Farnborough and ETPS Memoirs continued.
There were lots of visits to aircraft and engine manufacturing plants during the year (1955). These were always of great interest, permitting us to see the latest in technology. Solid state electronics were just starting to have an impact on designs and rapid advances were also taking place with the jet engine. The capability for an aircraft to sustain level flight at supersonic speed was not far off.
We lost one of our course members in May. Major Vickory Zarr of the Egyptian air force had been flying a Hunter Mk1 at high altitude and was returning to Farnborough through the usual low cloud and reduced visibility of the area. He had been talked down by GCA, had broken through the cloud cover and, as he reduced speed on short final, the windshield iced/misted over.
The foreign pilots with little or no previous jet experience all had trouble appreciating the voracious thirst of the jets and were often declaring emergencies over fuel shortages. So, on this occasion, Vickory did not have enough fuel for a go round. But he tried anyway. Some of us had our attention drawn to the situation when that Hunter's engine was spooled up to full power at which point it began to be starved of fuel. The engine was intermittently getting fuel and its staccato bursts of noise interspersed with silence were made graphic by great bursts of flame from the jet pipe as raw fuel pumped through unlit burner cans.
The pilot tried to turn tightly onto one of Farnborough's cross runways and while pulling in a descending turn bled off too much speed. The aircraft stalled to crash within the airfield environs just short of and to one side of the intended runway. It did not burn as there was little or no fuel remaining. Vickory's remains were taken back to Egypt for a state funeral, considering his high family and air force status.
Routine test flying training exercises continued but there were always many startling occurrences happening around us to keep the adrenalin flowing. There was also much social activity with parties at Tutors' houses or functions in the Mess. Saturday night in the Mess was nearly always a party night, well attended by students and their wives and friends.
Various past graduates of ETPS would come back to the school for the odd refresher flight in one or other of the school's aircraft. ETPS must have had an allocation of hours for this purpose and such flights seemed to be handled on an ad hoc basis.
Such was the general approach to test flying during those days that it was considered highly desirable that as many pilots as possible, get experience in as many aircraft as possible with a minimum of prior formal conversion. This approach did much to evolve standard requirements for aircraft design and handling in an era when aircraft were developing at a very rapid rate. The constrained restrictions imposed on present generation test pilots arise from a much slower rate of development and an enormous increase in capital costs of aircraft and equipment.
So it was that one day we had an RN Captain fly off in one of our Seahawks. He flew some aerobatics and during the recovery from a loop experienced a terrific bang as a goodly portion of the left side of the cockpit disappeared. He was left with little control over engine power with only a portion of the throttle linkage remaining and was only just able to limp back to Farnborough. He had not seen any other aircraft in the vicinity of the incident but presumed that he had been involved in a mid air collision. The story soon pieced together. A report was made by the pilot of a Hunter who had been flying straight and level at the time that another aircraft had plunged down on his aircraft striking it on the side of the front fuselage and taking out some of his right wing leading edge.
On the side of the Hunter's fuselage was a clear impression of a mirror image of the triangular red sign painted on the sides of aircraft cockpits having ejection seats - "Danger Ejection Seat". This had transfered from the Seahawk to the Hunter during the collision. It became an interesting exercise to subsequently use two models of the aircraft involved to attempt to reproduce the precise sequence of movement of the two aircraft as they became enmeshed for that split second of time. That both aircraft and their pilots survived is indeed remarkable.
At about this time, ETPS took delivery of a B2 Canberra No 867 which had just come through a major overhaul with English Electric at Warton. It was flown into Farnborough by one of the tutors. It was a normal practice then for the TPS engineers to do an acceptance inspection. The senior engineer was meticulous which was as well in that we all placed abnormal reliance on the reliability of the aircraft he and his team maintained and serviced.
Part of his inspection involved climbing through a hatch beneath the rear fuselage to examine the rudder and elevator control push-pull rods which ran along the left side of the fuselage through bearings at about 4 feet intervals. The rods connected directly with the flying controls in the cockpit. They were made from alloy tubing about 1 inch in diameter. The engineer discovered some metal particles scattered down the side of the fuselage in the vicinity of one of the bearings. He initially thought that one of the bearings may have seized and this may have been the source of the metal particles.
On the ground, the mass balances of the Canberra elevator controls caused the elevators to rise to their upper stops so that the control column was always fully back. The engineer used a piece of cord to tie the control column forward so that he could then inspect the complete run of the control rods. On climbing back into the rear fuselage, he was appalled to find that one of the elevator rods had been cut almost right through. The saw cut had been made so that it would be concealed by a bearing with the controls in their normal ground position.
All hell broke loose. Following an initial ETPS investigation, the police and Scotland Yard commenced a vigorous investigation at the English Electric plant at Wharton.
Some months previously, the wiring looms in the main electronics equipment bay of a Canberra being overhauled at Wharton had been extensively cut by someone using wire cutters. The culprit had not been found. Examination of work records showed that three workmen had worked on both aircraft during the periods in question. Close questioning eventually brought forth a confession by one fitter to both acts of sabotage.
Prior to the sabotage, the culprit had been working on night shifts for which there was an extra pay loading. He was transferred against his wishes to day shifts and decided to take out his resentment by deliberately damaging aircraft on which he was working. He was arrested, charged with sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment.
I have always taken great care with pre-flight inspections ever since and it was not the last case of sabotage to cross my path.
Next installment I go flying an ETPS glider again - this time with Bill Bedford. I seemed to always have an exciting/terrifying time with someone else doing the glider flying.