Seat Change
Well Pontious Navigator, after due reflection I have decided to reply to your post about the "Borex incident."
Firstly some background - the Tanker Squadrons at Marham had just received the K1a 3 point tanker - which opened the possibility of Victor to Victor refuelling. The powers that were, as soon as we were all trained up on receiving, scheduled horrendous trips of 11 plus hours with two max load transfers and time to do all the navex's that you wanted. 14 hours, by the way was the limit, because the K1a had no oil qty guage and at worst predicted consumption you could have an engine at minimum oil qty. I am sure that even longer ball-breakers would have been planned were it not for that...
As FO, or Copilot as we were then called, I rode jump seat on many a max load training session to check the fuel balance - as the right hand seat had an instructor in it and the left, the Captain under training. On these trips it was commonplace for the various crew members to try out someone else's seat - indeed on one of them, our senior Captain and instructor coached his AEO round a couple of visual circuits, while I worked the AEO panel and read the checklist.
This was of course completely against all rules but was the state of play as I went through my copilot career. It was not a good example to the new boys, though it encouraged understanding of the other crew positions.
Now Pontious let's compare stories! The date was Aug 13 1970, the base Marham, the sortie not a Borex, which were not performed from Marham (no jammers) but a max load transfer / max endurance trip and the ship was XH588. Following the first fuel transfer, the Copilot went for the pee tube and the plotter sat next to the Captain for five minutes. After the Copilot was back, he took control and the Captain, who had backache, went back. The Nav radar sat in the Captain's seat. Each time the pins were put in. The seats were not live. On the K1a it was neccessary to change oxygen hose adaptors to make these moves and this also was done. The Captain had a sandwich at the Radar's table. About half way through the sandwich the Radar, who was a tall lad, asked the Copilot on intercom how to lower the seat. The Co replied that there was a handle like a car handbrake lever which first had to be squeezed.
This was true but on the left of the seat was another handle - also like a type of car brake lever in use in those days - and this was the hatch jettison lever. This lever was supposed to be striped yellow and black but actually had little yellow on it. Before anyone could intervene there was a loud bang and strong smell of explosive exhaust in the cockpit. The hatch, which had, as it transpired, not been designed to blow with a pressurised cabin, stayed on. The aircraft did not depressurise.
Having got the by now white faced Radar back to his position and examined the damage (jacks partially torn from the structure - torque mechanism hadn't budged) the Captain returned to his seat. In order to reduce diff pressure on the hatch, he ordered a depressurisation and max rate descent. A Pan was declared and the ship returned to Marham, avoiding built up areas and landing there after 6hrs 55minutes.
There was no court martial. There were two courts of inquiry. The first one was for the Radar, who received an almighty chewing out by the AOC. The second was for the Captain, who was, however able to prove that he needed a longer break from the seat and put the Radar there to assist in lookout., while he was absent. He got a somewhat milder bollocking. This mildness was, in part due to an engine failure on takeoff and successful heavyweight circuit in the month following the incident (coincidentally also in XH588). The aircraft was repaired at unit level - thanks to some sterling work by the squadron engineers.
One important fact to emerge, was that because the hatch would not blow in the pressurised state, an unpremeditated ejection would also have been impossible - the hatch detachment being neccessary for initiating the timing mechanism. The drill for evacuation was in any case to depressurise and evacuate the rear crew before ejection.
If I seem to have intimate knowledge of this trip, believe me, I do! It is in my log book and the Captain is listed as Self. Not a trip I am proud of. It brought an end to the musical chair scenario at Marham and generally made crews a bit more serious. The flip comments about "don't know - pull it and find out" however, belong with some of the other details in Pontious'summary in the recycle bin.
FC.