Soapy Watson's ride on the Alriago

[Navaleye]

I think he did a great job. Seems like the MoD embarked on its usual backstabbing routine on a pilot that saved his aircraft. How much would a new one cost? Its the same Soapy Watson that flew as wingman to Sharkey Ward on Op Corporate. The guy deserves better. Just my 2p.

Here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/01/nharrier01.xml)

[PPRuNeUser0211]

Fully agree! The guy did a legendary job in difficult circumstances and should have been commended for presence of mind! Sure beats the hell out of banging out of the jet.

[Flyingblind]

I do seem to remember a photo of said event, can anyone post it?

[BEagle]

Some photos here:

http://fogonazos.*************/2006/12/el-da-en-que-un-harrier-de-la-royal.html

[Wrathmonk]

BEagle

Can't get your link to work.

There is one here (http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=64903) though (assuming this works!)

[BEagle]

For some reason, nanny won't allow b l o g s p o t . c o m and has inserted a load of asterisks....:hmm:

Try typing:

http ://fogonazos (without any spaces) followed by

. b l o g s p o t . c o m (without any spaces), then

/2006/12/el-da-en-que-un-harrier-de-la-royal.html

[airborne_artist]

Nanny does not like the word bl0gsp0t - but this should take you to the page you want:

http://tinyurl.com/27qpcq

[Kitbag]

Navaleye, you say its the same Watson that supported Ward down in the FI, yet the Telegraph suggests he was only a part trained pilot a year after Op Corporate, when this incident took place. Whoever was the pilot, BTW I do agree that he took the best course of action for the ac and himself. Lets be honest the salvage value for what at the time would be a fairly low hours ac is buttons to the MoD. Wonder whether he ever tried to appeal against the reprimand?

[airborne_artist]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Ward

Lt. M. Watson was the wingman:

"1 May (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1) - FMA IA 58 Pucará (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FMA_IA_58_Pucar%C3%A1): Commander "Sharkey" Ward and Lt. M. Watson in Sea Harriers of Number 801 Squadron on CAP engage three Turbo-Mentors. One enemy aircraft is damaged by cannon fire from Ward's aircraft."

[Gainesy]

First comment on the first link by AA is from Jesus, so it looks like the Upper Management is on Soapy's side.

Thought at the time it was an exceptional bit of airmanship. Also wondered what the ship's crew thought as he landed on.:uhoh:

[Widger]

Lt M Watson is still flying. A more subdued aircraft now. Speak to him on a regular basis. I remember seeing him for the first time in 1980s, getting his huge frame out of a Sea Harrier, then taking off his helmet to reveal glasses! Well, that blew my notion that all Sea Harrier pilots were gods! I have never got over the shock.

[ManOverhead]

I was in Illustrious at the time Soapy went missing and we were all extremely worried (obviously) when he didn't come back.

The dit as to what happened (as far as I can remember it - please post corrections if anyone out there knows better, and is Soapy a Ppruner?) went like this:

Soapy launches for NATO Exercise (all radio and radar silence stuff, just for good measure), does his bit and then comes to look for Mother.

No Mother, anywhere. So he stooges around at high altitude trying to look for Mother, or something he might be able to land on (no diversion of course).

By now he is close to vapour in the tanks, but he sees a ship below, throttles back and descends to have a look.

B****r, small freighter, no flight deck and now on vapour, so he decides he'll have to eject, but reckons that as the Pegasus is still running it'd be better to slow down and eject close to the ship so they'll see him and come to pick him up.

He slows down to the hover alongside the freighter, and the engine is still running! Now he can see that there is a nice flat container he could land on, and a foremast with a light on it to line up on. So tranistions across and lands.

Of course, the container top isn't exactly Camrex'd (high friction flight deck coating for those who don't know), the jet start to slip so he selects undercarriage up and shuts down the engine.

By the time he got out of the aircraft the freighter's crew have turned up with fire hoses (there was a bit of smoke apparently) and rope to tie the Harrier down.

Back on board Illustrous we were delighted to find out that he was safe and well, and the rumour was that he'd get some sort of BZ for good airmanship, saving the aircraft etc.

There was also a rumour that somewhere along the line the wrong Lat/Long had been entered in to the aircraft nav system (don't ask how the aircraft got given Lat/Long unless you want to be very depressed).

As a postscript, we heard that the freighter crew just wanted a contribution to their beer fund and the dented motorcaravan (the jet slipped on to it) paid for. It was the union who told them they could claim salvage for the aircraft.

As it turned out the "Admiral's Displeasure" faction won the day - morale boosting was just as good then.

MOh

[ORAC]

An unnamed senior officer commented: ''I am speechless, as was Watson.'' :D:D:}

[Double Zero]

We had the a/c back to Dunsfold for what turned out to be very minor repairs - if memory serves it was combined with a scheduled maintenance / update turnround.

