16 PTC
IN JULY 1962 NO 16 PTC commenced their BFS and I was allocated Officer Cadets Graham Cronshaw, Prop Geldenhuys and Chris Dixon. All three progressed normally and I made it known that I did not wish to have any of these students taken from me to satisfy any other instructor’s will. This only worked for three and a half months before my favourite student, Prop Geldenhuys, was taken away. I was given Officer Cadet du Toit who had not been shaping up with his first instructor.
I had a very soft spot for Prop Geldenhuys for more reasons than his good nature; we had experienced two serious incidents together. The first of these was when I was demonstrating recovery from engine failure on a short-field take-off.
A short take-off required full power against brakes before rolling and forcing lift-off at around 65 knots with a steep climb out. No recovery from engine failure was possible below 200 feet, which made me wonder why this exercise that I had demonstrated many times was considered necessary. Anyway, at 200 feet I chopped the engine and pitched the nose down sharply. Talking to Prop all the time, the airspeed was increased to 85 knots before the first of two attitude changes was made to reduce the descent rate and glide angle preparatory to a normal round-out for landing.
When I made the first check the aircraft attitude changed but the descent rate and angle remained unaltered. Full throttle was applied, but the engine did not respond and even full flap failed to prevent the aircraft from slamming heavily into the ground. This fully compressed the main wheel oleos that then forced us to rebound back into the air. Immediately the motor roared to full power, lifting the aircraft precariously with insufficient runway remaining to put down again safely. The Provost was staggering along when I realised the wings were badly distorted. Aileron control was all but lost, necessitating the use of rudder to lift the port wing. To achieve the correct climbing speed, the nose had to be depressed well below its normal climbing attitude because the distorted wings were now set at a higher than normal angle to the airframe.
I was still sorting myself out when Prop blurted out, “Sir, this wing is coming off." I looked down my side and could see that the wing root fairing had separated from the leading edge and that there were stress wrinkles on the mainplane. Obviously Prop’s side looked the same but sun reflections on the ripples, from his perspective, must have given him an impression of imminent structural failure.
Having assured Prop we would be okay, I waited until we were above a safe bail-out height before telling him to be prepared to jettison the canopy and abandon the aircraft without hesitation if I told him to do so. Very limited aileron movement was available at each end of full application because the control cables had become slack within the distorted wings. Elevator and rudder control responses were normal so I continued climbing to 10,000 feet with a view to establishing the stalling speed and to conduct low-speed handling checks preparatory to a landing that I felt sure would be possible.
Bob Woodward came up to inspect our Provost and reported that, apart from severely bent wings, the port tyre had burst and the tail wheel had disappeared into the fuselage. He formated on me as I reduced speed to check my damaged aircraft’s slow-speed handling characteristics. When it felt as if we were near to stalling, my airspeed indicator read 100 knots whereas Bob said his was reading 85 knots. We concluded this had something to do with changed geometry of the airframe.
The landing was fine, the wings did not come off but the burst wheel, even with a fair amount of right-wheel braking, pulled the aircraft into a wide turn before we came to a dusty halt.
I had just climbed out of the cockpit onto the wing with my parachute slung over my shoulder when Group Captain Jock Barber drew up behind the aircraft in his Staff car. Looking directly towards the CO, I took the normal step down from the trailing edge of the wing and nearly broke my neck and back when my foot met ground about two feet closer than usual because the trailing edge of the wing was so much closer to ground. This bad jolt, and possibly the high-impact landing, initiated spinal problems that were to plague me for twenty-four years until an orthopaedic surgeon eventually performed a successful lower lumber fusion in 1986.
Chris Dams and Dave Thorne conducted tests in which they discovered that the Leonides engine’s response to full throttle application failed when rpm was reducing close to idling speed. This was taken to be the reason for my engine not giving full power at a critical moment. But it was the technicians who pinpointed the primary cause of the accident. The airspeed indicator on my side of the cockpit was over-reading by 10 knots. Had I been using the student’s airspeed indicator, as I should have done when instructing, a costly accident would certainly have been avoided.
The second incident with Prop occurred during a take-off run. Prop had applied too much elevator when lifting the tail. Because the nose was too far down, I placed my hand on my control column and, easing back slightly, said “Not so much!”, whereupon Prop applied full brakes, pitching the nose down violently. Fortunately my hand was already on the control column so I was able to yank back and prevent the propeller from digging into the runway. In so doing the aircraft was forced to stagger into flight prematurely.
I climbed and had turned down wind for a landing to have the tyres inspected when I noticed that Prop had his hand on the control column, still with brakes fully applied. A gentle tap on his arm made him let go. Even before lining up with the runway we could see the two lines of torn grass down the centre of the runway. They were later paced out at sixty-eight yards.
Prop explained that he thought we were already airborne when he applied the brakes; anyway we had been very fortunate. Had the propeller dug into the ground at speed and full power a serious situation might have resulted.
Pat Meddows-Taylor and Dave Thorne, seeing that I was somewhat shaken by the incident, offered me a cigarette. Not having smoked in my adult life I declined their offer; but both of them insisted I take a couple of puffs to calm me down. Foolishly I took the lighted cigarette and, under guidance, inhaled smoke. There was no coughing so I took another and then another drag before becoming dizzy.
The first incident with Prop Geldenhuys led to major spinal problems and the second one set me off on cigarette smoking; two awful afflictions that can be blamed on nobody but myself.
Officer Cadet Strnad, a student on 16 PTC, was one of the most troubled youngsters I had ever met. He was not my student and I only flew with him once on IF. Like the rest of his course, Strnad was not used to alcohol but, when he did drink, he became very weepy and needed to talk to anyone who would lend a sympathetic ear. In Beryl and me he found sympathy, not that either one of us could make sense of his ramblings until Beryl managed to get to the root cause of his distress. His father was practising incest on his sister who was a very unwilling participant. Not long after this Strnad, after his release from the RRAF, returned to South Africa where he murdered his father to protect his sister and then changed his name. He was imprisoned but later released when an Appeal Court judge ruled in his favour.