Randy considered bailing out but Peter McLurg insisted he was safer where he was and assured Randy he would guide him in for a safe landing. After discussion, Randy agreed that a wheels-up landing on the large open expanses of cut grass was safer than attempting to bail out or risking a blind landing on the relatively narrow tarmac runway. By this time Randy, now flying at reduced speed, could see just enough to hold formation on Peter.
All attention was on the two dots descending towards the airfield. Anyone not knowing of the drama in the air would not have guessed that the pilot of one aircraft could hardly see. Everything looked normal except for the fact that the aircraft were not aligned with the main runway. On short finals Randy’s descent suddenly increased towards high-tension power-lines running between the railway and the airfield boundary fence. He responded to Peter’s urgent “Pull up—check—hold it—descend—close throttle—start rounding out—a bit more—touch down now!”
Peter McLurg was overshooting as Randy’s aircraft bellied onto the grass. High friction pitched the aircraft nose down, lifting the tail so high it remained visible above flying debris and a great cloud of red dust. Having travelled about 200 metres, the aircraft went into a slow turn and was lost to view in dust before it came to rest facing back along the line of torn-up grass. A Staff car seen tearing across the grass paddock from the Tower disappeared into the dust cloud. When it cleared we could see Randy being helped out of his wrecked cockpit by the one and only Mac Geeringh; ever ready to help anyone in trouble.
An inspection of the crash site suggested that Colin had deliberately rolled his stricken aircraft to avoid crashing into a particular house. The engine had buried itself into the ground but three of the 20mm cannons broke loose and somersaulted ahead of airframe wreckage. In another house, a Rhodesian Railways man was fast asleep in his bed, having come off night duty. He was awakened by the loud noise of one cannon smashing through his window and driving sideways through a large wardrobe. It had passed just a couple of inches above his body. Two other cannons passed either side of the man’s two small children who were playing in the driveway. These came to rest at the back of his garage, one each side of his unscathed car. These were lucky people but Colin was not the only casualty that day. An old man seeking to give assistance died of a heart attack before reaching the crash site.
Prior to the accident, a routine medical examination showed that one of Randy’s eyes had become weaker than the other, but not to the extent that he could not pass the compulsory six-monthly flying fitness test. When he had fully recovered from the accident, it was established that the bang he had received on his head might have been the reason his faulty eye had returned to normal.
Air shows
FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF COLIN we received a new squadron commander. Squadron Leader Sandy Mutch’s posting to No 1 Squadron brought our OC’s rank into line with the other squadrons. He took over leadership of Colin’s formation aerobatic team and had it ready in time for the ‘Elizabethville Show’.
After this there were air shows in Broken Hill and Lusaka in Northern Rhodesia and a number of others in Southern Rhodesia. Each involved flying displays by all squadrons. My involvement with other junior officers was manning static displays of aircraft and equipment. It happened to be a very pleasant task because spectators showed so much interested in the aircraft. When the flying started I could watch every display from start to finish because all spectators were doing the same. There were two particular displays that stick in my mind. They were given by Canberra and Vampire FB9 solo routines, both at Broken Hill.
Squadron Leader Charles Paxton flew the Canberra. Like most bombers, this aircraft was not stressed for aerobatics even though, without the encumbrance of bombs and long-range fuel tanks, it could perform lovely-looking loops and barrel rolls.
Charles opened his display with a high-speed pass followed by loops and barrel rolls. Next came tight turns at very slow speed so that spectators could see bomb doors opening for a close look into the bomb bay. In the next turn undercarriage was lowered to show the sequencing of wheel doors and gear, again at close range. Two more turns were made with bomb doors closing and wheels retracting before full power was applied in the last turn which developed into a thunderous sounding steep climb-out followed by a powerless and silent descending turn back towards the crowd.
Still holding crowd attention, Charles whispered past the crowd flying slowly with full flap and wheels down. At this point John Mussell opened his display with an ultra low-level, high-speed pass under the Canberra, flying in the opposite direction then pulled up into the loop that opened his sequence. John Mussell had flown the FB9 solo aerobatic display for some time before Bob Woodward arrived from the RAF with his own polished version of low-level aerobatics flown in a T11.
Bob, who had been the top solo aerobatist in RAF Central Flying School in the mid 1950s, flew a close-in compact display at relatively slow speed that only pilots could appreciate because of the flying skills involved. John Mussell on the other hand flew to please the public. Flat out at full power he provided the noise and speed expected by all civilian spectators.
John’s run under the Canberra was so low that many people standing two or more rows back heard but did not see the FB9 flash by. The crowd loved the noisy surprise, which resulted, according to the newspapers, in two of Broken Hill’s pregnant ladies being carted off to the maternity home ahead of schedule.
Because he was so fast, John’s first loop took him almost out of sight before he came down in a forty-five degrees inverted dive. Leaving his roll-out very late, he entered a second loop with plenty of crowd-pleasing speed and noise. He continued on with his sequence for about five minutes, throwing in every aerobatic manoeuvre before making a slow roll along the viewing line at very, very, low level as only John could do. He then pulled up sharply into a vertical climb intending to execute a left-hand stall turn, again high up.
I do not recall what went wrong. The aircraft was pivoting around its left wing when suddenly it started a rotation. This tightened as the aircraft descended. When John had done more than six turns in an ever-tightening spin, it seemed he would not recover from the dreaded condition for which the FB9 had such a bad reputation. It was obvious that John would have trouble bailing out and I had a picture in my mind of what he was experiencing up there as the crowd clapped and cheered this ‘spectacular manoeuvre’. When it looked as if there was no hope, the aircraft snapped out of the spin and John stole the show by continuing his noisy display as if nothing untoward had happened. The crowd certainly did not realise how close they had come to witnessing a disaster!
On return to Thornhill there was a fuss over the Canberra that Charles Paxton had been flying. Many of the rivets in the fin and rear fuselage had popped, indicating that the aircraft had exceeded its structural limitations. Though the damage was easily repaired, Canberra pilots were immediately banned from making any aerobatic manoeuvre.
