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Old 16th Dec 2008, 18:53
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Fareastdriver
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: UK
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I’m with Wwyvern. Oct 1973 is what my log book says when we first started stumbling about with Cavnavs. The first ones were useless in a Puma owing to reflections from the co-pilot’s instrument lighting. They were; however, perfect for belting a Land Rover around a crowded exercise area without any lights on. You would see lots of RMPs diving into ditches.

It got more serious in April 1974 and the goggles eventually matured into ones that had a better contrast and would attach to the visor slide. I did a considerable amount of training and teaching during that period and it required a lot of co-operation between the pilot who thought he could see what was going on and the pilot who thought that the other could see, or vice versa. A visual limit was described as ‘quarter starlight’ i.e. the same as a person with good night vision. That I had and that was the only reason why I was prepared to teach the technique.

There were some appalling close near-misses which is why they dropped it until the equipment improved. The worst I heard about was one sculling low level in South Armagh, went into low status and decided to throw it away. He climbed on a Westerly heading and during the climb the radalt was spiking on the 100 ft. setting. He came out of the tops and right in front of him was the Forkhill trig point.

Even better was IR Nite Sun. That was where you really had to have a sense of humour. Especially the co-pilot as he watched the aircraft plunging earthwards in total darkness with the pilot and crewman arguing the toss between each other.

My first experience of fixed external optical systems was a Lowlite TV system. This was mounted on the Pershore Puma and I was asked to fly it to Odiham by reference to this alone to give an assessment. When the team fitted it they had decided to use the load pole hatch so when you switched it on on the ground you had a perfect picture of the back of the nosewheels. The other modification was a piece of black tape over the u/c warning light to stop it blinding you when you retracted the gear in the hover so you could see which way to go. The camera was fixed straight ahead so I was lost shortly after passing the airfield boundary. It got better at 3,000 ft. and motorways were easy as long as they were going in the same direction as you were.

On arrival at Odiham we went to the old 33 Sqn dispersal on the South side. There was an official visit going on with lots of senior officers and the like. It was an easterly wind so I lined up with the perimeter track as a guide to the dispersal. As I required the undercarriage to be up in order to see where I was going I had a TV picture full of high ranking officers all frantically waving and gesticulating at this Puma on short finals with the gear up.

Never flew anything like that again until the Solomon Islands a couple of years ago.
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