Centaurus
7th Oct 2014, 12:46
Being a reasonably healthy character, retirement has irked me at times. So a few months ago my ever-loving spouse suggested I should seek volunteer work to stay active. The florist shop around the corner advertised for a courier driver to deliver flowers locally three days a week cash in hand and I got the job. The pay was dismal, I had to pay for my own petrol and use my own car but it got me out of the house. Life was looking up.
It was lovely to see the surprised and happy reaction from matronly ladies and young nubiles at receiving a bunch of roses at the front door given by husbands and various hopeful swains. Now this story is about aeroplanes not flowers so please stick with me for a few minutes of your time.
I had delivered a bunch of flowers on behalf of a husband to his wife. It was a steep pathway to their house and staggering to the top and being an officially elderly gentleman, I was soon out of breath. Across the road below was an embankment leading down to a small stream and as I got back to my car I saw two young boys aged about five or six riding their BMX bikes on the grass near the stream. One was going too fast and losing control fell off his bike into a bush. He started to cry as he was obviously shaken and scratched and in pain. I couldn’t immediately get to him as he was on the other side of the stream. But I asked where he lived and he tearfully pointed up the hill to the house where I had just delivered the flowers. He was crying for his Dad while his elder brother looked on not knowing what to do.
I was completely stuffed by the time I returned for the second time up the steep driveway to the house but found his Dad who, quite unfazed, proceeded to survey the scene below. He was a tall laconic base-ball hat wearing bogan type in appearance. He strolled casually down the slope to reach his crying son as I said to him that I thought the boy was unhurt but mainly shocked. Lifting his son in his arms he soothed the boy and with a wonderful dry wit said to me, “He has yet to learn the difference between ambition and achievement”
I’ll come back to that statement later.
Those who have attended the bigger air shows may have enjoyed the sight and sound of a Mustang at full throttle. Before joining the RAAF as a 19 year old trainee pilot, I had never seen a Mustang although during the war I had seen Spitfires and Hurricanes a-plenty and thrilled to the sound of their Rolls Royce Merlin engines. I had always wanted to be a fighter pilot like my heroes of the Battle for Britain years before, and on graduation from RAAF Point Cook in late 1952 I was posted to the Operational Training Unit at Williamtown NSW, for the three month course to be a fighter pilot on Mustangs and single seat Vampires. The Mustang might have thrilled spectators with the sweet sound of its Merlin engine but I can assure you it was deafening in the cockpit.
After two solo familiarisation sorties I was ready for my first fighter combat session which was with one Flight Lieutenant Peter Middleton DFC. He was one of the instructors on our course. I use the term instructor in general terms because few of the staff pilots were Qualified Flying Instructors (QFI) and in any case our Mustangs and Vampires were single seat aircraft. You read the Pilots Notes, climbed into the cockpit and flew solo.
Middleton was tall, sported an impressive moustache, and looked every inch the true fighter pilot image. An experienced combat pilot, he had just returned from flying Meteors in Korea. He held a degree (or whatever) in martial art skills and was well respected for obvious reasons. He also owned a dashing looking bone dome (crash helmet), which was painted with blue and white polka dots. I suspect he nicked it from the Yanks in Korea, as bone domes were not then standard issue in the RAAF.
It was to be my first sortie involving formation flying in the Mustang, and Middleton’s briefing was concise and to the point. After engine start, I was to follow him to the runway, observing radio silence after the initial radio call to check radio serviceability. From now it was to be hand signals. Before take off drills were done after the engine run up. It was to be a formation take off, battle climb to 15000 ft, then general formation practice. This was to be followed by a line astern tail chase in VMC (hopefully). Depending on the weather, we would return to land off the standard buzz and break. If the weather was marginal then we would carry out a formation VHF/DF instrument approach, culminating in a Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) to 200 ft. With only 210 hours in my log book, I hoped that I wouldn't have to test my instrument flying skills whilst in tight formation!
During preflight checks of my aircraft, I noticed that Middleton was already strapped in and obviously impatient to get under way. He wore a RAAF issue red silk scarf (in case one needed to attract attention if you were shot down), and real aviators sunglasses. Now in the cockpit and hastily doing pre start drills, I pumped the primer a couple of strokes too much and was rewarded for my inexperience at starting the Rolls Royce engine by the sight of terrifying tongues of flame licking from twelve open exhaust pipes. Despite starting many Rolls Royce Merlins since that day, I never failed to get the shivers when these engines caught alight. This was despite the fact that the flames were more spectacular than dangerous.
