A DISTINGUISHED PILOT
It all started with a yellow 1949 Standard Vanguard car that I bought while on posting to Townsville in 1957. Like my journalist father before me I was not blessed with mechanical aptitude and relied totally on friends to fix things that I had wrecked. The Vanguard was a solid looking car with an intricate gear change lever placed on the right of the steering wheel and it frequently jammed. Mobile phones had not been invented and when the gears of the Vanguard locked up one hoped it wasn’t at a busy intersection (Sod’s Law ensured it was, of course). Otherwise I was faced with little choice but to coast with the clutch depressed to the side of the road and hitch a lift to the Royal Australian Air Force base a few miles from my home.
Once through the guard gate it was a case of urgently calling in favours from certain airmen engineers or Colin Stewart, a signaller member of my crew. Colin could not only fix Lincoln radios, send rapid Morse code with an Aldis lamp, and play a mean trombone with the Salvation Army, but he too owned a 1949 Vanguard. He was clearly a valuable man to know.
At Townsville my job was two-fold. Qualified Flying Instructor and Aero Club Liaison Officer. The latter meant flight testing Air Training Corps cadets awarded RAAF sponsored scholarships to train at various aero clubs in Northern Queensland. For this I held a civilian instructor rating; the RAAF allotting me 50 hours a year continuation on light aircraft, in addition to my squadron flying duties. It was nothing to flog a four engine heavy bomber around the circuit – then after lunch, hop into a Dakota to fly to Cairns and on arrival strap into a Tiger Moth for a quick quality assurance check flight with an ATC cadet. The term Jack of all trades but master of none, comes to mind - particularly when it came to judging the flare height of the Tiger Moth after the lofty view from the Lincoln cockpit.
Back now to the problem of jammed gear levers in the 1949 Vanguard. Obviously one had to offer some level of remuneration to those who answered my Mayday calls. It was embarrassing to offer money and there was a limit to how many bottles of beer one carried in the boot to cover such exigencies. A heart-felt thanks was always appreciated but I felt bad about not coming up with something more than “thanks mate.” In any case, an officer never called an airman “mate”. It was both bad manners and unforgiveable, although christian names were OK, but only in private.
The Lincoln could be flown by one pilot with other crew members in specialist roles, such as radio operator, air gunner and navigator. On long flights a second pilot was carried. During World War Two, British four engine bombers such as the Lancaster carried a seven man crew including one pilot and a flight engineer. As aircraft losses to enemy action increased, pilot training was given to flight engineers so if the pilot was killed or injured someone on board had a reasonable chance of landing the stricken aircraft. Later, the flight engineer position was replaced by a second pilot.
During my tour on Lincolns it was common practice for captains to conduct air tests with an airman volunteer to act as second pilot. He was needed operate the start and priming buttons on the right hand side of the cockpit as well as operate the undercarriage and flap levers. It could be done single pilot but the feathering buttons on the far right of the cockpit were hard to reach by the strapped in captain. There was no shortage of volunteers from the airmen in the hangar or from the ranks of navigators or signallers lounging around the crew rooms with little to do.
The solution to my problems was staring me in the face; offer a flying lesson (officially a quick air test) in a Lincoln as a prize for fixing the gears on JL’s Vanguard.
The squadron task varied from long range search and rescue to operational flying exercises (OFE’s) with warships of the Royal Australian Navy. Although we carried two or more pilots for the ten hour flights the monotony of these flights could be relieved for some of the crew by slipping them into the left seat for a spot of dual instruction. This sometimes aroused the ire of the navigator who was not impressed by frequent heading changes ruining the neat lines on his plotting chart. Where the navigator was a former scrubbed pilot and he was offered some hand flying, the complaints stopped.
It was on such flights that the “student” could be taught straight and level and occasional turning. The squadron was equipped with a Link D4 Synthetic Trainer for pilots’ instrument flying practice. Senior management officers wondered why the new found interest in Link Trainer flying among navigators and signallers when previously the Link was the domain of pilots. Flight Sergeant Colin Stewart was given preference in dual because he was the real expert on Vanguard gear shifts and most likely to be called upon when I was in trouble with my car. Over several months we flew dual in the Lincoln as well as a Tiger Moth and Cessna 150 from the local flying school. It cost me nothing because of the free flying allotment of hours from the ATC flying scholarship continuation training. Each squadron pilot was entitled to four hours per month continuation training in the Lincoln and I used these hours to say thanks to various friends among the airmen for being on Search and Rescue standby duties when the Vanguard gear shift failed.
Effects of controls, stalling, steep turns were covered on the Lincoln with Colin Stewart, then at the weekend it might be forced landings and circuits in a Cessna 172 or Tiger Moth. We counted parts of the cross-country navigation exercises in the Lincoln as PPL map reading, switching on one occasion to the squadron Wirraway for a back-seat navex to another aerodrome. Simulated engine failures on take off happened to be in the Cessna with first solo in a Tiger Moth when there was no wind.
One day an Examiner of Airmen from the Department of Civil Aviation arrived at Townsville to flight test several students of the Townsville Aero Club. Colin Stewart my crew signaller was among those presented for test. By good fortune, the examiner and I had been on the same RAAF Pilot’s Course in 1952. He was shot down by ground fire while flying Meteors during the Korean War and became a POW. After repatriation he left the Service for the safer job of Examiner of Airman. I had a word in his ear about the unconventional dual on different types that I had given Col Stewart; falling back on the Old School Tie trick – after all we had been on No 8 Post war Pilots Course together, hadn’t we? To my relief, and I’m sure against his better judgment, he kindly allowed the hours flown on Lincolns despite the aircraft not being on the civil register. He flew with Colin in the 172 awarding him a well deserved PPL. Before returning to his office in Brisbane he quietly hinted I should not pull that stunt again. He was right of course.
