Memoirs of a WW-II Typhoon pilot part 12
Peter Brett's story continues: he gets a bit lost in a Hurricane and learns the effects of a bird strike...
The course at Peterborough was only five weeks, plus another couple of weeks leave, and the total flying time was only some 30 hours. It was soon over and we were then posted on to our next stage which was Operational Training. This took place at No.55 O.T.U at Annan in Dumfrieshire in Scotland. At last we were going to fly real operational aircraft, in this case the Hawker Hurricane.
My first impression of this aircraft was that the cockpit was rather cramped. It was much narrower than either the 'Harvard' or the 'Master', and the sliding hood, which was of 'Greenhouse' construction, with small panes of perspex in a metal framework, felt rather claustrophobic at first.
Due to my height I found that, if I closed the hood by the recommended method of reaching back over my right shoulder with my left hand in order to reach the unlocking lever, I hit myself in the back of the head with the flange at the front of the hood. I eventually solved the problem by releasing the lock as recommended and then sliding down in the seat and reaching back over my head for the flange on the front of the hood to pull it closed. This was only one of the things I had to get used to. Another thing was the fact that raising the undercarriage after take off necessitated changing hands on the control column since the operating lever was on the right hand side of the cockpit. Until you got used to this, or else took off using the control column left handed, the aircraft would perform a series of rapid undulations before climbing away. Using either method it was very important to ensure that the throttle friction nut was sufficiently tight to keep the throttle from closing back if you took your hand away! It was easy to pick out the 'new boys' by watching the take off. Either the aircraft would porpoise just after the wheels left the ground until the undercarriage came up, or, just after takeoff, the engine note would start to die away, immediately recover and the aircraft would climb away with the wheels still down as the frustrated pilot tried to tighten up the throttle friction nut at the same time as holding the throttle open and keeping control of the machine.
Although the 'Hurricane' was not the most advanced aircraft at the time, it was still more than twice as powerful as anything I had flown before and was much faster and more maneuverable. Really the 'Operation Training' was more of a conversion course onto the 'Hurricane'. My first flight in the new aircraft was on 6th March 1943. Circuits and bumps for nearly an hour. The second flight was a sector reconnaissance. I was obviously not yet used to the speed of my new mount and on my third flight, coincidentally on the 13th of the month, which was a triangular cross country flight I got myself completely lost! On studying the map afterwards I realized that I had either misread the compass or neglected the magnetic variation. On the last leg of the flight, from Portpatrick back to Annan, I mistook the Solway Firth for Wigtown Bay and headed gaily off into Cumberland. After flying for about ten minutes I realized that I was lost and tried to get a homing vector from Annan flying control. Since we only had H.F. sets with a limited range, and I was probably flying too low anyway at 2000ft, I could not get an intelligible reply. I therefore did the recommended thing in the circumstances, at least in a fairly highly populated country like Britain, which was to continue flying on the same course and land at the first aerodrome you came to.
It seemed to take a long while to reach anything but mountains and, when I did finally see an aerodrome ahead of me, I was getting quite worried about my fuel situation. I immediately did a circuit of this aerodrome and landed. I had been airborne for over 2 1/2 hours. I was waved to a parking space and then reported to the Flying Control tower. I shamefacedly explained my predicament. The duty pilot grinned a bit and said "Have you any idea where you are?" My reply was that I must be South of the Solway Firth. He took me over to the map which completely covered one wall. Pointing to near the top of the wall he said "There is Annan" and then, pointing to a spot about waist height he said " And here you are, Dishforth in Yorkshire!" Looking at this large map I could see exactly what had happened. I had been very carefully flying down the middle of the Pennine Chain!
The duty pilot then phoned Annan, where they were just about to file a lost aircraft report, and I spoke to the Chief Flying Instructor. I expected a rocket but all he said was "Well you seem to have done the right thing anyway but I think perhaps you had better wait there for a return flight and I'll send somebody else down to collect you". Thus I returned ignominiously as a rear seat passenger in a Miles Master.
This escapade did not seem to delay my training at all because I notice from my logbook that the very next day I did my first high altitude climb in a Hurricane, to 28000 ft, using oxygen. The course then continued mostly concentrating on formation flying, cine-gun dogfights, low flying and aerobatics. On the 6th April I did my first spin in a Hurricane and found it not nearly as bad as I had expected. The wing did drop sharply at the stall but the recovery was quite smooth and rapid.