I returned Middleton's thumbs up, indicating I was ready to taxy. With a burst of throttle, my leader swung out of the flight lines. When taxying the Mustang, Middleton preferred to raise his seat to full extent, so that he could see over the top of the bullet proof windscreen. With one gloved hand resting on the canopy frame, his scarf fluttering in the slipstream and his oxygen mask hanging loose to reveal a fierce moustache, Middleton looked like the original John Wayne Tall in the Saddle cowboy.
I followed a respectful distance behind, most of the time losing sight of his Mustang despite my obligatory weaving of the nose. I decided to emulate Middleton, and jacked up my seat to full extent in order to (a) look cool and (b) to obtain better forward vision. Within seconds I had nearly ground looped the Mustang as I attempted to apply corrective rudder and brake to control a rapidly developing swing. The Mustang was built for six footers, and to reach the rudder pedals I needed a well- padded cushion behind my back. The seat was fixed horizontally, and I already had the rudder pedals fully extended towards me. With full up seat I could only just reach the pedals with the tips of my toes, and as for depressing the brakes, then forget it! I desperately unlocked the seat raising lever, and with a jolt the seat hit the lower stops, causing me to look like Chad (that mysterious cartoon character of years ago, who was pictured with his eyes and long nose peering over a wall). I now had no forward vision beyond the gyro gun-sight, although on the positive side I at least limited rudder and brake control.
Pride somewhat dented, I managed to stop the aircraft at an angle to the taxiway and claw my way via the seat raising lever to a respectable position in the cockpit as befitted a cool trainee fighter pilot. In the meantime Pete Middleton, whose call-sign for the sortie flight was Red One, was blissfully unaware of the minor drama which had unfolded behind his tail. He received a green light from the control van to line up on the runway for his run up and was in the course of opening up to high power as I taxied behind him in order to position myself on his right wing for the formation take off.
To my dismay the slipstream from Middleton's propeller hit the tail of my Mustang, causing the beast to weathercock viciously towards the tail of his aircraft. I almost dislocated my toes in jamming on full right brake to stop the swing, and Red One never knew how close the 4 bladed propeller came to clobbering his rudder. At this stage I began to regret not volunteering for posting to the position of second dickey on a Dakota. So much for checking all clear behind before run up, I thought grimly, but one never criticizes a Red Leader who has a degree in martial arts. Not to his face, anyway.
At this point, perhaps I should briefly explain that the engine run up on a Mustang includes checking the propeller operation at high RPM, testing the supercharger controls, magneto drop check, noting temperature and pressures with an especially careful note of the glycol coolant temperature. On the ground, where airflow through the engine radiator is reliant mainly on the propeller slipstream, it was important to be pointing into wind to keep the coolant below 110 degrees centigrade. If over that temperature, the chances were that on take off, the coolant would boil and eventually cause engine damage. Such were the vagaries of powerful liquid cooled engines. Battle damage to the coolant system on these Rolls Royce Merlins invariably meant engine seizure. The options then remaining were to abandon the aircraft by parachute, or to attempt a crash landing.
Now back to the story, where I had now closed the canopy, set the park brake, and commenced the run-up. With only two Mustang rides under my belt, my cockpit checks were still hesitant and perhaps a trifle longwinded. Red Leader DFC clearly thought so anyway, because when we received a steady green light from the control van, he waved his gloved finger in a circular motion at me, which was the signal to increase engine power to 30 inches of manifold pressure before commencing the take off. Forty years on, I was to see a similar finger gesture from my family doctor as he prepared to do a prostate examination!
The canopy of Middleton's Mustang was closed, the flashing arc of the huge propeller solidified at 2000 RPM, and the man was ready to roll. I was still trying to scratch an itch in my bum, and apart from checking all clear behind before run up,( my old Point Cook instructor would have been proud that I remembered that one),I was nowhere near ready to take off. I gave Middleton a furtive and somewhat embarrassed thumbs down to indicate that I was not yet ready, and went heads down to scan more instruments and test more switches.
