RAE Bedford. Blind Landing Experimental Unit
Chapter 20
Royal Aeronautical Establishment Bedford (RAE) Test Pilot
When I learned that I was to test fly the Vulcan on automatics I had some misgivings because at that time I could not conceive of a situation where automatics could do a job that a pilot could not, and my whole line of thinking was..... How was I going to manage the situation when this new fangled device let me down? I thought automatic landing was something of a trick requiring a lot of setting up and performed occasionally to impress some VIP's. I was very surprised therefore when Alfie,anold mate of mine, said on our arrival at Bedford "Would you like to see an automatic landing" Well of course... Yes. And most impressed I was when the Varsity touched down all by itself apart from a few little touches on various switches by Alfie. I had no idea how advanced automatic landing had become. Alfie said "Do you think you have ever flown in fog". Well most pilots think that they can handle an aircraft in any conditions and having landed in low visibility, claim it was thick fog. Alfie said "Wait until you see what we land in”. How right he was!
RAE Bedford for me was a new experience, totally different from the RAF. I was allocated a Married Quarter at Sharnbrook a little village about three miles from the airfield and was able to bring Madeleine and the children with me. There were only sixteen officers on the station, all in married Quarters, almost as many Naval Officers as RAF. The senior rank was Wg Cdr Flying (Mc Creith) but the overall management of the establishment was in civilian hands. There were two sites, the airfield and the wind tunnel site. Both were state of the art and highly secure. The three main flying groups were Aero Flight, Naval Air and Blind Landing Experimental Unit. I was now in the hands of civilian 'Boffins' who controlled all the flight tests... The head of BLEU was a John Charnley, now Sir John. What a splendid character he was, I never saw him without a smile, great sense of humour and quite brilliant. For the first week or so I lived in the mess until our married quarter was available and every morning at breakfast I sat opposite an old chap who was incredibly shy, it was difficult to get a word out of him...One day I asked the mess waiter ...”Who is the old boy”?..”The Boss” he replied!”The Boss of what” I asked? He said. “That is Mr. Hufton the Boss of everything. The whole establishment”.
What a feast of aeroplanes! Vulcan, Varsity, Comet, Javelin, Devon, Meteor, Canberra, resident in the stable, but I also got to fly, Douglas DC 7, Constellation, Hunter and one trip in a Whirlwind helicopter... very unsanitary that!!! As usual I became the Instrument Rating Examiner and this gave me free access to the Meteor. I could use this as I wanted. I must say it was most interesting to realise that we could be flying the Vulcan in the morning change from that to the Devon and then pop into the Meteor for some aerobatics in the afternoon. I was at a function at Chelveston the nearby American base and talking to a navigator who said he had never done aerobatics. I said he should give me a ring and I would fix it... Well he did and after we had carried out the flying he said...”You know, I thought you were being big headed when you offered me this flight and I rang to call your bluff." He said he was absolutely amazed after a short chat in the crew room I said “Let’s go then” signed the authorisation book and we were off. He then told me of the problems involved had I wanted to get a flight with the American Squadron. It would have had to go through the Pentagon for permission!!!
The serious work of BLEU was of course the development of the Automatic Landing System this had begun as an Air Ministry Operational Requirement for the V.Force. It had been recognised that in the event of a Nuclear Alert the first targets would be our Nuclear Bombers. It was therefore necessary to develop a system which would enable the bombers to disperse around the country to defined RAF airfields in any weather conditions. This meant in effect an Automatic Blind Landing System... In the event, the system became so good that an interest was aroused for a system to be installed in Civil Aircraft. This interest was to become the more dominant as the trials improved. Because of the very high demands for the safety of civilian passengers the system evolved around a Smiths Triplicated Automatic Pilot used with ground based Instrument Landing Aids. ( ILS )...In our case we operated a single channel system. ( RAF personnel are expendable) however the integrity of the equipment was such that we never had a problem and were totally confident in its performance.
During the early days of my stay it was decided to lift the secrecy blanket which had hitherto shrouded our work and we were to have an open day for the technical press, giving flight demonstrations of Auto-Land. As usual Murphy's Law came into play and on the day, we had 25 knot crosswind. Not only was this the maximum crosswind permissible for the aircraft we were flying....But Auto landing systems are not designed to function in strong winds of any kind. It was John Charnley who pointed out the problems saying that having called the big press demonstration if we now called it off because of weather the whole system would die the death. In the event we all decided to carry on and the day was a great success. The very strong crosswind in fact helped to show how effective the automatic drift kick-off on landing was. I recall one American correspondent saying "I have been all round the world to see automatic landing systems but this is the first time it has been demonstrated with such confidence, in fact demonstrated at all". He found that there was usually some excuse put forward as to why it could not be shown.
I had some very interesting visits from Bedford to carry out flight tests with other organisations. One was a visit to Holland where we flew a Constellation in a very sophisticated set of night flying trials. The aircraft was fitted with a very elaborate metal visor which only allowed forward view from 200ft and below. We flew the approach from 1500ft down to 200 on instruments and then had to comment on various ground approach light aids. It was quite a demanding test because the weather was heavy rain and blustery winds. We were even linked up to a heart monitor to test our 'tickers' on the approach runs! I also made visits to Villacoubley and to Beauvais in France Also a very pleasant trip to Gibraltar with no work involved. Just a 'swan', or officially Continuation training.
Life at RAE was very pleasant and relaxed, with none of the usual RAF constraints. The self discipline among all concerned gave an impression of casualness but when one considers that during my three years there, despite taking part in some very tricky experimental flying, I cannot recall an accident. It must be noted that we were not aware of the experimental work carried out in the other units but they were probably more hazardous than our own. I suppose the high lights during my period were, Flying chase in the Meteor to Jack Henderson on his first flight in the Narrow Delta prototype aircraft, developed to test the low speed handling characteristics of the future Concord...This test was a great success and clearly Jack was happy with the aircraft from the moment of take-off.... Seeing the first vertical take-offs and landings carried out by Tom Brooke-Smith in his prototype dinky toy!!!..This had four vertically oriented jet engines for vertical control and one for forward flight, on a demonstration flight at Farnborough the grass had been recently mowed, so when the lift engines were started up the cut grass was thrown up and over the aircraft, blocking up the engine filters, causing the engines to cut. How embarrassing..... Flying with the great Calvert the father of Calvert Lighting and many other aids to modern flying......My own claim to fame. Having London Airport all to myself the night of December 5th, 1962 demonstrating automatic landings in thick freezing fog. No civil traffic could operate in the conditions that pertained that night. In fact the contingency plan for this night had allowed for a number of senior persons from London to come aboard to see the demonstration but the fog was so thick that no cars or public transport vehicles were running. In fact had I not had the splendid back up of the Ground Radar which was able to see my exact position on the runway and give me guidance to taxi back to the take off position after touch down? I would not have been able to manoeuvre the aircraft in what was the most dense fog I had ever encountered. Details of this flight are contained in my old flight test records. I think it must have been this flight that put me in the running for the AFC. This was a nice farewell