I always had the impression it was the EMCON silence which really put the lid on his troubles, with people insisting on sticking to the exercise rather than help out, and they were the ones to give a kick up the **** -

Anyway it seems anyone even mentioning aircraft incurs senior naval displeasure automatically - general opinion I knew of was that he should have been highly commended, but still questions unanswered about several systems down at once ( is the head down compass a realistic option in that scenario, can a Seajet pilot comment ? ).

The incorrect lat / long input explains a lot...

[Ribbit]

Hi,

Soapy was my No.2. We were briefed to look for a French aircraft carrier off Portugal. EMCON silent, low level transit to disguise our ships position, pop up then individual search on RWR for any sign of the French group. We were due to RV at the same point 30ish minutes later and transit back at low level.

Soapy was first off the deck, I launched and 'gathered him up' (he was heading in the wrong direction) and flew to the point where we split up for the individual search. Thats the last I saw of him for a few days!

His NAVHARS kit had misaligned on deck (an occasional occurrence at sea with rough deck movement and bearing in mind this was his 3rd sortie on the squadron, understandable he missed the cues), so when we launched he was going the wrong way. His aircraft reference position was also increasing in error at a great rate. As a result his 'square search' was much more rectangular than mine and it was with hindsight not surprising that we did not RV in the same position after the search.

I held on for as long as I could waiting for Soapy, then recovered to the ship and as I recall the 'EMCON silent' ship was making the RWR sick on my knee with all the radiation coming from the group looking for the lost jet.

The wing was launched to look/listen for PLB transmissions to no avail. After a very sobering afternoon/evening we eventually got the telex from the Naval Attache in Madrid that he was safe and well.

I only looked at the photo's from that evening in the bar last month. Flying suits and cummerbunds, pissed as newts and very relieved.

Soapy did exceptionally well for his experience. Arch Sinclair ejected from his jet years later in similar circumstances off the west coast of Scotland (compounded by a ships DF mast being stowed horizontal and giving false steers). A great story for the kids!

Didn't Skippy eject from that jet after a birdstrike in Scotland a few months after it came back into service?

Alistair McLaren

Incidentally, as I recall there was no 'backstabbing' and it was not held against him in the following years. Equal measures of backslapping and 'developmental feedback' during the formal interview.

There were 2 'Soapy' Watson's, Mike Watson (Falklands and CO 800) and Ian Watson (the younger). We know him as 'Suds', son of Soapy...........well you get the picture!

[Khaosai]

Hi Alistair,

pretty sure i have a print of you displaying the harrier in Aberdeen in the 80's.

Sketched by Mo Wilson i think...

Rgds.

[Ribbit]

1987/88, yep thats me. I still have the original.

All the best,

Alistair

[gareth herts]

Thought I would scan these in having stumbled across them today. This (if memory serves correctly) is Ian "Soapy" Watson. Friend of a friend arranged for us to catch up with him for a natter and a look around the SHAR at North Weald in, blimey, 1989, 1990, something like that. He was a really nice guy and gave us a good look at the jet.
Nice MIG 21 - good SHAR display too I seem to remember!
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e185/garethstringer/soapy.jpg
Here he is trying to stay awake as I bore him with another wannabe question. Should have asked him about the boots - what is it with Harrier pilots and the flaps over the laces??!! I naver did make it and I had hair then too! Ho hum!
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e185/garethstringer/soapy2.jpg

[BEagle]

".........what is it with Harrier pilots and the flaps over the laces??!!"

Simple really. As is well known (just look at people like Loader), Harrier pilots have very small willies indeed. Tiny, in fact. Which means that when going for a wazz in flying suits, the average 'bona mate' is likely to wee all over his flying boots due to the inadequate size of his willy and its consequent inability to reach the porcelain.

This was found to cause contamination and premature rotting of the boot laces. So when, as is very common amongst Harrier 'mates', the time came to part company with his 'jet', the likelihood of a 'mate' leaving his boots behind was very probable.

So Wg Cdr Boots (Flying) Pol. 1a down in the mad MoD-box came up with a wizard solution. 'Piss flaps' over the laces! No longer would small-willied Harrier 'mates' run the risk of leaving their boots behind every time they ejected - from then on their piss flaps would guarantee to keep their laces widdle-free.

You can always tell if a pilot is an ex-'mate' even when wearing his own interpretation of Clockwork Squaddie '95 or its desert derivative - piss flaps on the boots.

[Wholigan]

Nice couple of darts Beags - but I think it may just be that Torps was Jags, Hawks and Tornados rather than Harriers! ;)

[BEagle]

TVM, Wholi' - post duly edited!

Were you a Hunter + bondhu boots chap?

[Gainesy]

Were you a Hunter + bondhu boots chap?
And CF-104s and Muckluks, I understand.

Does anybody else feel really old when they see Torps as CAS, rather than JP Mafia?:{
Beags and Wholi apart, obviously.:E

Back On Thread: Soapy One The Elder has my lens cap that I forgot to get back from him after he helped me strap in at Yohohovilton one day.

