Some more flying exploits from Peter Brett
In this extract, Peter has finished his tour with 183 Sqn, and has been posted to No 3 Tactical Experience Unit
No.3 Tactical Experience Unit was a conversion school for pilots arriving from OTU, having flown Hurricanes, to be converted to Typhoons and given some experience of dive bombing and rocket firing. It is coincidental that this unit was originally 55 OTU where I had done my original training on Hurricanes. It was re-equipped with Typhoons and finally arrived at Aston Down on 14th July 1944
Apart from occasionally leading a formation of four, doing practice target dives, my main flying was air tests and flying an Auster to and from the Oldbury R/P range. This range was a floating target in the Severn Estuary with a range hut for plotting the strikes on a promontory on the south bank of the river.
The floating target was in the centre of the estuary exactly where the new Severn Bridge now stands, and the range hut was where the Motorway services restaurant is now situated.
Two or three days per week I had to go out to the range and act as instructor to the new pilots; talking to them on the R/T, criticizing their performance and making suggestions. At first I used to drive a motorcycle the 45 or so miles to the range. Since I had never before driven anything except an aeroplane, I had to undergo a sort of driving test for the motorcycle. I practiced riding the 250 cc BSA around the perimeter track and thoroughly enjoyed it.
When I felt confident, I went along to the M.T. (Motor Transport) section and asked for a test. The M.T. Sergeant watched me ride around the yard changing gear and stopping and starting and then issued me with a full licence which entitled me to drive cars, motor cycles and lorries up to 10 tons!
Needless to say I took full advantage of this and subsequently practiced driving anything I could lay my hands on. The most frequent, and also the most unnerving, was driving the petrol bowser since the large tank had very few baffles and, after turning a corner you tended to weave from side to side as the petrol sloshed about in the tank. Although this license gave me an added dimension to my life I soon found that the journey from Stroud to the Oldbury range was a bit tedious.
After talking to the Wing Commander Flying I was allowed to use the station Auster for these trips, landing on the foreshore below the range hut. I would then be picked up by an airman driving a motorcycle and sidecar and taken up to the range hut. This worked out quite well except that it meant that one of the airmen from the range hut staff had to stand guard over the Auster whilst I was there to fend off the keen young local boys who wanted to climb all over it. I also had to fend off these same lads who wanted to get a flight.
I found flying the Auster a lot of fun. One thing I found out quite early was that the pitch trim had to be handled with care. The trim was effected by a lever moving in a quadrant down the left hand side of the pilot’s seat. This lever worked an absolutely flat piece of metal which acted as a sort of auxiliary tail plane. As you moved the lever towards the top it tilted the plate up at the rear and thus pushed the tail down and gave a 'nose up' trim effect. However, if you moved the lever too far, the flat plate would suddenly stall (depending on the airspeed at the time) and the trim would then equally suddenly reverse to 'nose down'. This had to be watched, especially on landing since lowering the flaps with another but larger lever on the right of the seat, caused a 'nose down' change of trim.
If you overcorrected on the trim lever, the resulting sudden extra 'nose down' trim occurred just at the wrong time and airspeed and resulted in a somewhat spectacular landing. Watching from outside it appeared that the pilot had suddenly decided he was too high, dived towards the ground, then realized he was too low and hauled back on the stick. If he was in luck, he managed a rather heavy three point landing. More likely, he hit wheels first and 'ballooned' violently into the air again, finishing up either going round again or thumping down on about the third bounce! Luckily I had found out about this peculiarity at a safe height in straight and level flight and therefore never had the embarrassment of performing this type of Auster landing!
On a couple of these trips I took F/Lts Cliff and Khin over to the range. Both these officers were Burmese and, after the war became the Commander and Second-in Command respectively of the Burmese Air force. At this time however they were just two more pilots 'on rest' and both enjoyed playing with the Auster.
More soon ==TOW
Last edited by tow1709; 2nd Oct 2010 at 14:06.