I have been following this thread with great interest from France and struggling to concoct a contribution on a quirky (frog) keyboard. I was “creamed” to become a QFI (A2) at Middleton St George in ‘52/’53 and then did a tour on 208 (FR9/F8) from ‘54-’57. The “Meatbox” was my high-time type and I remember it with affection, whilst not pretending that it was a delight to fly compared with the Hunter. Nick Carter’s book “Meteor Eject” catches the flavour of the life and times very well, and we owe him for the immense amount of work he must have done to compile the rather grizzly “butcher’s bill” in his Annex. The accident rate was indeed appalling, eliciting some rather terse minutes from Churchill to the Air Minister of the day. In my time, OC Middleton was subpoenaed by the Darlington coroner to account for the growing RAF patch in the municipal cemetery (the staish stalled and sheltered behind the OSA). I believe, at its worst, we were having about one “fatal” a course . The reasons were, as usual, several.
First, there was a big expansion phase going on, and the pressure on the AFSs to get stus out to the OCUs was great. We flew our tails off whenever the weather was good, and more than we ought to have when it was bad. Weekends? Leave? “ Privileges, dear boy. You will have plenty of time for such luxuries when you get to your squadron.” The expansion phase also diluted the instructor force. The operational commands were unwilling to let their experienced jet pilots go to CFS, where the course was done on a strange contraption called the Prentice followed by the Harvard. Few instructors arriving at the AFSs had much jet time, and very few any multijet time. The job of turning them into competent Meteor QFIs was that of the unit Standards Flights. The asymmetric instruction I got at Driffield in the summer of ’51 was a farce (my instructor was clearly scared witless – probably by me!). It was not until I went to Middleton (after CFS) that I was properly taught. Flt Sgt (later Flt Lt) Ray Davis earned his A1 by developing the jet asymmetric sequence, which was still in use at the Vulcan OCU 20 years later.
The first thing to get across was that, however big a ****** you were, if you could hold the rudder hard against its limit stops, you could do no more. If you increased power or reduced IAS further, yaw/roll/spiral would happen very quickly. Ie, the aircraft had its own Crit Speed at full thrust on one engine – about 125kts at sl. One “big ******” at Middleton, just before I arrived, failed to hoist this simple fact aboard and tried a roller landing on one. On the runway, he applied full **** on one engine at about 90 Kt. and entered the officers’ mess through the ladies’ room wall. RIP. (He is alleged still to haunt the Hotel St George – at least the hosties will not stay in that wing !) I used to stand on the step while my stus strapped themselves in on their earlier sorties and make them adjust the rudder pedals so that, with their arse right back in the seat their knee was still slightly bent with full rudder on, then make them force their knee down so their leg was in a sort of geometric lock between the rudder and the seat back. We then used to try it in the air, with both of us on the rudder to maintain full lock, and the stu briefed to watch the “ball” like a hawk. The time between the first displacement of the ball and when the aircraft flipped was quite short. Then the student was set to find his own crit speed at full thrust, until he could no longer centre the ball, and this was usually between 130/135 kts. He was then made to explore the relationship between thrust setting, IAS and controllability. Despite greatly improved instructional techniques, there were always a few asymmetric accidents and many questioned the need to teach asymmetric at all in view of the reliability of the Derwents. Well, you know what CFS is like – if it can be done, you must teach how to do it. And there was also the range/endurance case. In the old centrifugal engines sfc reduced as rpm increased, so to loiter or squeeze for range at heights up to about 30,000 ft, it was SOP to shut down one engine and fly at increased rpm on the other. Relights were problematic on earlier marks, so a se landing was on the cards. A simple rule of thumb then prevailed ; maintain 140 kts min and 1/3 flap max until committal at 400 ft , then put it down – somewhere, anyhow.
Defensive techniques for QFIs were legendary. At least in 1952 it was usual to finish up a dual sortie with a roller landing and simulated engine failure on TO. This was done by the QFI lifting the HP cock lever , alongside his seat, at about 150 kts. You can be sure that the QFI’s boot was just behind the appropriate rudder bar! The stu then went through the engine failure drills, which included “HP cock-OFF” and “Balance Cock – OPEN”. If the QFI had shut down the starboard engine, it happened once or twice that the stu tried to pull off the Port HP cock – or else he pulled it off instead of opening the Balance Cock which was alongside it. Either way, at least one T7 at Middleton finished up in the pasture, and it became SOP for the QFI to cover the Port HP cock when shutting down the Starboard, or vice versa. Then there were the airbrakes – not only very powerful but, in the T7 and F4 and earlier, when opened in conjunction with yaw as might be induced by unbalanced asymmetric or by the undercarriage cycling, caused a breakdown of airflow over the tail and the notorious “phantom dive”. Most Meatbox drivers drilled themselves instinctively to hit the airbrake lever with the heel of their palm when going for the undercarriage lever (particularly in formation breaks when eyes had to be out of the cockpit). When the stu was flying the QFI’s hand would rest on the airbrake lever when the time came to lower the gear. Even then one stu is reputed to have said to his instructor on se finals “Sir, the airbrake handle is stuck – I can’t open them” “Effing right laddie, its stuck because I’ve got my effing hand on it!” Whereupon the stu tried the canopy latch, which was above the airbrake lever. The instructor just managed to get his elbow on that in time!
Going through Nick Carter’s Annex, it seemed to me that the biggest cause of the 430-odd total Meatbox fatals was simple “loss of control”. Some of the later AFSs (eg Worksop) had F8s for solo flying, but Driffield and Middleton had F4s. In ’52 and ’53 these aircraft, and some of the earlier T7s, had suction driven AH and DI, a magnesyn compass, and a single 10-channel VHF box.. A student sent up through cloud to do some aerobatics and briefed to call for a QGH (controlled descent) at fuel state 80/80 (gals) would have to uncage his DI initially on the little emergency “whisky” compass, while the Magnesyn continued to gyrate for a few minutes. He would almost certainly reach the “overhead” and start his outbound descent with an AH still toppled. The descent attitude of the Meatbox was quite steep and the “limited panel” scan-pattern to maintain attitude and heading was demanding enough even for green-rated instructors I am sure that a number of the accidents ascribed to “control loss” happened because the stu “lost it” at that stage and spiralled in. There were no “bang seats” in the F4 or T7, of course. The F8 and later T7s had the G4F Gyrosyn compass and electrical AHs with wider gimbal limits and the rapid re-erection button. The more trepid stus, who found weather on climb-out that they were not confident of dealing with on the let-down, simply did not do the aerobatics, and who can blame them. They may not have won the course trophy, but they did not end up in Darlington cemetery. (One flight commander used to snoop on solo stus to see what they got up to!). The lack of a navaid, apart from ground D/F (manual until ’53 when CRD/F came in) and panic about fuel-consumption contributed to pressure on the stus, a number of whom simply ran themselves out of gas. In the F4 their best option was to put the aircraft down somewhere somehow; a bale-out without a bang-seat was not a serious option.
Apologies for my verbosity. I did not have time to write anything shorter! My memories are not as clear as they were, so there may be some errors in my recall of Meatbox systems and operating speeds and limits. The sources advised by Nick Carter could not supply Pilots Notes for other than the Meteor 3. Has anyone else any ideas on where I could get them for the T7 and F8/FR9?
PS The word turned into "******" by Dan's autocensor was defined in Dr Johnson's original English Dictionary as "a term of endearment used frequently between sailors".
