Danny and the Aftermath (Sequel to #4055 p.203).
So there was a dead Meteor on the taxiway just short of the flight line turn-in. In the time it took to get a tractor and towing dolly out to haul him in, he'd collected quite a tail. His Squadron Commander turned out, heard Ahmed's account, and fastened onto what he saw as the salient facts. Ahmed had been under ATC control, had started a QGH with plenty of fuel, and had come within a whisker of ditching in the North Sea. They had very nearly lost a Meteor and a customer, and a paying customer at that. Someone's head was going to roll for this - mine !
He charged up to the Tower in high dudgeon, bypassed SATCO's office (SATCO was over in SHQ, as it happened) and stormed into Approach breathing fire. What the devil was wrong with our homing equipment ? What was wrong with me ? and much more along the same lines. What the Hell did we think we'd been playing at ?
I waited till he stopped for breath before smiling sweetly: "Nothing wrong at this end, Sir - your man just had Red on Black !" This quite took the wind out of his sails - it simply hadn't occurred to him - with D.G.s it had become so rare an occurrence in these later days. He took a moment to take it in, then I got a handsome apology. We set about working out how it might have happened.
When I did my Meteor refresher in '50 at Driffield, I'm pretty sure the panels still had the old Directional Gyros. But at Weston Zoyland at the end of '54, one or two Meteors had the new "Gyro Fluxgate" (G4F) compasses fitted instead, and I'd put money on it that some of the Strubby ones had too, and that Ahmed's was one (we checked: it was).
At this point, and to save no end of explanation, and if you're still interested, I have to advise you to Google: "List of RAF Compasses". Pick the "Glossary of Terms, Jever Steam Laundry". Scroll down to "G4F"; they give you a very nice picture and a full description of that compass.
Hard to believe, but this is what he must have done:
He'd put my inbound steer of 270° on the "lubber line" all right. Now he has to turn the aircraft to bring the compass needle between the "tramlines". He only needs to turn 195° left to do this, but from some reason (unfamiliarity ?) he misses it first time, doesn't realise what he's done, carries on turning till he gets all lined up a second time.
Now he's turned through 375° and is merrily back on heading 090°, thinks he's on 270°, and the rest you know. As he's more or less back on the same spot where he called "Harpic", of course his QDM has hardly moved. Why couldn't he see he was going round in a circle ? I can only guess that he was turning over a featureless sea (much like the featureless desert at home ?) - and he was busy, head in cockpit, keeping the steep descending turn from getting out of hand. Really, I don't know.
Anyway, all's well that ends well, and Ahmed lived to fly another day - (me, too !)
Goodnight, all,
Danny42C.
Never mind.