Despite this, the name Trojan was given to these piddling little aircraft because of the paperwork previously completed for the big machines. At squadron level it was thought, erroneously, that the name derived from the ‘Trojan Horse’ type crates used to smuggle the machines into Rhodesia.
It was not until the year 2000 that I learn from historian Richard Wood of documents he had located in UK from our Director of Legal Services Wing Commander Harold Marsh ’s office telling of the impending arrival of the Trojans. By then, however, it was too late for the shipment to be intercepted and impounded by Britain.
What other secrets Harold Marsh passed on to the Brits, or how many others like him were acting against Rhodesian interests I cannot say, but it helps explain why we lost the T28 Trojans and why there were so many more problems of ‘leaked’ secrets yet to come.
Roll cloud incident
AFTER THE 4 SQUADRON RECCE exercise my technician Butch Phillips and I had to return to New Sarum via Thornhill. Heavy storms were forecast for the flight that commenced after lunch. About halfway to Thornhill we encountered large storms that I was able to avoid until we were passing one huge cumulonimbus on our left and noticed the rapid development of a strong roll cloud to our right. Turning back I found the roll cloud was worse in the direction from which we had just come so I turned to resume our course to Thornhill.
It was not possible to break away left or right from the serious condition developing so unbelievably fast around and ahead of us. Very quickly, heavy rain was falling out of the base of the cumulonimbus and sweeping outwards to remove the ground below from view. For a short while we remained in smooth air in a huge tunnel such as surfers enjoy when riding under the curl of a breaking sea wave. But this tunnel was dark and ominous.
The smooth ride suddenly changed when the aircraft entered turbulence and started to rise in super-strong uplift. Collective pitch was dumped reducing power to zero but the ascent continued. As the aircraft was about to enter cloud, the ascent turned to a descent which maximum power failed to check. Full power only helped reduce the descent rate to something in the order of 3,000 feet per minute in turbulence. I knew that this powerful down current would not drive us into the ground but I feared entering the heavy sweeping rain we were approaching. Converting to flight instruments, we entered the blinding noisy torrent and almost immediately were lifted by another invisible force for a powerless climb through the centre of the swirling tunnel. The end of this passageway of cloud and rain came into view just as the climb reversed into another descent that, again, full power could not counter until we broke out into clear smooth air. Having recovered our senses, we landed to inspect the aircraft for stress damage.
None was found.
Bad weather and violent wind conditions did not only concern pilots. I witnessed a strange incident that was caused by a passing whirlwind. Flight Lieutenant Boet Swart, the senior PJI (Parachute Jumping Instructor) in charge of the Air Force Parachute Training School, had just landed on the normal training drop zone next to runway 14. He was drawing in his parachute when a whirlwind inflated it and lifted him into fight.
On the opposite side of the runway, next to the security fence where I was standing on the helicopters concrete pad, OC Flying Wing Ozzie Penton was sitting astride his service motorcycle watching the PJIs do their mandatory monthly parachute descent. He saw Boet land then lift upwards and drift rapidly in his direction. Boet returned to earth but was dragged roughly across the ground as Ozzie desperately tried to kick-start his motorbike to get the heck out of Boet’s way—but Oz was too late! The parachute canopy knocked him half over before Boet crashed into the bike, whereupon a jumble of motorbike, OC Flying and senior PJI went sliding for some distance amidst bellowed curses until the whirlwind let go of the parachute!
Engine failure
HAROLD GRIFFITHS WAS POSTED TO helicopters in February 1969. I had instructed him on BFS in 1963 and flew with him again during his Flying Instructor’s course on 2 Squadron. Of all the pilots I instructed on helicopters, I enjoyed teaching Griff most. In and out of working hours we became close friends and our families got together regularly. At the swimming parties Beryl and I held at our Hatfield home and those in the garden of his own home, Griff was always happiest braaing (barbecuing) and handing around ‘snackers’ to all and sundry whilst he sipped away at an ice-cold beer. I have never met anyone who enjoyed food to the extent Griff did; yet he retained a relatively trim figure throughout his service life.
During his operational conversion phase, we were flying in the farming area north of Salisbury when I surprised Griff by cutting the fuel flow to test his reaction to engine failure. I had done this with everyone on 7 Squadron ever since Roland Coffegnot of Sud Aviation told me it was the only way to confirm that pilots reacted correctly to this potentially deadly situation.
Griff acted as he should and was autorotating towards the landing point of his choice. I was satisfied and prepared to advance the fuel-flow lever to bring the engine back to its governed speed of 33,500 rpm for a powered over-shoot. As I looked down at the rpm indicator I was astonished to see that it was reading way down near zero meaning that the engine had flamed out instead of maintaining idling rpm.
I immediately took control from Griff and transmitted a Mayday call to Salisbury Approach whilst turning for a gentle up-slope landing on a fallow field that was covered by tall dry grass. A strong flare cushioned the aircraft’s high rate of descent before collective pitch was applied for a slow roll-on landing. We had rolled no more than two metres when an unseen contour ridge stoved in the nose-wheel causing damage to its mountings. Our technician, Willie Jevois, only realised that we had made a genuine forced landing when the rotors stopped turning with no noise coming from the engine.
Whilst waiting for the squadron technical team to come in by helicopter, I considered the implications of having tested Griff, and many pilots before him, in a manner contrary to the Air Staff Instructions (ASI) that disallowed engine-of testing of students anywhere but at New Sarum. Although I had been in trouble so many times, particularly during my tour on helicopters, I had always stuck with the truth. But this situation had me in a quandary because, although it was obvious that a technical fault had caused the idling fuel-fow valve to close down the engine, I had knowingly tested Griff in a manner contrary to the ASI that I had signed.
There was another matter too. I had recently been told, on the quiet, that I was about to be promoted to Squadron Leader, a situation I did not want to jeopardise. Wrongly I know, I asked Griff not to say anything about my having cut fuel flow but simply to tell the inevitable Board of Inquiry that the engine had failed in flight.
When my time came to give evidence I said the engine quit in flight—which it had—but I said nothing about having deliberately reduced fuel-flow to idling rpm. Had the right question been asked, I would have been forced to admit my guilt. Fortunately a technical inquiry had already established that a faulty electrical micro switch, which cut off the idling fuel flow, could just as easily have cut fuel flow in powered flight. A minor modification was introduced to prevent this happening in future and the matter was laid to rest.