About eighty people gathered under lovely trees with colourful chairs, umbrellas, shade tents and tables laden to bursting with food all beautifully set out. Children clambered over the domed granite hill against which we were gathered and everyone got to know everyone else. Beryl insisted on being called by her first name and not Mrs Petter-Bowyer, which endeared her to everyone. I acquired the name ‘Boss PB’ which I much preferred to being called ‘sir’. Thereafter the prefix ‘Boss’ was applied to a number of officers who were popular with junior pilots and technicians.
The roasted impala, superbly tasteful and tender, was wholly consumed but the rest of the food spread proved to be more than ravenous youngsters could manage. Beer and wine flowed freely and everyone enjoyed the best open-air party I can remember. When the squadron’s personnel reported for duty at 06:30 on Monday, I knew I was leading a totally changed team of men. There was sparkle in their faces, spring in their step and the mischievous spirit that continued beyond my three years with 4 Squadron had been unearthed.
My good friend Flight Lieutenant Rob Tasker with whom I had served as an instructor on 2 Squadron, was ‘B’ Flight Commander. He ran me through Provost re-familiarisation flights. Having lost the stomach for fuel vapour, spinning and aerobatics I felt really ill after the first two flights.
Gordon Wright conducted my conversion to the Trojan. This was an aircraft that was easy to handle in flight but one that tested one’s abilities when it came to engine handling and limit flying. The engine was too low-powered for the Trojan’s bulky airframe and thick high-lift wings, which severely limited payload. Increasing and reducing power was not a simple matter of opening and closing throttle control. With every change of power or engine rpm the fuel mixture had to be adjusted to prevent power loss. This meant that any change in engine setting necessitated rapid movements between throttle, pitch and mixture control, which took some time to master. I found no joy in flying the Trojan, preferring to fly a Provost at every opportunity. Gordon, however, enjoyed instructing on the Trojan because, of all our aircraft, it was the most challenging one to handle proficiently.
My first solo in a Trojan ended with a forced landing on the Gliding Club strip at Moffat Airfield because of partial engine failure with insufficient power to reach Thornhill safely. At first I thought the problem was engine mismanagement on my part, but it turned out to be a fuel feed problem.
The Trojan was a very noisy machine because its propeller tip speed was supersonic in the higher rpm range. Take-off performance at Rhodesia’s high altitudes was marginal and in flight the aircraft was slow. Because of these characteristics the Trojan attracted unkind clichés such as—having constant power with variable noise—noise generated by five pistons clapping for the one doing all the work—reliance on the curvature of the earth to get airborne—the only aircraft that received bird strikes from the rear.
The latter saying came to mind one day during operations when I was conducting visual reconnaissance. I was making a gentle turn to port when a Bateleur eagle overtook me on the inside of the turn just a couple of metres off the wing tip. Through the open window I shouted. “Bloody show off! I hope your eyes are watering.”
Because of the Trojan’s power limitations and the need to operate in and out of short runways, Gordon placed great emphasis on preparing pilots for short-field operations. We flew long low-level flights, hopping from one airfield to another, sometimes stopping over for a break in Bulawayo where three or more Trojans crews met for lunch in Gordon’s favourite Chinese restaurant. This was considered a real treat and emphasised just how much I missed flying versatile helicopters with frequent luncheon stops at farms and hotels or simple picnic breaks in beautiful surroundings.
Whereas we usually made a low-level inspection-run of every remote runway before each roller landing, Gordon told me not to worry about this procedure when we were approaching the airstrip at Guyu. On very short finals we both realised that the grass was far too long for a safe landing but, because it took so long to power up, the aircraft came to ground as full power was achieved. Fortunately we had not lost too much speed, but drag on wheels and airframe threatened to overcome the thrust of the propeller that was slicing through thick grass. We were fortunate to lift off with absolutely no runway remaining. Whereas Gordon was very annoyed with himself, the experience was important to me. When added to all of Gordon’s work it fully prepared me for many strange and often frightening flights to come.
Learning recce
AS SOON AS I WAS proficient on the Trojan, all my attention turned to learning visual reconnaissance in a fixed-wing aircraft. I had little idea of how to go about this but persuaded myself that, since man is a creature of habit, his routine movements must give a picture of his activities. I felt that if I fully understood the pathways of ordinary tribesmen who had no need to obscure their movements or presence, it should be possible to detect those made by men in hiding. I already knew something about aerial tracking and how to find terrorist and civilian camps in Mozambique, but all of that had been done at low level.
Flying at 1,500 feet above ground, because it was considered to be high enough for safety from enemy ground fire, I spent hour after hour studying every pathway and disturbed area over hundreds of square miles of tribal territory. I watched people moving along pathways, found where women bathed and laundered clothing along rivers and even watched people move into cover near their homes to attend to their toilet needs. Slowly I picked up similarities that helped me understand what I was seeing and how to use the sun to illuminate very faint pathways. Herds of cattle in the tribal areas were usually too large for the ground that supported them, resulting in hundreds of cattle paths which ran in parallel lines. Though clearly visible, they were not as well defined as human paths and had many distinctive shallow-angled linking lines—something like railway yards.
Of specific interest to me were small short paths close to huts that followed erratic courses into tree cover. At the end of each pathway there were barely discernible patches of bare ground that I had already established were toilet points. But it was noticeable that one group of paths had four bare patches at their ends whereas others had only three. I guessed that the former were women’s toilet paths and the latter were those made by adult men. At most villages there were also patches of haphazard trail lines that crossed over each other in a jumble. I concluded that these were the loo paths of children.
When I thought I had a fair understanding and was reading ground well enough, I made a specific study of one small group of huts that were close to a road and not too far from Thornhill. I attempted to determine the exact numbers of men and women living there and identify the purpose of every pathway leading from these huts. Having decided that there were three adult men and five women, I motored to the village to check this and other aspects of my assessment.
When I reached the place, I drove off the road and stopped just short of the village. In a loud voice I called “Kokoko” which is the polite way of calling for attention to be invited in. Kokoko represents the sound of knocking on a door. The old man who emerged from one of the huts turned out to be the local sabuku (keeper of Government record books). As is customary, we talked about the weather, cattle and crops before coming to the purpose of my visit. I asked the old man if he had seen an aircraft circling above his kraal earlier in the day. He said he had. When I told him I was flying that aircraft he told me I was not telling him the truth because he could see that I was much too big to fit into that tiny ndege. Fortunately there was a vehicle parked at another kraal about two kilometres away. I told him that though the vehicle looked small it was farther away than I had been above him. Since he knew he could fit into that vehicle he was able to accept that the aircraft must have been big enough for me.