Memoirs of a WW-II Typhoon pilot Part 16
Just about this time I did my first, and last, spin in a Typhoon. The pilots' notes on the Typhoon devoted a whole page to spinning and, knowing that most pilots' notes tended to understate things, I was a little worried to read things like: "Spins must be started between 15000 and 20000 feet. Recovery must be started after not more than one turn. Use of the engine may help to recover from spins to the left. At 25000 feet and above, cases have occurred where the spin becomes flat. Recovery from a flat spin is difficult and up to 10000 feet may be lost during recovery. Until proficient pilots should only practice spins to the left"!
None of these remarks was calculated to put me at my ease as I took off for my first spinning practice. I climbed to 22500 feet, just to be on the safe side but still below 25000 ft, and tried a couple of straight stalls. I closed the throttle and eased back on the stick to keep the nose up. Airspeed dropped rapidly and the aircraft began to wallow, at the same time the rate of climb indicator started to move rapidly down below the zero and the altimeter began to unwind. As the speed dropped below 90mph there was a shuddering and suddenly the starboard wing dropped violently, rolling the aircraft to past the vertical. Shoving the stick hard forward and opening the throttle resulted in a couple of seconds of most uncomfortable negative 'g' and then I was heading down, the airspeed was building up and the controls began to feel live again. Remembering the pilots' notes once again I let the speed build up to 250 mph and then pulled out of the dive. I had lost 3000 feet in the stall and recovery so climbed back up again before trying again. Having done a second straight stall with identical results I felt a little more confident and decided that I would have to try the spin, however little I relished the idea.
This time as the shuddering started to warn of the stall I hauled right back on the stick and shoved on full left rudder. I wasn't going to take any chances of going into a right-hand spin. This time the left wing dropped. The aircraft flipped over upside down, the nose fell towards the ground but continued to rotate very fast and in less than two seconds I was in a full left hand spin. I took the appropriate action, stick forward, full opposite rudder and stood ready to open up the throttle. Nothing seemed to happen for about a turn and a half and then the nose pitched down, the rotation stopped, and I was heading vertically earthwards. I had no idea which direction I was heading in as I pulled out of the dive since the manoeuvres were so violent that I was thrown from side to side in the cockpit. I was very glad that I had tightened my straps to an uncomfortable degree before starting. As I regained level flight I saw that this time I had lost over 7000 feet. From that moment I decided that, not only would I never intentionally spin a Typhoon again, but I would take damn good care not to get into a position where I was liable to stall without knowing all about it.
Whilst we were at Perranporth one of the chaps was unfortunate enough to have his engine cut out just after takeoff when very near the end of the runway heading towards the beach. With quick thinking he selected full flap, skimmed the end of the runway and landed on the beach. Luckily the tide was well out at the time and it was just at dawn so there was nobody on the beach. This presented a problem to the salvage crew. Having pulled the aircraft up the beach above the high tide mark using a jeep as the tractor, they then found that there was no way they could either tow it through the soft sand behind the beach or get a heavy transporter down to the beach to load it up. They finally decided that the only way was to repair the engine in situ and fly the aircraft off. Since the beach was not a restricted area the aircraft was cordoned off by a hastily erected barrier and guards were positioned. A set of shear legs were assembled for the heavy lifting and work commenced. It took two days to repair the engine since the cause of the failure was a sheared auxiliary drive shaft. This drove all the things like fuel pumps, superchargers etc, and it necessitated removing the propeller and the front of the engine to replace the shaft. This all provided an extra entertainment for the few holiday makers who frequented the beach. When it came to flying off, practically all the station personnel went down to the beach to clear the area and then line each side of the 'runway' to keep the takeoff clear.
The C.O. decided to do the takeoff himself. Afterwards he said he almost suffered from stage fright! Every eye was on him as he was brought down in a jeep and then carried his parachute over to the aircraft. The original pilot's 'chute having been carefully taken back to the airfield since the parachute silk was a highly prized 'black market' item.
The engine started first cartridge and he taxied slowly down on to the firm sand just below the high water mark. He then taxied as far as he could towards the cliff before turning round to give himself the maximum takeoff length. On opening up for takeoff, the slipstream raised a veritable sandstorm and he roared down the beach followed by a stinging plume of blown sand which made all the spectators cringe as they were blasted by the grit. He took off steeply and then did a couple of 'showoff' beat-up runs along the beach followed by an upward roll before circling round and landing on the airfield.
The squadron stayed at Perranporth until 10th October and during this time it seems, from my log book, that I was acting as 'spare man' on operations. I flew the station Hurricane to Tangmere, and also a Typhoon a couple of times to Tangmere and to Harrowbeer. Then on October 11th I was detached with aircraft HF-B to 10 Group Gunnery Practice Camp at Fairwood Common on the Gower Peninsular on the South Wales Coast. This airfield was later to become, and still remains, Swansea Airport.