[Rhys S. Negative]

Didn't Skippy eject from that jet after a birdstrike in Scotland a few months after it came back into service?
Can't have been the same aircraft, as ZA176 is still in existence: history here:http://www.targetlock.org.uk/seaharrier/za176.html

Rhys.

[Edmund Spencer]

Regret I arrived a bit late here, Navaleye.
I remember the incident well. We were in the area at the time.
Young Soapy Watson more commonly known as 'Sudsy' was the individual involved here not the real Soapy who featured in Sharkey's book.
We suspected that he omitted the last and most important action prior to launching from the carrier in the SHAR, namely to insert the heading into the navigation kit. Failing to do this would have meant he would have launched with a massive heading error and really had no chance of finding the carrier when he tried to get home.
He wasn't the first to do this and I daresay others did it and got away with it one way or the other.
I remember one of our Australian brothers did the same quite early on and might have had to part company with his SHAR. Not sure of the details.
The NAVHARS, I think it was called, was basic at best. It was a doppler updated fairly crude inertial system. It was prone to quite large errors, particularly over a very calm sea. There was a procedure for lining the kit up prior to launch even if you were not on the centerline but immediately prior to launch you could fine tune the heading with information from FLYCO. (Who ever believed information from FLYCO?!!)
ES

[Navaleye]

I saw the rusty old bucket in Cadiz a few years ago. Quite now he landed anything on it is amazing. i bad to go and get it back, but thats another story.

[BEagle]

There was a procedure for lining the kit up prior to launch even if you were not on the centerline but immediately prior to launch you could fine tune the heading with information from FLYCO.

Why wasn't it able to take a direct heading feed from the ship's navigation system prior to launch?

[Bicster]

This must be Ribbit doing a display in 1988. Bit random of me but I thought the video might be of interest YouTube - Sea Harrier Display Southampton 1988 (http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=8IBijyzEsF8)

[Navaleye]

Sharky Ward's wingman was Ian Watson. I know cos i met him. Ex sea king jockey. Cant believe Its taken 4 years for this thread to come around again.

[Trenchard Brat]

lets put this to bed once and for all, Mike Watson was Sharkeys no2, Ian Watson was the Alraigo Kid, Mike flew with FRADU after retiring from the RN, he went on to fly the Hunter/Hawk and now the Falcon, last time i saw Ian Watson he was in a shopping Mall in Dubai, he was an instructor pilot for the Royal Saudi Air Force, his picture can be seen advertising leather jackets in Flypast magazine every month, i flew with both of the Watsons during my time on FRADU and would say they are equally excellent pilots

[Pontius]

Why wasn't it able to take a direct heading feed from the ship's navigation system prior to launch?

Beags,

I don't know how the system evolved at the end of service but all the time I was 'in' and during Soapy and Sud's time, the SHAR was completely independent of the ship, indeed, there was no means of even syncing this information. I know the septics could do it with their ships, not for the AV8A but definitely the AV8B. The only autonomous comms you could have with the ship was via tele something or other. I seem to remember it was telelink but I'm not going to put any money on my memory with that :) If, on the 3% chance it was working at the spot you were parked on, they could plug a cable into the arse end of the SHAR and then you could speak directly to Ops. Trouble was only one of the formation might have a telelink(?) that worked and even then it was sketchy info coming from the boat, so most of the time we never bothered.

When it came time to launch, we'd start up the jets on command from Flyco and at that time the ship would provide the lat/lon, crs/spd during alignment and the ship's planned hdg on launch (DFC) to one of the lads on deck, who would write it on a white board. This guy would then come along to each jet and we'd copy the info down before he moved to the next aircraft. You'd chuck the lat/lon in the INS (Dest 0 I seem to recall). Some guys would enter the crs/spd as well to 'tilt' the platform to a better level (I have to admit I never bothered because it didn't seem to make any difference). The great thing about this very simple kit was its alignment time. 30 seconds after starting the align you could move and it took only 2 minutes for a full align. Compare that to the GR3/T4/AV8B where you needed a bloody big machine plugged into the aircraft and about 15-20 minutes to align and you really appreciated the SHAR kit, basic though it was. Once everything was good to go you'd enter the launch hdg into the machine but would leave it flashing i.e not executed, until you got onto the centreline and were about to leap off (most of us had a quick look at the wet compass, just to check the fisheads weren't stitching us up again). Once you were off the boat (and above 100 kts I seem to remember.....saddo) the Doppler would kick in and give the kit some more info to better update it.

SO, if you're still awake after all that, you'll now know the answer to your question is that (at the time) the ship and SHAR did not have the capability of syncing the information directly but we got round it with a bloke with a white board and a marker pen. Definitely no errors were ever made there with incorrect lat/lon, DFC etc :O

Now, about those boot flaps......:ok: