Danny gets down to work.
After "making my number" at Manby, I reported to Strubby Tower, introduced myself to S/Ldr Norcross and all the chaps, read all the Station Flying Orders (and duly signed to that effect), and settled in front of the CR/DF console.
Now I had to consider what sort of customers I would have to keep happy. They would be a very mixed bag. At the top of the tree would be the members of the College Course. I think it was a six-month stint at Staff College level. The most junior students, IIRC, were Wg.Cdrs, and they ran right up to 2-stars. They put their studies into practice, and for that purpose they had Lincolns (at Manby) and at Strubby Canberras, Meteors and a couple of Hunters (but these were hangared at Manby).
Next came what was in effect an ordinary AFS, flying the Meteor 7s. Besides the home-grown Bloggs, they earned an honest copper taking in courses of foreign students, predominently from the oil-rich lands of the Middle East and the Gulf.
Military ATC in those days could easily be divided into two sides - Flying Training Schools (Primary and Advanced), which were hard work, and the rest which were not. Then there were the poor souls at West Drayton (and other ATC Centres) of course, but they were relatively few in number and pitied by all the others who devoutly prayed never to be posted there.
Your work-load varies inversely as the skill and experience of your pilots. One thick Bloggs can be more difficult to handle than three top-notch squadron pilots put together. The first thing I found was that the old "Tee Emm" character Air Commodore Byplane-Ffixpitch was alive and well, and on the College Course. I would think that all the ATCs and QFIs of the time at Strubby would agree that: if you think young Bloggs is hard work, you should try some old ones. They were very rusty indeed.
But we were there to serve all our clients without fear or favour. At first, plain vanilla Controlled Descents (QGHs) were the order of the day, with or without feed-in to GCA, then the optional "extras" started to appear.
First up was a thundering good idea: the "Speechless" procedure. This simulated a situation (by no means uncommon) where the pilot's microphone is u/s, so he cannot speak, but his radio is still OK, so by keying his"transmit" button, he can send a series of clicks. All that remains now is to set up a simple code. Four clicks "...." ("H" in Morse), sets the ball rolling. Then it's one click for "yes", two for "no", three for "say again". It works like a charm; (it recalls the old miners' tap code: "one, two, three-four-five", meant: "is there there a man alive ?")
This has so many possible applications (survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings is one obvious example), that it should be taught to all children at school. Obviously, it would work with torch flashes just as well, or any other visual signal (yes, I know, Morse Code - how much do you remember? - once it was second nature to us all).
In our case, the four transmissions flashed up at once on your CR/DF tube, you gave "Speechless Aircraft" a steer and "is this a practice ?" straight off, and then (with a sinking heart) asked: "Do you have any other emergency ?"
Now the fun would start.
Goodnight, all,
Danny42C.
What's well begun is half done.