Seconds later, a sense of foreboding made me look across to Red One, where I saw that Middleton now had his canopy open, oxygen mask undone and was glaring at me revealing bared teeth below his black moustache. He again furiously waggled his gloved finger in a circular fashion indicating he had been sitting on "hack" power (a chopping motion of the hand to indicate brakes release for take off) for some considerable time - probably with rocketing coolant temperatures. I gave another regretful thumbs down, and undoing my oxygen mask, I attempted to convey via lip language that I needed a little more time to complete my checks.
This thoughtful gesture on my part clearly upset Red One, because he mouthed an obscene word or ten in my direction, clipped his oxygen mask on, slammed the canopy shut, and ruddering furiously to counteract the torque of a probably overboosted engine, he roared off down the runway. With his Mustang barely inches off the deck, I saw his undercarriage retract inwards in a classical "scramble" fashion.
Back on the runway, with the dust from Middleton's departure still settling, I had just given my harness a final tweak, when I heard a voice which sounded like "get your arse into gear, Red Two". I wondered momentarily if I should acknowledge the call, but could not think of an appropriate phase, especially as the transmittee was an officer (maybe not a gentleman though) with a martial arts degree.
The controller in his little van had by now tired of giving me steady greens, and as radio silence had been effectively broken by my leader's impatient remark, I was cleared for take off by radio, finally catching up with Middleton around 5000 ft. There were no niceties, no leisurely practice at pansy formation changes. No time to marvel at the beautiful view of a Mustang close up, with the Pacific ocean and white cumulus clouds as backdrop. Just a hard voice on the radio saying "go line astern, Red Two, and stay on my tail". I dutifully did a text book drop back and slide sideways, until Middleton's Mustang filled my windshield.
I called that I was in position, and barely had the words been uttered, when the aircraft nestled so sweetly in my gyro gun-sight and which had been barely 50 feet in front of my propeller, just disappeared upwards. I swivelled my head in all directions, ripped into steep reversal turns, looked up through the canopy, and generally felt a right twit for losing my leader so quickly. All of my previous tail chases had been in Wirraways with the front bloke being an amateur like myself. I flew in circles trying to spot my leader, finally deciding he must have gone home.
There was no point in wasting a nice day, so I found a fluffy cloud and joyously flung my Mustang directly at it, rat-tat- tatting into my oxygen mask and generally playing Red Barons. I had just completed a 250 knot lazy barrel roll around my cloud, when a voice cut across the air with, "fight, Red Two, fight!" and looking into the rear vision mirror I saw a large blue spinner. The spinner was attached to a silver Mustang and behind the its gun-sight the occupant of the cockpit wore a blue and white spotted bone dome and I swear I saw a glimpse of red silk scarf.
After the initial shock and embarrassment, I decided to do serious battle and flung my Mustang all over the Williamtown training area trying to get Red One off my tail. I remembered once reading Pierre Closterman's book, "The Big Show", where flying a Tempest, he turned inside a German Focke Wulf 190 fighter by dropping a few degrees of flap to lower the stall speed - just enough to get the required deflection for firing. I hauled around in a limit turn, felt the Mustang shudder at the stall onset, groped for the flap lever to drop the flap that few critical degrees, and to my chagrin, flicked inverted. I had missed the flap lever and inadvertently selected the adjacent carburettor control lever. Upside down in the flick roll, I caught a momentary glimpse of Middleton's Mustang rapidly rolling away from me to avoid a collision.
We eventually formed up and Middleton led me into the circuit at Williamtown via the now classic initial followed by a buzz and break. As formation leader Pete Middleton landed on the left side of the runway and I was close behind on his right side. I followed his aircraft to the tarmac and parked next to him. The debrief was brusque and to the point as Middleton was not best pleased with my performance. Over the next few weeks I did my best on dive bombing, rocketry and air to air cine camera gunnery but my shooting skills were dismal. When called into the office of the Commanding Officer I knew the worst.
The CO was kind and talked to me like a father to a son but said I was scrubbed as a fighter pilot and would be posted to fly as a second pilot on Lincoln bombers at Townsville. I really wanted to be a fighter pilot like Peter Middleton but it was not to be.
