One of the most interesting aircraft I have flown – as a student for 67 hours in 1964.
Didn’t enjoy the unique feeling of rolling down the runway in a strong crosswind feeling that one’s ear was likely to scrape the runway sometime soon but enjoyed the joy of aerobatics in the tiniest jet I ever flew. Enjoyed the ‘first one off the ground’ beat up of the airfield every morning – and the Stn Cdr’s face when he came out the SECO huts after met brief and saw the first one off below the level of the line of fins of the line a few feet in front of him. He grounded the pilot for a week – after landing a private aircraft departed for a visit to the girlfriend that lasted just a week – back on the programme on return!
Was instructed by one Bruce Latton – reckon he learned much about instructing in that period. Fire ext in front cockpit impacted and bent the throttle lever during an excessive G recovery from a spiral dive – preceded by a c**k-up over who had control. On the way back to Valley I thought pulling the hyd cock off whilst I was holding the fire ext in one hand, the stick in the other and trying to work out if I could still move the bent throttle was just one step too far for a student like me.
Remember the unpopular PMC who never worked out why his radio controlled boats kept failing out in the lake outside the OM – he never saw the students with the air rifles leaning out of the windows on the first floor but he spent a lot of time in waders!
My Flight Commander was one Al Poll**k – and he later joined our Hunter course at Chivenor having had to arrange a quick posting out of Training Command to escape the aftermath of his inverted flight at an airshow during a temporary ban on neg G. Punch-ups in the cine’ room after an air-to-air sortie were another story.
Very grateful for the lessons learned from that little aircraft-lessons that surely helped later in Hunters, Lightnings and Phantoms.