Memoirs of a Hawker Typhoon pilot -part 6
I saw Peter over in France a couple of weeks ago, and shared a bottle or two of the local Burgundy. He seemed to be very well, and was pleased that his memoirs were being well received. I have been a bit busy recently, so I haven't been able to post for a while.
Here is part 6. I hope to be able to post some pictures soon.
Our days were fully occupied with ground school, flying instruction, physical training, and drill. Ground school included 'Theory of Flight' which I found fascinating and which no doubt helped me appreciate what the aeroplane was doing and, more important, what it might do if I mishandled the controls. Navigation was another interesting course which I managed very well since it involved geometry and trigonometry, both of which I have always enjoyed.
More practical work was anything from engine starting to rifle shooting - I became quite a good shot with a 0.303 rifle. One day a film crew was visiting the station and I happened to be on the firing range being taught to fire the Vickers belt fed machine gun. I had fired a few short bursts when the RCAF sergeant instructor told me to fire away and keep firing until he tapped me on the shoulder. This was for the benefit of the camera! I naturally did as I was told and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I don't know how long the sustained burst was, but it seemed to go on and on. When I finally felt the tap on my shoulder, the gun, which was cooled by a water jacket, was sizzling and spitting with the heat and even the sergeant thought it a good idea to retire and let it cool off!
One of the ground exercises we were taught but which, fortunately, I only had to do a couple of times, was 'swinging the prop' to start the engine. Most of the time this duty was performed by the ground staff and of course, later on, the aircraft engines had other means of starting. With both the 'Tiger Moth' and the 'Fleet Finch' however there were no such refinements and the engine was started by the old fashioned hand swinging method. There was a very strict system of procedure and method of standing so that you did not risk injury either from a backfire or falling into the started propeller! I never heard of anybody being badly hurt when starting an engine by this method but it always struck me as a very dicey operation!
As the flying instruction progressed, the ground instruction on navigation was translated into actual cross country work and we flew many triangular cross country exercises. My instructor used to sit back in his seat reading a newspaper during these cross-country flights, occasionally taking a glance over the side to check our position. He obviously knew the countryside like the back of his hand and a quick scan was sufficient to tell him if I was straying too far from the desired course.
Instrument flying was another interesting but sometimes frustrating exercise. Although we all did quite a few hours on the ground in the 'Link' trainer, a very basic flight simulator, which gave something of the feel of flying an aircraft, there was no feeling quite like actually flying the aircraft 'under the hood'. This expression was literally what we did since the rear cockpit had a green canvas folding hood which could be brought forward over the pupil pilot's head and secured to the front of the cockpit coming. When this was in position you were in a dim green coloured world with no outside view and was very much like flying in thick cloud.
The flight instruments were the very basic 'needle, ball and airspeed'. No artificial horizon or gyro compass at this stage! The whole knack of keeping control of the aircraft under these circumstances was to totally ignore your feelings of orientation and to scan the three instruments in regular rotation. "Needle, ball, airspeed, needle, ball, airspeed" was the litany of the time. The needle was the needle of the 'Turn and Bank' instrument, and gave the rate of turn. The ball was the ball of the same instrument, a small black ball in a curved glass tube, which showed if you were skidding out or slipping in to a turn. The art was to keep it in the middle at all times. The airspeed of course was just what it says. I must admit that I acquired the nickname 'Airspeed' during this time since my instructors long suffering voice would come over the intercom "Airspeed Brett, Airspeed" and I would hastily realize that I had been ignoring this and we were just about to fall out of the sky! Fortunately we never did actually stall except intentionally.
The trickiest part of instrument flying instruction was 'Recovery from Unusual Positions' an exercise the name of which led to quite a few ribald jokes. Sgt Farrell had quite a few tricks up his sleeve for this exercise. The first one, which really caused all his pupils trouble at first, was to throw the aircraft all over the sky and finish up with all the instruments gyrating wildly but the aircraft flying absolutely straight and level! The object of this was to teach us not to try to react too quickly to the indications of the instruments but to try to analyze the situation before taking too hasty an action. It took me a couple of these flights to latch on to the trick but, as soon as Sgt. Farrell realized that I had, he changed his tactics. This time we would finish up with the aircraft in a shallow spiral dive. After being handed control it took a few seconds to realize that the airspeed was slowly increasing and that the aircraft was in a gentle turn. The natural reaction was to ease back on the control column in order to reduce the airspeed. This had the weird effect of increasing both the airspeed and the rate of turn! The correct action of course was to move the control column sideways to level the wings, correct with the rudder to get the ball back to the middle, and then ease back on the stick to pull out of the dive.
It gradually became easier to get back control of the aircraft after these manoeuvres but, even so, the final trick of handing over the aircraft at the top of a loop with practically no airspeed was startling. The first reaction was to push the stick firmly forward to stop the airspeed dropping any more only to find that one was 'hanging on the straps' and the aircraft was falling out of the sky with no airspeed at all!. Luckily the Fleet Finch was almost as forgiving as the Tiger Moth and the aircraft first stalled upside down, and then fell backwards, completing the loop and ending up in a steep dive from which recovery was easy.
Last edited by tow1709; 27th Jun 2009 at 20:05.