Over the next few years I occasionally ran into Pete during various postings and we became great friends. But looking back over the time I flew Mustangs, like the small boy who fell of his bike at the beginning of this story, I learned the hard way the difference between ambition and achievement.
It was lovely to see the surprised and happy reaction from matronly ladies and young nubiles at receiving a bunch of roses at the front door given by husbands and various hopeful swains. Now this story is about aeroplanes not flowers so please stick with me for a few minutes of your time.
I had delivered a bunch of flowers on behalf of a husband to his wife. It was a steep pathway to their house and staggering to the top and being an officially elderly gentleman, I was soon out of breath. Across the road below was an embankment leading down to a small stream and as I got back to my car I saw two young boys aged about five or six riding their BMX bikes on the grass near the stream. One was going too fast and losing control fell off his bike into a bush. He started to cry as he was obviously shaken and scratched and in pain. I couldn’t immediately get to him as he was on the other side of the stream. But I asked where he lived and he tearfully pointed up the hill to the house where I had just delivered the flowers. He was crying for his Dad while his elder brother looked on not knowing what to do.
I was completely stuffed by the time I returned for the second time up the steep driveway to the house but found his Dad who, quite unfazed, proceeded to survey the scene below. He was a tall laconic base-ball hat wearing bogan type in appearance. He strolled casually down the slope to reach his crying son as I said to him that I thought the boy was unhurt but mainly shocked. Lifting his son in his arms he soothed the boy and with a wonderful dry wit said to me, “He has yet to learn the difference between ambition and achievement”
I’ll come back to that statement later.
Those who have attended the bigger air shows may have enjoyed the sight and sound of a Mustang at full throttle. Before joining the RAAF as a 19 year old trainee pilot, I had never seen a Mustang although during the war I had seen Spitfires and Hurricanes a-plenty and thrilled to the sound of their Rolls Royce Merlin engines. I had always wanted to be a fighter pilot like my heroes of the Battle for Britain years before, and on graduation from RAAF Point Cook in late 1952 I was posted to the Operational Training Unit at Williamtown NSW, for the three month course to be a fighter pilot on Mustangs and single seat Vampires. The Mustang might have thrilled spectators with the sweet sound of its Merlin engine but I can assure you it was deafening in the cockpit.
After two solo familiarisation sorties I was ready for my first fighter combat session which was with one Flight Lieutenant Peter Middleton DFC. He was one of the instructors on our course. I use the term instructor in general terms because few of the staff pilots were Qualified Flying Instructors (QFI) and in any case our Mustangs and Vampires were single seat aircraft. You read the Pilots Notes, climbed into the cockpit and flew solo.
Middleton was tall, sported an impressive moustache, and looked every inch the true fighter pilot image. An experienced combat pilot, he had just returned from flying Meteors in Korea. He held a degree (or whatever) in martial art skills and was well respected for obvious reasons. He also owned a dashing looking bone dome (crash helmet), which was painted with blue and white polka dots. I suspect he nicked it from the Yanks in Korea, as bone domes were not then standard issue in the RAAF.
It was to be my first sortie involving formation flying in the Mustang, and Middleton’s briefing was concise and to the point. After engine start, I was to follow him to the runway, observing radio silence after the initial radio call to check radio serviceability. From now it was to be hand signals. Before take off drills were done after the engine run up. It was to be a formation take off, battle climb to 15000 ft, then general formation practice. This was to be followed by a line astern tail chase in VMC (hopefully). Depending on the weather, we would return to land off the standard buzz and break. If the weather was marginal then we would carry out a formation VHF/DF instrument approach, culminating in a Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) to 200 ft. With only 210 hours in my log book, I hoped that I wouldn't have to test my instrument flying skills whilst in tight formation!
During preflight checks of my aircraft, I noticed that Middleton was already strapped in and obviously impatient to get under way. He wore a RAAF issue red silk scarf (in case one needed to attract attention if you were shot down), and real aviators sunglasses. Now in the cockpit and hastily doing pre start drills, I pumped the primer a couple of strokes too much and was rewarded for my inexperience at starting the Rolls Royce engine by the sight of terrifying tongues of flame licking from twelve open exhaust pipes. Despite starting many Rolls Royce Merlins since that day, I never failed to get the shivers when these engines caught alight. This was despite the fact that the flames were more spectacular than dangerous.
I returned Middleton's thumbs up, indicating I was ready to taxy. With a burst of throttle, my leader swung out of the flight lines. When taxying the Mustang, Middleton preferred to raise his seat to full extent, so that he could see over the top of the bullet proof windscreen. With one gloved hand resting on the canopy frame, his scarf fluttering in the slipstream and his oxygen mask hanging loose to reveal a fierce moustache, Middleton looked like the original John Wayne Tall in the Saddle cowboy.
I followed a respectful distance behind, most of the time losing sight of his Mustang despite my obligatory weaving of the nose. I decided to emulate Middleton, and jacked up my seat to full extent in order to (a) look cool and (b) to obtain better forward vision. Within seconds I had nearly ground looped the Mustang as I attempted to apply corrective rudder and brake to control a rapidly developing swing. The Mustang was built for six footers, and to reach the rudder pedals I needed a well- padded cushion behind my back. The seat was fixed horizontally, and I already had the rudder pedals fully extended towards me. With full up seat I could only just reach the pedals with the tips of my toes, and as for depressing the brakes, then forget it! I desperately unlocked the seat raising lever, and with a jolt the seat hit the lower stops, causing me to look like Chad (that mysterious cartoon character of years ago, who was pictured with his eyes and long nose peering over a wall). I now had no forward vision beyond the gyro gun-sight, although on the positive side I at least limited rudder and brake control.
Pride somewhat dented, I managed to stop the aircraft at an angle to the taxiway and claw my way via the seat raising lever to a respectable position in the cockpit as befitted a cool trainee fighter pilot. In the meantime Pete Middleton, whose call-sign for the sortie flight was Red One, was blissfully unaware of the minor drama which had unfolded behind his tail. He received a green light from the control van to line up on the runway for his run up and was in the course of opening up to high power as I taxied behind him in order to position myself on his right wing for the formation take off.
To my dismay the slipstream from Middleton's propeller hit the tail of my Mustang, causing the beast to weathercock viciously towards the tail of his aircraft. I almost dislocated my toes in jamming on full right brake to stop the swing, and Red One never knew how close the 4 bladed propeller came to clobbering his rudder. At this stage I began to regret not volunteering for posting to the position of second dickey on a Dakota. So much for checking all clear behind before run up, I thought grimly, but one never criticizes a Red Leader who has a degree in martial arts. Not to his face, anyway.
At this point, perhaps I should briefly explain that the engine run up on a Mustang includes checking the propeller operation at high RPM, testing the supercharger controls, magneto drop check, noting temperature and pressures with an especially careful note of the glycol coolant temperature. On the ground, where airflow through the engine radiator is reliant mainly on the propeller slipstream, it was important to be pointing into wind to keep the coolant below 110 degrees centigrade. If over that temperature, the chances were that on take off, the coolant would boil and eventually cause engine damage. Such were the vagaries of powerful liquid cooled engines. Battle damage to the coolant system on these Rolls Royce Merlins invariably meant engine seizure. The options then remaining were to abandon the aircraft by parachute, or to attempt a crash landing.
Now back to the story, where I had now closed the canopy, set the park brake, and commenced the run-up. With only two Mustang rides under my belt, my cockpit checks were still hesitant and perhaps a trifle longwinded. Red Leader DFC clearly thought so anyway, because when we received a steady green light from the control van, he waved his gloved finger in a circular motion at me, which was the signal to increase engine power to 30 inches of manifold pressure before commencing the take off. Forty years on, I was to see a similar finger gesture from my family doctor as he prepared to do a prostate examination!
The canopy of Middleton's Mustang was closed, the flashing arc of the huge propeller solidified at 2000 RPM, and the man was ready to roll. I was still trying to scratch an itch in my bum, and apart from checking all clear behind before run up,( my old Point Cook instructor would have been proud that I remembered that one),I was nowhere near ready to take off. I gave Middleton a furtive and somewhat embarrassed thumbs down to indicate that I was not yet ready, and went heads down to scan more instruments and test more switches.
