"Piss off, Trainee!"
Next Tuesday, 8th December 2020, is the 68th Anniversary of the graduation of No 8 Post War Pilots Course at RAAF Base Point Cook in 1952. Des Nolan, a 24 year old genial former school teacher, topped the course in flying only to be killed a couple of months later when the Gloster Meteor twin engine jet fighter he was flying from a base in Japan broke apart in mid air.
Don Pinkstone, another graduate of our course, was shot down over Korea and captured. Lloyd Knight was lucky to survive after the engine failed in the Mustang he was flying at Williamtown. He made a wheels up crash landing on a beach and the Mustang was wrecked. Lloyd was knocked out and regained consciousness a few minutes later to find himself soaked to the skin in petrol. These events happened within three months of graduation.
Our course had joined at RAAF Point Cook in October 1951. Initially there were one hundred of us including 20 who were recruited as radio operators or signallers. With the Korean war hotting up in 1951, the RAAF decided to re-open flying schools at Archerfield near Brisbane and Uranquinty NSW near Wagga. These bases had been closed at the end of the war in 1945. We all did three months Rookies at Point Cook then while the signallers went to Ballarat for signaller training, the remainder were posted to Archerfield.
There we did ten hours in Tiger Moths for flight grading. After being tested at the five and ten hour mark, we were further split up for either pilot or navigator training. I was fortune enough to do well in flight grading and along with about 50 other trainee pilots were posted for further flying training at Uranquinty and later back to Point Cook for advanced flying training.
The end result was 37 trainee pilots were awarded the pilots brevet or Wings on 8 December 1952. Of the 37 graduates, seven were Royal Australian Navy pilots.
During my time at Point Cook there were several accidents. In Late 1951, a Wirraway crashed and the student pilot killed when he lost control while trying to barrel roll his aircraft at low altitude in the low flying area near the You Yang mountains to the north of Geelong.
Then on our first day of flying at No 1 Advanced Flying Training course at Point Cook on 13 August 1952, there was low cloud and a Wirraway with instructor Flight Lieutenant Fitzummons and trainee pilot Peter Schell disappeared over Corio Bay in the Geelong area. Wreckage was found in the water the next day. The cause of the accident was unknown although poor weather in that area was a possible contributory cause.
A few weeks later, trainee pilot John Seaton experienced engine failure at night in his Wirraway after takeoff from Point Cook runway 35. He managed to belly land his aircraft in a pig farm some 500 metres from the entrance to the base. The base fire tender ran into a ditch by the side of the road and it took some time before the aircraft could be seen in the darkness. John Seaton, an unflappable chap, shouted instructions until the fire crew saw him. On board the fire engine was the Commanding Officer still in his pyjamas. The cause of the engine failure was unknown although carburettor icing was suspected
The only incident of note that happened to me at Point Cook was during night flying training. In those days, Point Cook was a hive of activity with Wirraways and Tiger Moths in the circuit, the occasional Dakota, Mustang and Vampire dropping in for a visit and several Liberators in long term parking at the southern end of the aerodrome between hangars. There was the occasional Airspeed Oxford to be seen. ATC in the old wartime control tower had an Aldis Lamp to shine at the Tiger Moths which had no radios in those days. The tower operator also had a Verey pistol to fire red lights if needed
I was last on the roster and decided to kill time by going to the control tower and watch Wirraways doing night circuits. I suppose I should have telephoned the control tower operator for permission to visit the tower but there were no phones near the tarmac. I was in my flying suit as I climbed the external ladder to the tower cab. On reaching the top I opened the door only to sense the fragrance of perfume. I could see the outline of the control tower operator who was talking to a Wirraway on final.
On his lap was an attractive young WRAAF (Womens Royal Australian Air Force). The operator had one hand on the microphone and his other hand God knows where. I was about to say Good evening when the tower operator turned around and snarled PISS OFF TRAINEE.
I remember he had a walrus moustache as I stumbled back down the ladder thinking to myself that if ever I got scrubbed as a pilot I would apply to be an air traffic controller as that job certainly had its perks.
We were awarded our Wings a few days later. It was a grand affair with much marching and saluting of a very senior person none other than the then Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Sir Donald Harding DFC RAF. He was a senior Royal Air Force commander who began his flying career as a fighter pilot in World War I, achieving nine victories to become an ace.
Some years later I was a Flight Lieutenant placing a flight plan to a RAAF air traffic controller at Brisbane Airport. The aircraft I was flying was a Convair 440 of No 34 Squadron. The man behind the desk had a walrus moustache and looked just like the controller who had told me to piss off at Point Cook. I asked him if he was ever in ATC at Point Cook ten years earlier. He said he was. I then asked if he remembered the time he had a cute little WRAAF on his knee.
He looked suitable stunned and denied everything. Well, he would, wouldnt he?