Flying Instructors School
THE FLYING INSTRUCTORS SCHOOL (FIS) was, for me, a real drag. The need to fly very accurately was not so much the problem as the patter (what one needed to say whilst demonstrating to a student). I found this tedious, boring and somewhat confusing.
Bob Woodward would teach me a patter sequence in one style, but for the same sequence Chris Dams gave it differently. Soon enough it became obvious that the other QFIs (Qualified Flying Instructors) were giving different versions of patter that suited their own personalities and flying experience.
Every aspect of instructing was repeated and repeated ad nauseam with QFIs and between student instructors. My problem, as I saw it, was how I was going to satisfy Bob Woodward during progress tests and the all-important final test. Near the end of the course Flight Lieutenant Dickie Dives, an ex-RAF Central Flying School officer serving as an Air Traffic Controller at Thornhill, flew with me and gave me his brand of patter, encompassing every exercise in the book. I believe I learned more from Dickie Dives in two hours than in all the 150 hours I had flown with other QFIs and fellow students. I cannot say if Dickie was a good instructor for others, but he certainly made everything so much clearer and easier for me, just when I needed it. Thanks to him, I passed my final test without stress because I had learned to ignore parrot-fashioned patter and use the words that suited mood and action.
The flying side of our FIS commenced at the beginning of August 1960 and was completed in time for the commencement of the BFS for No 14 PTC (Pilots Training Course).
For those who watch for sequential numbering it will be obvious that Nos 12 SSU and 13 SSU are missing and that SSU had given way to PTC. This was partly due to political thinking and partly to superstition.
The Federal Government had become disenchanted with the Short Service Commission arrangements because too-high a proportion of trained pilots had opted to leave the force on completion of expensive ‘free training’. Furthermore, most of them had taken up employment with airlines and moved beyond the borders of the Federation, thereby breaking their undertakings to be immediately available in times of need.
It was decided instead that all future student pilots would sign up for two years of training followed by a mandatory ten years’ Medium Service Commission. In the event of a student’s failure at any stage, Air HQ’s only obligation was to offer him alternative training as navigator, technician or administrator. This new scheme was renamed Pilots Training Course (PTC) as prefix to the course number.
12 SSU should have commenced training in 1959 but, because no training occurred that year, the number was dropped. Considering that superstition for the number ‘13’ might present difficulties, Group HQ, by now Air HQ operating from Dolphin House in Salisbury, decided to bypass it. No 14 Pilot Training Course (PTC) started their ground training at the beginning of January 1961 and came to 2 Squadron for the BFS in May.
Paul Mark
SIX MONTHS PRIOR TO THIS, on the 30 November 1960, Beryl came to fetch me at the usual knock-off time of 1.30 pm She was seven-and-a-half months’ pregnant with our second child and was in absolute agony. With difficulty I got her into the passenger seat and drove her straight home. Getting her to the living room was a major effort.
She could not sit properly as pains in her abdomen were overwhelming her. Beryl’s gynaecologist, Doctor Deuchar, who happened to live directly across the road from us, came to Beryl’s aid immediately. He was not happy with what he saw and called Doctor Comline to come over urgently. Together the doctors concluded that Beryl was suffering from kidney failure necessitating immediate hospitalisation and the removal of her baby to save her life. I was taken aside and told that, following the operation, Beryl should be fine but the baby’s chances of survival were not good.
I took time off work next day to look after Debbie and was playing with her whilst awaiting a call from the hospital. It was 9 am on 1 December when Debbie took her first faltering steps unaided; but the occasion was all but lost because I was so concerned for Beryl and baby.
A few minutes later Doctor Deuchar phoned to say Beryl would be fine and that our little boy had been transferred to Gwelo’s Birchenough House Nursing Home. Not twenty minutes later, when I was dressing for a visit to the nursing home, I received a call from a Church of England padre. Very clumsily he asked in what names he should christen the baby who was not expected to survive another hour. Completely taken aback I blurted out “Paul Mark.”
By the time I reached the nursing home the padre had left and the matron took me through to see my son. He was in an incubator and seemed fine enough to me until matron pointed out that he was breathing by stomach action with no signs of normal rib-cage movement. Five days passed after his birth before the doctor said Paul would be fine because his breathing had normalised. But nineteen vital days elapsed after his birth before Beryl was allowed to hold her baby.
Death of Eric Cary
ON THE 9 FEBRUARY 1961, I was instructed to get over to OC Flying Wing, post-haste. When I walked into Squadron Leader Dicky Bradshaw’s office I saw Tol Janeke standing in flying overalls by the side of his desk looking pale and shaken.
OC Flying, seated behind his desk, looked more stern than usual. In a quiet steady voice he said, “PB I have bad news for you. Your coursemate Eric Cary has crashed and I want you to go and find the site to guide the doctor and fire vehicles to it." I was given brief details and set off to the squadron where Flying Officer Pat Meddows-Taylor said he would accompany me. We were airborne when Squadron Leader Frank Mussell, flying a Canberra, told me he had located the crash site on the south bank of the Umniati River, upstream from the bridge on the main road to Salisbury. He said there was no need for a grid reference, as I would see the rising smoke from some distance.
When we reached the crash site we saw that impact had occurred in a disused cattle kraal where the aircraft disintegrated. Wreckage of varying sizes littered the crash line for over a kilometre to a stream. Beyond this lay the still-flaming magnesium wheels and the smouldering engine.
We had been flying around for a couple of minutes before noticing a lone black male who was waving at us frantically and pointing to the top of a large tree just off to the left side of the debris line. We concluded this might mean Eric’s body was lodged in the tree but the foliage was too dense for us to Confirm this.
After an age we spotted the far-off dust trails from a red fire Jeep and white ambulance. I could not raise the fire Jeep because, as I learned later, it had radio failure. Pat unstrapped and stood up (highly illegal) to make himself visible to the lead driver. By flying over his vehicle and waggling my wings I gave the fireman changes of direction to avoid difficult ground and Pat kept emphasising these changes with hand signals, a difficult thing to do in the powerful slipstream.
When, eventually, the vehicles arrived at the crash site Doctor Dorber came up on the radio, loud and clear. He had not responded to our calls to the fire Jeep “not wanting to interfere”. The mind boggles! Anyway we asked him to drive over to the large tree where we suspected Eric’s remains might be. There was no sign of the black man by now as he had obviously given us up when we flew off out of his sight to guide the vehicles.