Trainee RAN FAA & RAAF Vampire Pilots had FoG (fear of god) blasted into them about the Artificial Horizon PRECESSION during take off acceleration as we called it in dem tymes. However one Midshipman trainee died at PEARCE during his first night solo take off as seen in this report.
“RAAF Series 2 - ADF Aircraft Serial Numbers | A78, A79 and N6. De Havilland DH-100/DH-115 RAAF / RAN Vampire | A79-653 4175 T.35 According to aircraft status card aircraft "crashed, exploded and burned whilst on a training flight" 21/01/66 1AFTS Pearce WA.” :
ADF-Serials Vampire
“Briefly the story is that due to the known precession of the Vampire Attitude Indicator during the Takeoff Run, it was known to allow for that by — after liftoff at night — to fly with about a
five degree to port attitude, with nose slightly higher than usual for climb. This overrode the precession which — if followed — would cause the aircraft to fly as Hammond did — to the right and down. All Vampire students (pretending IMC/night) were shown this effect by flying towards the hills (with instructor) during the day after an instrument T/O on RW36. The Vampire aircraft all pointed towards to the same black spot in the hills to the east of airfield (if following AI after T/O).”
