Danny is to become Jet-propelled at last
My Jet Conversion Course came up at the end of January (24th). W/Cdr Mahaddie was kind enough to write that they had been impressed with me in ATC and would be happy to have me in the Branch. I would have had a long and awkward train journey ahead of me to get back round the Humber into East Yorkshire, but he saved me that, too.
A Lincoln was laid on, Master Pilot Kalinowski flew me and all my kit over the river to arrive in some style in Driffield. Now I would start flying again in real earnest. (This was typical of Hamish Mahaddie - a real gentleman - to do (unasked), this act of kindness to a complete nonentity. His crews thought the world of him. He died about 15 years ago, I believe - RIP).
The RAF had set up a single jet conversion school (203 AFS) at Driffield in East Yorkshire. It was a few miles west of Driffield town, about ten miles north of Beverley. IIRC they ran two Courses there: a (very!) "short" Course for regulars and returners like me, who had previous experience of fighter aircraft in WW2 - ( I was on No.1 Short Course) and a longer Course (3-4 months) which was in effect an OTU for new entrants, among whom might have been appearing the first National Service newly commissioned pilots. (National Service had been re-introduced on 1st Jan '49, so it was just possible).
On arrival, I bedded down in a room in a typical Laing hut, and still remember the nasty little square coke stove I had. This put out more fumes than heat, it was a wonder I survived. I'd to settle down to some serious reading now, for I was going to take my Promotion Examination there at the end of February. The RAF was quite keen on promotion exams then. You had to take Exam "B" to get to Flt. Lt. (this was still in effect in the late '50s), and "C" for S/Ldr (this was a requirement for selection for Staff College). (And I believe that formerly there had been an Exam "A" between P/O and F/O). The RAF argued, quite reasonably, that an officer who couldn't pass his promotion exams must be either stupid or lazy, and in either case should clearly not be promoted.
Kerosene was the only jet fuel in those days; the whole place stank of it, and the good folk of Driffield had to put up with it, the prevailing wind being in their direction. The ground crews wore heavy green rubberised "kerosene suits" for protection. All day long the welkin rang with the banshee howling of the "Goblin" engines in the Vampires - you could see how they got the name.
All full-Course students had to do the first half of their Course on the dual Meteor T7s (the dual Vampire did not appear until much later). They were then allocated to the Meteor and Vampire training Squadrons as required. I have no idea how the selection was made. We "short-Course" people just flew the Meteors; we thought ourselves a cut above the drivers of the "kiddie-cars", as we scornfully dubbed the Vampire. (Anyone who knows the RAF will have no difficulty in guessing which type I was posted on to when I Ieft !).
There were two kinds of students, experienced WW2 pilots who'd managed to stay (or wangle their way back) in the RAF, and the new intake. We old-timers had at least handled what passed for fast machinery in our day, but the newcomers had flown only Chipmunks and Oxfords (which were reckoned slow in 1939). They were in for big surprises. To begin with, they were confronted with "Black Mac" - W/Cdr McDonald, the CFI, feared by every Bloggs throughout the RAF as a ferocious disciplinarian who struck terror into the hearts of all his students. Then they met the Meteor.
Having come from the Oxford, which I suppose did most of its flying around 130 knots, they found the Meteor a bit of a handful (to say the least). Why that thing, and not the Harvard which would have been much better for them, I cannot imagine. It is not speed alone which was the killer, rather that things happen far quicker than the mental processes can keep pace. Perhaps the logic was: the Meteor is a twin; they must learn to fly twins; any twin will do; we have a lot of these in stock.
This was sound enough reasoning, except that the Meteor was just as good on one as on two (except when you came to land on one, when it was a real pig). Indeed, it was acceptable practice to shut down one engine to stretch the range. But it meant that our young aviators had to make the jump from a prop-driven air taxi of the thirties to the first-line fighter of the RAF twenty years later. A comparison today would be from a Tucano straight into a Tornado (or Typhoon !) It was a tall order, and more than some of them could manage. Carnage was the result.
Cheers,
Danny42C.
You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs.