I had a few embarrassing moments during air show demonstrations in the 1950-60's. These were called Air Force Week Displays and others were called Battle of Britain display. Both stuff up's happened at Townsville.
We didn't do any practices before hand. First on was supposed to be Mustang v Lincoln fighter affiliation. The crowd was in place and the Mustang gets airborne first (self flying) does a beat up along Townsville Runway 20 at 100 ft then pulls up to do a barrel roll (or was it just an aileron roll)?
As I got inverted, the sight of Mount Louisa (700 ft amsl or near enough) seemed to fill the windscreen. It was the first time I had rolled a Mustang at such a low altitude (stupid me) In fact, Mt Louisa was slightly to one side of the intended flight path but when you are inverted at 200 ft and climbing your eyes plays tricks on you and I got a bit disoriented.
I thought I was going to hit the top of Mt Louisa so instead of completing the barrel roll which as it turned out would have been quite safe, I hastily reversed the direction of turn. In other words, only did half of the barrel roll before chickening out and going back to where I was before starting the manoeuvre. The spectators would not have known what I was doing anyway.
I then saw the Lincoln bomber get airborne flown by Warrant Officer Frank Slater GM. Frank was awarded the George Medal as a flight engineer (before he re-mustered later as a pilot) when he rescued a crew member from a crashed and burning Catalina at Georgetown, North Queensland.
Frank allowed me to get on his tail to start the fighter v bomber stoush over the crowd. Now keep in mind Frank had a few thousand hours flying Lincolns and was about 35 and I had 50 hours on Mustangs and was 21.
His evasive flying was first class and I was never able to get a bead on him. In fact, Frank pulled that Lincoln so tight he got on to my tail which wasn't part of the plot. We forgot about the spectators and finished up in a line astern chase half-way to Magnetic Island.with Frank chasing me in his Lincoln rather than the other way around. Most embarrassing, although I am sure the spectators enjoyed the noise of five Rolls Royce Merlin engines going full chat.
It was then the Sergeant air traffic controller in the control tower had to remind us we were supposed to be entertaining the crowd at Townsville aerodrome, not swimmers at Magnetic island. The end result was I owed Frank a beer in the Sergeants Mess that evening.
The third embarrassing event was a few years later when there was another Air Force Week display at Townsville. By then I was an instructor on the Lincoln. Townsville Runway 02 was the duty runway that day and there were two tall goal post like poles stuck in the ground well either side of the landing threshold for 02 and about 500 feet in from the threshold. My job was to do a short field landing between the two poles.
Nick Watling who was one of our Lincoln pilots, was in the control tower running a commentary as he had a good speaking voice. In later years, Nick won a DFC in Vietnam while flying Caribou's.
Now on this occasion I had practiced the day before and had plonked the Lincoln down nicely on three points between the poles. This time I came around on base leg and could see a few thousand spectators all looking in my direction, Now a Lincoln with gear down and full flap on short final is an impressive sight.
That is when I made the big mistake. To ensure the touch down was dead between the flags (the poles had a flag on them I think) I decided to reduce speed a few knots less than I had before. The effect was dramatic.
I cut the throttles just before the flare and the Lincoln fell out of the sky short of the poles and hit the red dusty earth of the under-run. Now Lincolns are big tail draggers and the view over the nose of the Long Nose Lincoln is very restricted. They will also bounce high into the air if mishandled on landing. We hit the ground so hard and bounced higher than the poles and I had no choice but to apply full power and go around off the bounce.
I heard later there was a big cheer from the spectators as the noise of four Merlins once more at full power and the huge cloud of red dust at the impact point and the sight of the Lincoln clawing for height, was a sight not to be missed. The TV cameras didn't miss it either.
Nick Watling the announcer in the control tower was caught by surprise and with his hand on the microphone he was heard by the crowd to exclaim " Christ Almighty - he bit the earth that time".:
Needless to say the next landing was more sedate with 10 knots added (not subtracted) for Mum and the kids. That evening I was forced to shout the Mess a few beers. Worse still, the bounce and go around was all on local TV that evening.
Nowadays air displays are much more professional.
Last edited by Centaurus; 17th Feb 2020 at 14:18.