The end is in sight.
In hindsight, the pattern they used at Selma for local night flying raises the hairs on the back of my neck. Then, knowing no better, we accepted it without question. It really needs a diagram to explain it properly, but I can't do diagrams, so I'll have to do the best I can without one.
Imagine a huge 3-layer cake centred on the airfield. Slice it across in two along the line of the runway. Then slice again at right angles. Now you have four equal slices. Call them Zone 1, 2, 3, and 4. I think Zone 1 was 12 o'clock to 3 viewed from take-off. Zones stretch quite away out - can't remember exactly, but must have been at least two miles for safety.
First man off goes into Zone 1, climbs up to 2500 and orbits left inside the Zone. Second man follows into same Zone, orbits at 2000. Third man, same thing at 1500. Then same thing over again in Zones 2, 3, and 4 until all Zones full.
Then recovery starts. First man leaves his perch on order from Tower, clears well away down to 1000 outside the Zones, comes round on a very wide circuit, does a roller and climbs back to 2500 in his Zone, which should now be empty as the Tower has cleared Nos. 2 and 3 down on time delay after him. Now Zone 2 starts down after all three Zone 1s have rolled. And so on.
(No, I have not just dreamed all this up! - any ex-Selma type will confirm).
The whole thing was reminiscent of that music-hall turn, where plates are spinning on canes, and the juggler has to dash round furiously to keep them up. As a way to set up a mid-air collision, it could hardly have been bettered. We didn't have any fatal ones, but we did have the closest near-
miss imaginable.
One AT6 managed to cross over another diagonally so close that the prop of the upper aircraft cut slots in the canopy of the lower and twitched the headset off the pilot's head, but left him without a scratch! The radio mast of the lower aircraft was carried away, but no other damage was done to it. The other aircraft was unscathed (prop blades are harder than Perspex). Both got down safely, the occupants rather pale about the gills.
Nobody could believe it, or imagine how it could happen without a wing knocking off a rudder, or the props colliding. Many were the sketches on the backs of envelopes, or chalked on blackboards, and flat-hand demonstrations of the kind more commonly seen in "line-shooting".
At one point on the Course there was an epidemic of "ground-looping". The AT-6 is above-averagely susceptible to this at the hands of the ham-fisted (or I suppose I should say, the ham-footed) student. There were cases on night landing, and our instructors devised a special technique to deal with it.
You came in at 70 mph, flaps down, with enough power set to give a descent of 700 ft/min. Then you simply flew into the runway with no attempt to check or hold off. There was an almighty bang, you shoved the stick forward, the aircraft skipped once then thumped down, tail-up onto its wheels. You held it there until it had slowed down enough to let the tail down.
It was a "controlled crash". How the AT-6 stood up to this barbarous treatment, I'll never know. The undercarriage must have been massive. I suppose, as a training aircraft, it had to be. At least, none of ours broke.
(en passant, I've recently read that the German for a ground-loop is ringelpilz ("fairy ring"). Rather nice, I thought (is it true?)
My six months in the States came to an end, and my log book proudly attests that, on 6th March, 1942, I received my Wings and an Air Corps diploma from a Colonel Julius P. Haddon, who, I suppose, must have been the Base Commander. The Diploma has long since disappeared, but the Wings (which are not sewn on like ours, but in the form of a brooch in dollar-alloy silver) are somewhere around yet.
The brooch is quite a good idea, as it is easily moved from uniform to shirt or bush jacket - you could put it on your pyjamas if you wanted! But you are not allowed to wear it with RAF uniform, although foreign decorations can, with permission, be worn. This seems a bit illogical, but I suppose it's a question of where you could put them. Over the right breast pocket, I suppose.
Having successfully completed the Course for an Aviation Cadet in the United States Army Air Corps, it was rumoured that we would become (honorary) Second Lieutenants in that Service. It was a pleasing conceit; the RAF gave it no credence. But the rumour insisted that we were so recorded in the records of the USAAC in order to account for the Aviation Cadets who would otherwise (on paper) simply have disappeared. Why anyone would bother, I don't know, for Hitler couldn't very well complain now about our having been trained there! If the rumour be true, and normal rules of seniority apply, I must be at least an honorary Brigadier by now.
And so ended my six months in the States. It had been quite an experience. Now for Canada, our RAF wings, and then home to Britain for the final stage of our training - Operational Training Unit. Now we must learn to fly whatever weapon the RAF chose for each of us, and start to earn our keep on our first Squadrons.
Goodnight, all.
Danny.
Not to worry!
Last edited by Danny42C; 17th Mar 2012 at 03:46.