Longtrek...

[petermcleland]

http://www.petermcleland.com/008_juba_hotel.jpg

This picture was taken on the 4th June 1953 at Juba on operation "Longtrek". I am 2nd from left. It was a few days after the Queen's Coronation and we were about to depart on the next leg, Juba to Entebbe in our Venom FB1s. Sadly I realised, as I looked at it today, I am the only one left of this happy band of brothers.

[Pontius Navigator]

Fascinating Peter, thank you. How many of your colleagues actually retired?

[petermcleland]

That's a question that would take a while to work out the answer to but for those in that picture (Left to Right).

Ralph Hayes was killed in a mid-air collision in meteors.
I retired early at the age of 52.5...I would have had to retire from British Airways at 55 but I retired along with the Trident.
Bob Varley retired prematurely from the RAF shortly after the return from Longtrek. He died some years later.
Tom Gribble retired after a full flying career in the RAF but died in the 1980s.
John Taylor was killed in a Venom FB1 shortly after the return from Longtrek at Sylt after an air to air firing sortie...He was returning from the range when the hood winding handle locking pin failed. The canopy ran back and sheared its stop pins and then removed the tailplane as it left the aeroplane. There were no bang seats in the Mark 1s and John was unable to get out.
Colin Coulthard retired as an Air Vice Marshall after a very fine career in the RAF. He died in his seventies.

So the short answer was four out of the six retired.

If I look at the twelve pilots who flew Operation Longtrek, then at least eight are gone and three I'm not certain of. I'm still here!

Note...One result of John Taylor's accident was the fitting of a short lanyard close to the hood winding handle. It had a small loop in its end and you slipped that over handle after locking the canopy shut...Thus if the pin failed and the canopy tried to run back, the lanyard would arrest it.

[peppermint_jam]

A fascinating glimpse into the past, thank you for sharing it with us! What was the final destination of 'Longtrek'?

[petermcleland]

The final destination was New Salisbury in Rhodesia to display in the Rhodes Centenary Air Rally.

The route down was Wunstorf, Istres, Luqa, El Adem, Fayid, Wadi Halfa, Khartoum, Juba, Entebbe, Tabora, Lusaka, New Salisbury.

We did not have underwing drop tanks at that time, just tip tanks. We left Wunstorf in Germany on 29th May 1953 and arrived at New Salisbury on 8th June 1953.

[ValMORNA]

Checking my logbook for that period, I wonder if our Valetta aircraft was intended to be part of that Centenary 'do'. We left Fayid (base) on 7th June '53 routeing via Wadi Halfa, Khartoum, Juba, Entebbe, and Eastleigh where we stopped for an engine change on the 8th. Five days later left for Tabora, Ndola, to Salisbury but diverted to Belvedere, then Kumalo, Livingstone, Ndola, Tabora, Eastleigh, Hargeisha, Khormaksar, Khartoum, Wadi Halfa and back 'home' to Fayid. Missed the Air Rally, I'm afraid.

[Warmtoast]

I think I've mentioned this before, but Peter's participation in the Rhodes Centenary Air Rally is mentioned in Flight Global:
Final event of the day was a superlatively contrived exhibition of formation flying by four Venoms of
266 Squadron, flown by S/L. Couthard, F/L. J. R. D. Taylor, F/L. P. Stowell, and P/O. P. R. E. McLennan.Further details here:
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1953/1953%20-%200808.html

..and pics here: http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/365594-10-000-days-ago-today-faraway-land-there-airshow.html#post4851199

[petermcleland]

I remember that Harvard collision vividly, even though I tried not to think about it immediately afterwards...I talked about this on about page 10 of my website. It is now a very old website and I can't give an URL for just that page so you would have to work through to page 10 from the beginning:-

Logbook (http://www.petermcleland.com)