Early sixties. The Valiant Bomber had been withdrawn from service because of the wing spars. Lots of gash bomber pilots suddenly found themselves at Tern Hill on a rotary wing course as the Air Force were short of helicopters pilots.
The basic trainer was the Bristol Sycamore. Wooden blades, supercharged radial engine, no hydraulics and manual trims for the limited authority controls. Difficult to fly and underpowered so it was the ideal helicopter trainer. After 20 or so hours mastering the difference between minus 15 to 120knots as opposed to 120 to Mach 0.9 came the night flying stage. This was fairly short and simple as the Sycamore was considered too dangerous to fly at night outside the airfield circuit. Even then you had two Schermuly flares attached to the side so that you could illuminate your crash site when you had another engine failure.
Off I went with my instructor for the 45 minutes dual. It wasn’t too bad as with the wind direction the approach was over the highly lit up prison a couple of miles from the airfield. After landing we shut down, briefed and I was detailed for 45 minute solo circuits in a different aircraft. The instructor then went home.
I had not started one at night before as the previous trip was a running change. Lots of fumbling about in the dim red and UV lighting but eventually I had it burbling away. It was apparent before I took off the weather and visibility were a lot worse than before. Once I got into the circuit it really got bad. I could hardly see the lights on the ground and if it hadn’t been for the prison lights I would not have been able to line up.
I did one full circuit, was baulked and had to overshoot on the following two. I was now totally choked off and was as the point of firing off both Schermulies, landing it in the middle of the airfield and walking away from this helicopter flying permanently. However, being a craven coward I persevered and stumbled through my 45 minutes.
After landing it on a parking spot the next solo student came out to take over my aircraft. For those that don’t know the procedure on the Sycamore the relief pilot held the cyclic steady whilst the in situ pilot slid his backside over the substantial quantities of switches, trim wheels and the odd collective lever into the left hand seat. Once this was done he would steady the left hand cyclic whilst the new pilot strapped in. Murmuring that the aircraft was OK but the weather wasn’t I got out of the left hand door. The first thing I did was to take off my helmet.
As I did so there was a thump on my nose. I lifted up my deep purple high altitude V Force visor and I could see for bloody miles.
Last edited by Fareastdriver; 28th May 2009 at 15:59.