Danny gets out of the Office.
Besides struggling with all the paperwork, we did fly from time to time ! The Spitfires (XVI) were old friends, of course, and I was very keen to get into the Vampires (Mk.III). No longer could I sneer at "kiddiecarts"; and as the T11 had not come along yet, it was a case of read the Pilot's Notes, climb in and off you go. This I did on 31st March, after they'd had some innocent fun with me some days earlier by checking me out on, and sending me off on a sector recce, in the Tiger (of all things) - which I'd never flown before in my life ! (Full report to follow).
I took to the Vampire like a duck to water. It was a delightful little aircraft, very easy to handle with sweet, well harmonised controls, and fantasic cockpit visibility. A big tear-drop perspex canopy replaced the prison bars of the T7; now we were pressurised and I could swan around at 30,000 plus without a hot, sweaty, rubbery oxygen mask clamped onto my chops all the time.
Of course, it wasn't the "ball-of-fire" that the Meteor had been, its rate-of-climb was less than half that of the T7 (I was told that a good Griffon Spitfire could out-climb it). But it had much more range and endurance than the Meteor. All in all it was one of those aircraft that you're at home in straight away, whereas it would take me a long time to be comfortable in a Meteor. The Vampire flew , the Meteor was just a projectile - all push and no lift. That was the difference.
Our work was the dullest flying imaginable. During the summer months our chief regular customers were the TA AA camps at Tonfanau: they fired 3.7s (?) out to sea, some of the time at a target (drogue - flag ?) towed by the Beau. When this was in front of the guns, the crew were fairly safe, but as it got farther down the firing line the angle closed up, and sometimes an over-keen Terrier would bang off one round too many.
They peppered the tail feathers of the Beau from time to time, but never managed to shoot it down. "Joe" and "Zed-Zed" philosophically accepted this hazard, as for the little (NS) airman on the winch at the back (who was closest of all to the shrapnel), nobody asked him.
A drogue is all very well, but a live aircraft would be all the more interesting to fire at, wouldn't it ? We weren't as expendable as all that, (although I sometimes have my doubts), so we arranged to give them a wraith of a Spitfire to aim at, as the next best thing. They had a half-silvered mirror built into their gunsights. A Spitfire flew (6,000 ft) up and down a "beat" from Barmouth to Aberdovey and back a mile or so inshore behind the guns.
The mirror image of the aircraft would appear in their sights, traversing North as you were flying South, and vice versa - and Bob's your Uncle. The shell-bursts would cluster round the phantom aircraft, sometimes they got a direct "hit", and everyone was happy.
On the south side of the Barmouth estuary a TA Bofors gun battery had a tented camp for their people, with their guns set up to "defend" it. We had to practise mock strafing attacks on this camp, (if the guns fired back, I hope they used blanks). Oddly, no "minimum height" was in the Orders for this, and we took full advantage. It made a nice change from the previously described task; now we got right down among the tents. I don't think we ever knocked any down, but we may have blown a few over.
Almost as soon as I arrived, there was a tragedy. It was a dirty night, and a Lincoln was coming in on a diversion - actual or practice I know not - and Valley didn't then have a CR/DF, but still used the old manual rig. Things were made more difficult by the fact that a very broad Scot was our Controller, the pilot was a Czech whose command of English was not all that good. And, as Geriaviator has pointed out, (#3286 p. 165. 16 Dec) all the aircraft of that era were very noisy inside, a Lincoln more than most.
To cut a long story short, they got him overhead and sent him out on Valley's Safety Lane, which was Zero One Zero. As this goes straight out over the Irish sea, I don't suppose he would be more than 2,000 ft. He read One Zero Zero, and before the D/F operator could get a reliable bearing, there was another wreck in Snowdonia to add to the scores of wartime ones (all dead, of course).
As for us, to the best of my knowledge and belief, we never had a single flying accident during the whole time I was there, and therefore no casualties. There was little temptation to do anything stupid; although the two Menai bridges absolutely begged to be flown under, identification and the consequent sacking would be so certain that nobody even thought of it.
Next time I shall put in a Tale of Old Valley (trusting once again to our Moderator's infinite forbearance).
Evenin' all,
Danny42C.
You never know your luck.