Next up was Sergeant Clifford Dohle, another signaller in my crew. Cliff didn’t fix Vanguards, but had shown great promise during the times I had used him as second pilot on air tests and continuation training. He progressed over time to accurate flying under the hood in the Lincoln. He quickly picked up steep turns on three engines, stall recoveries and practice over-shoots at safe altitudes. I hasten to add that flying practice with crew members or airmen was confined to upper air work. The Lincoln was a difficult aircraft to take off and land at the best of times, and it would have been folly to risk life, limb and career to include circuit work. I had only done that once and must admit it was perhaps the closest shave of my career and certainly the most stupid.
It was during take off on a training flight from Darwin. The navigator was Ernie Storm on his last flight before changing his flying career and re-mustering to the Equipment Branch of the RAAF. He had flown a few hours on Tiger Moths many years earlier before being transferred to a Navigators course. He flew Lincolns on bombing operations against communist terrorists in Malaya and afterwards was posted to our squadron at Townsville. As a memento of his last flight as aircrew I somewhat overconfidently suggested he should conduct the take off while I supervised from the copilot’s seat. He said it was many years since he had carried out a take off and that was in a Tiger Moth. I assured him it would be safe and banished the real second pilot to the bomb-aimers seat in the nose of the Lincoln, reminding him it was the best view in town.
Darwin runway 29 was over 10,000 ft with a wide flight strip of red dusty ground. As expected, the Lincoln swung left as the tail came up and I urged the navigator to apply more right rudder and lead with the port outer throttle. It is stating the bleeding obvious that a Tiger Moth has different swing characteristics than a Lincoln and I took over control far too late to stop the Lincoln from leaving the sealed surface. Fortunately, we straightened up albeit 20 yards off the runway and it was then I saw a stationary fire truck on a taxiway several hundred yards ahead.
It was a case of firewalling the throttles to +18 psi boost and literally dragging the Lincoln off the dirt before passing a few feet over the fire truck. I still have a photo of the two tyre tracks in the red dirt. By now, ATC were thoroughly alarmed and having observed the huge pall of red dust caused by the slipstream from four Rolls Royce Merlins at maximum power, asked if operations were normal. It was nice of them to ask but we were too busy scaring ourselves to reply. It was then that the driver of the fire truck woke up from dozing in the sun and saw a Lincoln bearing down on him. We had passed overhead before he could reverse out of the way.
We were very lucky the flight strip contained no obstacles or ditches otherwise the ending could have been far different. That episode cost me many beers in the Mess at Townsville and it was fortunate the Commanding Officer never got to hear of my stupidity.
Then one day I flew with the Officer Commanding of North-East Australia Area Command, Group Captain “Smokey” Douglas DFC. The group captain was a tall dignified man with an impressive black moustache. A former wartime Catalina pilot, he had recently qualified on Lincolns but now spent most of his time behind a desk – sometimes called the Mahogany Bomber. The purpose of this trip was to practice for his instrument rating and Cliff Dohle was the signaller.
We had been airborne for an hour when the group captain said he wanted to stretch his legs as they ached after protracted asymmetric flight. I asked would he mind if the signaller could have a go at the controls. Although surprised at this somewhat unusual request he made no objection. Cliff strapped in and I covered the windscreen with a map while he went on to instruments. He had flown many hours straight and level with me on operational flying exercises and had handled the Lincoln on asymmetric flying during my own continuation training. He had also practiced on the D4 Link Trainer.
After a steep turn or so, I asked Cliff to conduct a clean stall and recovery. This he did under the hood with admirable skill. Then he did a practice go-around from full flap. I throttled back an inboard engine during the subsequent climb and again this was well handled. The group captain watched with growing interest and asked how long I had been giving my crew unofficial dual instruction. Concerned that trouble was brewing, I decided not to mention anything about my lack of mechanical skill and the jammed gear shifts on the Vanguard. Instead I mentioned lamely I had read war history books where crew members were given dual in case the pilots were killed in action. That the war in Europe had ended 15 years earlier rather shot my explanation to pieces, but if the group captain noticed this, he said nothing. To my relief he seemed happy with the reply.
After we landed the group captain summoned the signaller to his office and asked if he had applied for a Pilots Course. The signaller said he was not permitted to do so until a return of service as signaller. Regardless, the group captain told him to submit a pilot course application and that it would be strongly recommended. The real gear lever expert and Vanguard owner Colin Stewart, was also told to apply.
Months later, the result of both applications came through. Colin Stewart missed out because he was married and only un-married servicemen were posted to undergo the Pilots Course. This was a bitter disappointment to him but at least he now held a PPL. Cliff Dohle was successful and two years later won his Wings and was posted to fly Canberra bombers.
In 1966 he flew Iroquois helicopters on active service South Vietnam. During August of that year an encounter between a group of Australian soldiers and a numerically superior enemy force of Vietcong soldiers took place in a rubber plantation known as Long Tan. The battle raged through the night in torrential rain from a thunderstorm and faced with mounting casualties the Australians called for urgent ammunition re-supply. Two RAAF helicopters flew at tree-top height in appalling visibility and successfully delivered the badly needed ammunition. The Battle of Long Tan resulted in overwhelming defeat of the enemy force. Flight Lieutenant Cliff Dohle was one of the RAAF Iroquois pilots and was subsequently awarded a DFC for bravery in action.
Over the years since we both left the RAAF I lost touch with Colin Stewart but recently I met with Cliff Dohle, now retired. We laughed over the old times of flying Lincolns and it was with great pleasure I congratulated him on his distinguished service as a RAAF pilot.