I had one rather frightening experience when low flying. I had dived down very low over the Solway Firth and, as I approached the shore I pulled up in a steep climbing turn to the left. When I came to level off I found that the control column only moved a short distance to the right and then stuck! Fortunately it stuck just past the centre and I very slowly regained level flight. I was the in a quandary. Should I keep the control column against this 'stop' or should I try to move it left and then back right again in the hope that it would become free again. I kept it over to the right until I was in A fairly steep right hand turn and then tried a rapid left-right movement to see if it would unjam. It stuck again but this time it seemed to move a bit further. I repeated this maneuver six or seven times, each time getting a bit more movement from the ailerons. As soon as I felt that things were getting back to normal I returned to base and landed. We discovered that I had hit a fairly large bird, probably a black gull, just as I had full aileron on in the climbing turn. The bird had jammed into the gap between the aileron and the wing under surface and had effectively locked the control. My repeated manoeuvres had eventually crushed the bird, which must have died instantly anyway, until the controls could move again. I hate to think what would have happened had the controls locked before the midpoint. I would obviously continued to roll to the left and, at that height, would certainly have crashed, probably upside down.
The course lasted until mid-April and then, for some reason only known to RAF Training Command, the rest of my course was posted and my posting was as a Staff Pilot with 55 OTU! I then spent another month at Annan and also at Longtown, the Satellite field, doing tailchases, aerobatics and camera gun exercises. I was I remember a bit fed-up that I was stuck up in Scotland whilst my contemporaries had been posted to operations and I did all sorts of silly things to relieve the monotony.
It was at this time that I received my most serious wartime injury! I broke my wrist falling off a bicycle! Because Annan was a fairly well spread out station we were issued with bicycles for personal transport. A favourite sport was being towed along by a motorcycle. Whilst I was doing this the motorcyclist, who was somewhat inexperienced, decided to change gear suddenly, he missed the gear on the first try, by which time the towrope had gone slack, and then accelerated away violently. Result - the bicycle handlebars were swung violently to one side and I carried on straight over the handlebars. I had enough sense to land on the grass verge and do a forward roll but my momentum was such that I carried on rotating for several yards. During this no doubt spectacular display I managed to break my left wrist. I did not realize it at the time but, after a very painful and sleepless night I went sick the next day and was sent off to Hospital at Carlisle for X-ray.
I return to camp again with my wrist in plaster and was consequently effectively grounded for about seven weeks. My first duty on returning was to make out an accident report. This was a remarkable fictional effort on my part blaming a loose half-brick in the road, bad visibility, and ineffective brakes for my injury, which was fortunately accepted by the powers that be. This meant that I was even more stuck in Scotland, although I did get a fortnight's sick leave at the beginning. During this period of enforced semi-idleness I did duty as Flying Control Officer and also a few turns at Runway Control when I had signal the aircraft taking off that it was clear for them to do so, and to keep an eye on the aircraft coming in to land to ensure that nobody was trying to land 'wheels up'.
I remember one occasion when I 'went along for the ride' in a de Havilland Dragon Rapide – known in the RAF as the Dominie - to collect five pilots who had been invited to lunch with the Navy at Lossiemouth. This was towards the end of my convalescence and my wrist was strong enough for me to fly the aircraft. Incidentally this was the only time I have ever flow a twin engined aircraft! Another chap flew the outbound trip, with me looking over his shoulder since there was only one seat in the pilots cabin. We duly picked up five rather drunken pilots and I flew us on the return leg. They did not know it was my first time flying this type, and they decided to have some fun. The first thing I noticed was that the aircraft was tail heavy. I adjusted the elevator trim. Suddenly the aircraft was nose heavy! I looked back through the cabin door window just in time to see the five pilots running back down the fuselage to upset the trim once again giggling like mad! When they saw that I had tumbled to their game they resumed their seats. A little later the aircraft swung sideways, this time they were not deliberately trying to upset my flying, but, having drunk quite a lot of beer, they were in dire need of a leak. Since the 'Dominie' did not have any toilet facilities they had decided that two of them would open the side door whilst the others relieved themselves through the opening. Fortunately nobody fell out and, after this they all fell asleep for the remainder of the trip.
On July 13th (13 again) I finally resumed full time flying and, after one dual circuit in a Master and an hour's solo practice I was once again let loose on a Hurricane. A few more flights and then I was at last posted to a Squadron, leaving Annan on 22nd July 1943.