Seconds later, a sense of foreboding made me look across to Red One, where I saw that Middleton now had his canopy open, oxygen mask undone and was glaring at me revealing bared teeth below his black moustache. He again furiously waggled his gloved finger in a circular fashion indicating he had been sitting on "hack" power (a chopping motion of the hand to indicate brakes release for take off) for some considerable time - probably with rocketing coolant temperatures. I gave another regretful thumbs down, and undoing my oxygen mask, I attempted to convey via lip language that I needed a little more time to complete my checks.
This thoughtful gesture on my part clearly upset Red One, because he mouthed an obscene word or ten in my direction, clipped his oxygen mask on, slammed the canopy shut, and ruddering furiously to counteract the torque of a probably overboosted engine, he roared off down the runway. With his Mustang barely inches off the deck, I saw his undercarriage retract inwards in a classical "scramble" fashion.
Back on the runway, with the dust from Middleton's departure still settling, I had just given my harness a final tweak, when I heard a voice which sounded like "get your arse into gear, Red Two". I wondered momentarily if I should acknowledge the call, but could not think of an appropriate phase, especially as the transmittee was an officer (maybe not a gentleman though) with a martial arts degree.
The controller in his little van had by now tired of giving me steady greens, and as radio silence had been effectively broken by my leader's impatient remark, I was cleared for take off by radio, finally catching up with Middleton around 5000 ft. There were no niceties, no leisurely practice at pansy formation changes. No time to marvel at the beautiful view of a Mustang close up, with the Pacific ocean and white cumulus clouds as backdrop. Just a hard voice on the radio saying "go line astern, Red Two, and stay on my tail". I dutifully did a text book drop back and slide sideways, until Middleton's Mustang filled my windshield.
I called that I was in position, and barely had the words been uttered, when the aircraft nestled so sweetly in my gyro gun-sight and which had been barely 50 feet in front of my propeller, just disappeared upwards. I swivelled my head in all directions, ripped into steep reversal turns, looked up through the canopy, and generally felt a right twit for losing my leader so quickly. All of my previous tail chases had been in Wirraways with the front bloke being an amateur like myself. I flew in circles trying to spot my leader, finally deciding he must have gone home.
There was no point in wasting a nice day, so I found a fluffy cloud and joyously flung my Mustang directly at it, rat-tat- tatting into my oxygen mask and generally playing Red Barons. I had just completed a 250 knot lazy barrel roll around my cloud, when a voice cut across the air with, "fight, Red Two, fight!" and looking into the rear vision mirror I saw a large blue spinner. The spinner was attached to a silver Mustang and behind the its gun-sight the occupant of the cockpit wore a blue and white spotted bone dome and I swear I saw a glimpse of red silk scarf.
After the initial shock and embarrassment, I decided to do serious battle and flung my Mustang all over the Williamtown training area trying to get Red One off my tail. I remembered once reading Pierre Closterman's book, "The Big Show", where flying a Tempest, he turned inside a German Focke Wulf 190 fighter by dropping a few degrees of flap to lower the stall speed - just enough to get the required deflection for firing. I hauled around in a limit turn, felt the Mustang shudder at the stall onset, groped for the flap lever to drop the flap that few critical degrees, and to my chagrin, flicked inverted. I had missed the flap lever and inadvertently selected the adjacent carburettor control lever. Upside down in the flick roll, I caught a momentary glimpse of Middleton's Mustang rapidly rolling away from me to avoid a collision.
We eventually formed up and Middleton led me into the circuit at Williamtown via the now classic initial followed by a buzz and break. As formation leader Pete Middleton landed on the left side of the runway and I was close behind on his right side. I followed his aircraft to the tarmac and parked next to him. The debrief was brusque and to the point as Middleton was not best pleased with my performance. Over the next few weeks I did my best on dive bombing, rocketry and air to air cine camera gunnery but my shooting skills were dismal. When called into the office of the Commanding Officer I knew the worst.
The CO was kind and talked to me like a father to a son but said I was scrubbed as a fighter pilot and would be posted to fly as a second pilot on Lincoln bombers at Townsville. I really wanted to be a fighter pilot like Peter Middleton but it was not to be.
Over the next few years I occasionally ran into Pete during various postings and we became great friends. But looking back over the time I flew Mustangs, like the small boy who fell of his bike at the beginning of this story, I learned the hard way the difference between ambition and achievement.