Flypasts
NO 1 SQUADRON WAS OFTEN INVOLVED in formation flypasts for a variety of special occasions. In the latter half of my first year on the squadron I was included in formation flypasts over parades held for the Queen’s Birthday, the Governor-General of the Federation inspection of forces and the Battle of Britain Commemoration Parade. Little preparation was required for formating pilots but the formation leaders had to practise for the split-second accuracy needed to pass over a parade bang on time. This was much more difficult to achieve than was apparent to observers on the ground.
The first requirement was to know the exact order of parade, the height and ‘time zero’ for The first formation to be overhead. Also needed were timings and heights for those following. Time Zero inevitably coincided with the last note of the Royal Anthem. The parade would remain at the ‘Present’ until the last formation noise had abated sufficiently for the parade commander’s voice to carry to all units on parade.
An Air Force officer on the ground (air co-ordinator) had to time parade rehearsal so that he would be in a position to give the formation leaders a running commentary on what was happening on the parade ground with a countdown to ‘Zero’.
Formation leaders would usually fly a reverse pattern from the parade ground to their intended holding point to establish precisely how many minutes and seconds it took to fly the route. Having established this, they would then fly their intended path a few times to prove their timings for the actual parade when they would be leading whole formations.
Out of sight and hearing of the parade each formation flew a racetrack pattern in its assigned waiting area, well separated by height and distance for safety’s sake. Each leader knew how long it would take from any position in his racetrack pattern to get to the parade ground on time and on correct heading. But seldom did the timings of the practice match those of the official parade. This made a formation leader’s job a very tricky business.
The problems in getting timings right were almost always due to unexpected actions by the reviewing Officer. This is the sort of information from the Air Force co-ordinator that formation leaders dreaded, but had to be prepared for:
“No sight of the Reviewing Officer’s car yet—already running five seconds late—Oh! Here he comes—he is driving slower than expected—pulling up behind dais now—56 seconds—Governor General climbing out of the car—51 seconds—Oh boy, he has turned to the crowd and not the dais—moving to greet someone on the front seats—still talking—looks like he might move now—yes—51 seconds—climbing steps now—taking position—35 seconds—presenting arms—Royal salute—28 seconds.”
The leaders of slow aircraft faced the greatest difficulties when this type of thing happened because, to make the distance, they would have been running in, even before the reviewing Officer’s car came into view. Having reduced speed to meet the first five-second delay they then faced the unexpected problem of the reviewing officer turning to greet someone giving no option but to go into a 180-degree turn. But how tight? How long before the reviewing officer moves to the dais? Problems such as these were greater for a leader of cumbersome Dakota formations than for leaders of smaller nimble aircraft such as the Provosts. For the helicopters that came later this was a piece of cake.
When helicopters led flypasts Provosts, Dakotas, Vampires, Canberras and Hunters followed them in that order. I recall the reviewing officer of one parade in Bulawayo making so many changes to his briefed routine that the helicopters, Provosts and Dakotas passed over the parade at the same time; one formation stepped closely above the other. Happily the spectators thought this was intentional and were suitably impressed. Just a few seconds further delay would have had the aircraft passing in reverse order before the Royal Anthem had been played out.
Formation leaders were generally cool characters who always considered pilots’ difficulties formating on them. Sandy Mutch, being a highly excitable character, was not one of these and being led by him was usually bloody dangerous. For example, we were doing a six-machine Vampire flypast for a parade in Luanshya in Northern Rhodesia when Sandy became uncertain of his position. At a very late stage he suddenly saw the parade area at ninety degrees to his left and without any warning banked sharply. I was the second aircraft on the port side where I had to roll rapidly and pull away to avoid collision with the inside aircraft, whose pilot had been forced to do the same. My breakaway put me well outside the formation forcing me to close rapidly, so rapidly in fact that I was banking steeply to check closing speed as the formation passed over the parade. In this case the observers could not possibly have been impressed.
It must be said however that the standard of leadership and of formation flying in general improved noticeably as the Air Force increased in size and experience.
Aden detachment
IN LATE SEPTEMBER 1959 WE learned that No 8 Squadron of the RAF was to be temporarily detached from Aden to Cyprus and that No 1 Squadron was to fill in for the month of November.
Preparatory to going on the squadron’s third trip to Aden, I passed my Green Card Instrument Rating test and gained a First Line Servicing Certificate. The squadron’s entire weapons allocations for the balance of the financial year was made available for intensified weapons training and emphasis was given to formating in cloud.
Two days before our departure, a Canadair set off from New Sarum to drop technical staging parties and Air Traffic Controllers at three Airfields along our route, and to take the detachment technicians to Aden. On its return, the Canadair recovered the staging parties.
Our route to Aden was via Chileka, Dar es Salaam and Mogadishu. The legs, Chileka to Dar es Salaam and on to Mogadishu, were flown in almost continuous cloud, which I found very hard going because, whilst in cloud, I suffered continuously from ‘the leans’. Flying No 4 in a tight-finger four-starboard position I felt as if we were in a continuous steep left-hand turn orbiting over one spot. When cloud density allowed me to see the lead aircraft it was not so bad, but on many occasions the cloud was so dense that I could see no more than the red wing-tip of Mike Reynold’s aircraft, on which I was formating. Coming out of cloud and being able to see all the aircraft was a great relief.
At Dar es Salaam my whole canopy and front windscreen misted up on short finals, forcing me to roll back the canopy on touch down so that I could see the edge of the runway to hold line up. As soon as the aircraft was rolling slow enough I undid my straps and stood on the rudder pedals looking over the top of the windscreen to taxi into dispersals in blistering hot conditions.
Our pre-positioned ground crews, shirtless, bathed in sweat and smiling as always, brought superbly cold bottles of Coca-Cola to each pilot. Refuelling and aircraft turn-round for my formation was very slick and had been completed just before the next formation of four taxiied in.