Icing! My first night flying sortie in the Jet Provost Mk3A was on Feb 6th, 1978, in XN494. My QFI was Flt Lt Nigel Storah.
Nigel was a "creamie" QFI. He still held a "white" rating which meant he had to add 200' to DH on a PAR approach. He and I were programmed to carry out night circuits at our base, RAF Linton-On-Ouse. Unfortunately, the cloudbase was below limits. We delayed about an hour in the hope that the weather might improve. It didn't.
Instead we re-briefed to fly to RAF Waddington, where the weather was better. We were to transit IFR and IMC via Linton Radar, Finningley Radar and Waddington Radar. We were to carry out a PAR approach at Waddington and after breaking cloud continue into the visual circuit for the sortie proper, then return to base.
We departed into low overcast in moderate rain and a blustery wind. All went as planned until we flew the PAR at Waddington. We didn't break cloud at all, at DH plus the 200'. No chance of visual circuits. We went around, then flew a second PAR. We still saw nothing so went around again; our only option now was to RTB. We expected a radar handover to Finningley but were told to "free call" as Waddington Radar was going off the air. We called Finningley but got no reply. We climbed through cloud to above safety altitude and continued northbound. Nigel told me to fly the planned heading but to continue the climb. As I did so, I began to have difficulty maintaining airspeed. I mentally told myself to get a grip and kept opening the throttle. It made little difference. Nigel, who had been concentrating on the R/T, suddenly looked across and reminded me to maintain IAS. I pushed the throttle even further forward but there was no more travel and I felt the lever "clunk" at the forward end of its quadrant. I looked at the engine RPM gauge. It read 90% - that's all we had. Probably about half normal thrust. I said "I think there's something wrong with the engine". He took control. As I sat back, we briefly came out of cloud, between layers and the partial moon illuminated the wing. The leading edge was thick with white ice and the tip tank, instead of being smooth and rounded, looked like a huge cauliflower. Suddenly it all made sense - we had an engine icing problem as well as severe airframe icing. The aircraft was now waffling along at about 130 kts - it should have done closer to 300. We no longer knew the stalling speed because the wing profile was no longer normal, but we knew it was considerably higher than with a clean wing.
The next few minute were rather fraught and surreal. Nigel put out a PAN call on 243.0 and we were transferred to Linton Radar. We were to be vectored for a straight in PAR but we still had a long way to fly. I was instructed to get out my FRCs and to read the pre-ejection checklist. We both carried out our individual vital actions, seat pins, harnesses, leg restraints etc. I suddenly became very much aware that it was a filthy wet and cold night outside, with a strong wind blowing. The thought of a parachute landing wasn't a good one, especially in the dark. Although we carried out parachute drills by day, from a training rig, I had never parachuted for real. Nigel briefed me that he would fly the aircraft back. If the engine failed, or we hit stall buffet, he would call "EJECT, EJECT!" and I was to leave the aircraft first, he would follow.
Thankfully, as we descended, the engine rpm picked up. The PAR went well enough, although I can't remember much about that. We landed, taxied in and shut down. What I'll never forget is that after we climbed out, thick slabs of slush slid off the full length of both wings onto the dispersal. The significance of this didn't really hit me till some time later. We had been very lucky.
I never flew with Nigel again. He was later posted to Harriers at Gutersloh, while I went rotary wing. Two years later, I was posted to Gutersloh, too. I looked forward to meeting him again. However, it was not to be. On 14th October 1980, as I arrived at the station in my car, having just driven direct from UK, there was an ominous pall of black smoke over the airfield. It was Nigel. His Harrier had suffered a catastrophic mechanical control failure as he came to a hover. He had ejected but by then his aircraft had rolled past 90 degrees at very low level and unfortunately he didn't survive. The mark his ejection seat made in the grass alongside the runway was visible for some time afterwards and it was a stark reminder and a sobering start to my Germany tour.
RIP Flt Lt Nigel Storah.
Last edited by ShyTorque; 24th Dec 2020 at 20:50.
Reason: Correction to a/c reg letter.