Monday 22 April 1974 - Coltishall -1st Encounter with Lightning
Talkdown Controller Plt Off Dave L, Lightning Pilot Flt Lt Jack B
ACT 1 - The Talkdown
First day of first tour DL leaves Satcos office after arrival interview, " we'll start you off on Talkdown - lets see how good you are - the last one straight out of Shawbury lasted a week!" DL is hastily thrust in the seat and the screen controller gives words of encouragement along lines of " 2 & 1/2 degree glidepath not 3, clearances at 8 & 4 miles not 6 & 3 and dont forget its a bit quicker than a Jet Provost, thats him just coming on at 9 miles".
DL makes a promising start only mildly thrown by the clipped punchy r/t from the pilot unlike the clear relaxed civvy pilots at Shawbury - he overcomes the first hurdle of remembering to announce himself as Coltishall Talkdown and not Shawbury - all he has ever known! First clearance is duly remembered at 8 miles and DL settles into the patter even remembering to begin descent for a 2 & 1/2 degree glidepath. All is going nicely as DL does his best to achieve a good centreline line up. The 4 mile clearance to overshoot is obtained with a hasty prompt and a "tut" from the screen controller. But now the speed of the approach begins to overtake DL who is struggling to keep a rythmic patter going and remember all his half mile range calls, he is working hard to keep up and some stressed breathing adds to his difficulties. " Dont forget the surface wind" urges the tutting screen swiftly followed by "and watch for Decision Height". By now DL's commentary is failing to keep up and the gap between each blip on the fast scanning radar is rapidly increasing! Finally DL utters the finishing phrase "passing Decision Height look ahead and take over visually radar service terminates" by which time the blip has passed off the screen and the jet can be heard roaring past the Tower.
Headset off DL wipes his brow and nervously looks to his screen for reassurance only to hear " the Boss wont be too impressed with this - you need to speed up - best you sit over there and get on with reading the Order Book". Unknown to DL JB had been briefed to cleanup and open up at 4 miles and was probably doing about 300 kts over the threshold!