Seven days after his forced landing, Mike Borlace took hits once more. Flying Amber lead, again with Mike Upton, Borlace was asked to put down his troops. As he approached to land, his aircraft took strikes. He received a hit on his right hand, limiting him to the use of index finger and thumb. A hit on his left inner-thigh was superficial but another bullet went through the arm of one of the soldiers on board. Mike pulled away, saw five terrorists and immediately engaged them. Only when K-Car came across, taking on three surviving CTs, did Borlace drop off his stick, less the one that was bleeding badly from his wound. He returned to Mtoko and was out of action for the rest of that day.
Air Lieutenant Troup and his gunner Sergeant Knouwds, both Op Polo men, had proven themselves to be an excellent K-Car crew on a number of occasions. They led Fireforce to a contact with a group of CTs just 3,000 metres to the southeast of the position at which Major Ainslie had been mortally wounded two weeks earlier.
During this typical Fireforce action in which one helicopter had already taken hits, Flight Lieutenant Russell Broadbent, a medical doctor who had joined us from the RNZAF, was flying his third operation on Lynx when he was called upon to make strikes. Acting on GAC directions from an Army callsign of the Fireforce he fired Sneb rockets, which was fine. The callsign then required another position to be attacked, this time with Frantan. Russell took hits during this delivery causing him to include the following paragraph in his ASR:
It seems to me that the Frantan Profile attack on the Lynx is suicidal as there is no covering fire, making the Lynx a sitting duck. I recommend that a combined SNEB/FRANTAN attack be made SOP until guns are fitted to this aircraft. I also think that priority should be given to some form of protection for the pilots.
Before the arrival of the Lynx, only Provosts had made Frantan deliveries and few hits were received because .303 Browning machine-guns were fired all the way down the delivery run to the point of Frantan release. This is the ‘covering fire’ Russell Broadbent referred to. His suggestion that Frantan attacks should include Sneb rocket fire during the delivery run was fair enough but it presented a very real danger. Sneb rockets sent a shower of shrapnel into the air through which the Lynx would have to transit after a low-level Frantan release; too dangerous to contemplate. There was only one solution and that was to fit machine-guns to the Lynx. The operational pilots had not forced this matter on Air HQ. Design work had been on the go for some time with two options in mind. The first was to produce wing-mounted gun-pods because the mainplane structures disallowed internally mounted wing-guns. The second option was to mount two .303 Brownings above the cabin roof.
The first option was thrown out because of unacceptable weight and aerodynamic drag penalties whereas the drag generated by light fairings over guns mounted above the cabin was negligible. One Lynx was taken off-line for prototype fitment and firing trials. The prototype fit was subjected to many tests and alterations before Squadron Leader Dag Jones, who was then OC 4 Squadron, finally accepted it. Thereafter all metal components, fibreglass fairings and wiring looms were made ready before Lynx were pulled off-line for modification.
Patchen explorer
FOR A LONG TIME I had been interested in building a tandem-seat aircraft specifically designed for visual reconnaissance. I considered that an ideal recce aircraft had to be very quiet and almost impossible to see when flying at 5,000 feet against a clear-sky background.
Matt black was the best colour and a shielded up-turned muffled exhaust system for a motor driving a slow-revving paddle propeller would be very quiet at cruise power. Of greatest importance was the need for all-round visual freedom of ground. This meant having large, sliding side-panels reaching to floor level.
It was impossible to gain any support to build the machine I had designed in detail. It was based on proven glider technology with wooden frames under fibreglass cladding. The Air Staff considered this was beyond Rhodesia’s capability and, anyway, financial constraints ruled against such a project. I was not totally ignored however and was sent to South Africa’s CSIR to explore possibilities.
The South Africans showed considerable interest in my design and their interest was not limited to military reconnaissance. The concept seemed ideal for police surveillance work as well. I was shown a gyrocopter that had been built with the express intention of testing CSIR’s developmental work in carbon-fibre rotor blades. The gyrocopter had an ideal cabin with good visual freedom and, if fitted with a paddle-bladed propeller and muffled exhausts, it seemed to be the answer to my dreams. However, this machine was not ready for flight-testing because the prototype rotor blades were not yet completed. Because the gyrocopter would not be ready for many months, I was invited to look through Jane’s Book of Aircraft to see if there was any machine in it that might fit the bill.
I went right through the book and pointed out a Canadian experimental aircraft called Patchen Explorer. I thought nothing more of this until the one and only Patchen Explorer was purchased by South Africa. SAAF Captains Dean and Rawston flew this machine, bearing South African registration ZG-UGF, to Rhodesia for me to assess. Being a slow aircraft, it took them five hours to fly from Pretoria to Salisbury. They then continued on to Centenary to meet up with me.
My first trial flight was made with Captain Dean. It was immediately obvious that the side-by-side seating arrangement was not ideal but, otherwise, the visual freedom was really good. The real problem with the Patchen Explorer, apart from being very noisy, was the amount of physical effort required to handle it. After two hours I was quite exhausted and happy to get back on the ground.
The next day I flew with Captain Rawston and asked him to do the handling whilst I concentrated on the visual aspects. From this I concluded that, with servo-assisted controls and modifications to quieten the power unit, the Patchen Explorer had real possibilities.
We landed at Everton Farm for lunch with Hamie Dax and his wife Petal. Hamie continued to be very successful with his recce work in spite of the severe visual restrictions imposed on him by his low-wing Comanche; hence my reason for dropping in to show him the Patchen Explorer.
After its return to Pretoria I heard no more until I learned that it now resides in the SAAF Museum at Swartkops, Pretoria.
War spreads and hots up
BY APRIL 1976, FIVE FIREFORCES were permanently deployed. Two of these continued to operate out of Mount Darwin and Mtoko, as before. Two had been established in the new Op Thrasher area, operating from Grand Reef (FAF 8) near Umtali and Chipinga (FAF 6) near the southern end of the eastern mountain range. The fifth force was based at Buffalo Range (FAF 7) serving newly established Op Repulse in the southeast. Some time later, FAF 9 was established at Rutenga when another Fireforce came into being. Whereas the Hurricane and Repulse forces comprised a K-Car and four G-Cars each, Thrasher had been allocated two K-Cars but only four troopers for use as OC Air Detachment Thrasher deemed fit. Consequently the Grand Reef and Chipinga Fireforces were two troopers below strength, except on those occasions when the two forces came together.