The Wessex 5 was used by 2 Sqn at RAF Shawbury during my time as a basic student. Although they were painted green with a red nose intake it was possible to see the words “Royal Navy” under the green top coat. I checked my log book and the registrations of the ones I flew on the course had “XS***” registration numbers.
We had more time looking at them than flying them because they were seldom serviceable. I was scheduled five times to fly my first solo on type before finally getting an aircraft to fly.
The emergencies section of the Wessex 5 Flight Reference Cards was the thickest of any aircraft I ever flew, before or since! As I was on a shortened course there seemed to be a practice emergency every few minutes, in order to get through them all. As practice emergencies were “the norm”, during the briefing for my first night sortie my instructor told me that to allow me to settle in, the first circuit would not involve any practice emergencies at all. As I turned downwind a hydraulics failure caption and the attention getters came on! I looked across at him and thought “You lying bu&&er!”. At the same he was looking across at me and thinking “You silly bu&&er!” because at first he thought I’d caught the hydraulic switch on the collective by accident. I hadn’t, and neither had he… we both realised at the same time that it was in fact a real hydraulic failure.
As we were based at the RAF School of Air Traffic Excellence, I put out a textbook PAN PAN PAN call, requesting the use of the runway, for a running landing instead of making the expected hover landing T, which was on the unlit grass. The controller told me to cancel my Practice Pan and use the grass due to another aircraft coming in to rejoin for a simulated single engine failure! My instructor just keyed the mic and transmitted “He didn’t say it was a practice!”
Panicked sounding reply from ATC and after a rapid reallocation of priorities we became number 1 for the runway.
Last edited by ShyTorque; 11th Dec 2022 at 18:55.