next over-correction induced forward movement.
I had seen this all before and what Norman actually said as the aircraft seesawed back and forth, I do not remember. Nevertheless I had to switch off my microphone to conceal my laughter as aircraft pitching and Norman’s frustration grew progressively worse. Hardly able to see through my tears, I took control, steadied the aircraft and handed it back to Norman. “It’s all right for you,” he grumbled, “You’ve had plenty of practice,” and the over-controlling started all over again. By the end of this flight, Norman’s brain started providing the right signals and he was able to hover jerkily from point to point around the white-lined square we used to practise precision hovering.
As with my previous students, Norman’s flying training was mostly at high weight. At the conclusion of the operational conversion phase the usual ‘round the houses’ exercise was flown. We started with mountain-flying at Chimanimani, then flew a series of legs via Army and Police positions up the eastern border, along the Zambezi to Victoria Falls then down to Bulawayo to conduct helicopter enplaning and deplaning training for the Police and Army. Every conceivable aspect of helicopter operations was practised along the route in widely varying terrain, temperature and altitude conditions. Because of his personal experience, Norman became a stalwart in supporting the need for this type of training. By now he had grown to love helicopters and in his dealings with the Air Staff he was able to convey that the final ‘round the houses’ flights, though great fun, served an all-important purpose in more fully preparing pilots for most operational situations. As had happened to me, Norman Walsh did not have long to wait for his first operation on helicopters.
Tracker dog project
BEFORE JOHN ROGERS LEFT THE squadron, he raised the subject of the radio tracker dogs. Though Air HQ approval had not been forthcoming, he suggested that I should look more deeply into the concept and not let it die. Encouraged by this, I arranged for trials to see if a dog could be taught to respond to radio instructions from his handler. Peter Allen decided to use his big Alsatian, Beau, for the purpose. This concerned me because Beau was well on in years and had been trained as an attack dog.
Thousands of Rhodesians had seen Beau in action at a variety of shows where he and Peter Allen were brought in by helicopter to demonstrate the ‘arrest of a criminal’. Although the Air Force man acting the part of the criminal wore a protective sleeve on his arm to give protection against Beau’s large teeth and powerful jaws, Beau was strong enough always to throw the man to the ground. This is why I felt we should be using a less aggressive animal.
Wally Jefferies made a small receiver that was inserted into a back harness made especially for Beau in the Safety Equipment Section. In less than one week Peter Allen had his dog obeying radio commands when Beau could neither hear Peter’s normal voice nor see him. The next step was to work the dog along human trails laid by two persons. For this we had to add a transmitter in Beau’s harness so that his ‘out of sight’ handler could hear Beau’s breathing whilst also receiving his own transmissions to his dog.
First runs were made on thirty-minute-old scent trails over short distances. These were stepped up progressively to six-hour-old trails with longer runs. Beau did well but he always expected a good bite at the end of each run. Because of this, the men who laid the trail had to wait up a tree out of Beau’s reach. Peter Allen’s call, “Beau, come-come-come”, always worked and Beau backtracked rapidly to receive his handler’s applause and fussing.
When Beau was ready to be flown to the starting point of a trail, we fully expected teething problems. The plan was for Peter to climb out of the helicopter, with both Beau’s and his own radios switched on, and run Beau on leash a short distance to be sure he had picked up the trail scent. Peter would then release his dog and, shouting above the noise of the helicopter, “Go Beau, go, go, go”, remain static as he continued urging his dog by radio. On the helicopter’s radio I could hear Peter’s commands overlaid by the noise of the helicopter and Beau’s breathing.
Peter had then to run back to the helicopter and jump in, all the time urging his dog, “Go Beau, go, go, go.” We lifted vertically upwards to pick up Beau about 200 metres ahead. He wore a bright day-glo patch on his harness to make finding him in long grass easy. On the first two flight trials Beau started off well, but when the helicopter was over 300 feet high, he turned back to run in circles below the helicopter awaiting uplift. His love of helicopters was frustratingly obvious.
On the third try he managed to ignore the rising helicopter and had run over two kilometres with the helicopter orbiting above when he suddenly skidded to a halt to relieve his bowels. Having done this, he lost interest in the trail and, again, ran in circles barking madly for uplift. The fourth attempt was successful. Beau ran
