Catchup, and how Camlobe didn't gain a pilots brevet in the Cold War
I haven't been on here for over a month, and what a month I have missed. OMQ's, snow chains, Catalina's, Ludwig II's bed, skiing holidays, how NOT to connect an appliance, ATC, fuel consumption, etc, etc. this most wonderful thread has it all, and it is all totally fascinating. Well, it is to me, so there.
When I last posted my diatribe here, we had been introduced to one of Rolls Royce's success stories, the Dart turboprop, and how we started to get to know it well. I mentioned this was one of my bucket list items. Perhaps I better explain myself.
As a young boy around six years of age, camlobe was taken to an air show for the first time. Three things made an impression.
1. All jets are the same. Like bad lovers, they are all noise and quick as a flash.
2. An empty C130 doing a RATO/JATO. Lots of smoke and it was off the ground in the blink of an eye and climbing steeply.
3. A Lancaster doing its thing. The most beautiful sound one can hear propelling a strikingly unique shape around the sky gracefully.
The interest was kindled. Many books followed, often three ongoing at the same time (nowadays it is around five ongoing), films, documentaries and museums. As long as it was about aircraft, I was interested. The Airfix, Revel and Frog kits followed. Let's face it, I was hooked. I had decided from a young age that I wanted to join the Royal Air Force. I wanted to know how metal could be made to fly. I wanted to know how fabric could hold together in a dive. I wanted to know how that beautiful sound I heard at six years of age was created. I yearned for knowledge. But it had to the the Royal Air Force. I had firmly made my mind up about that. Only the best, the original, nothing else would do.
Problem was, I was in my mother country, Canada. (There you go, Danny). It wasn't going to happen.
In 1969, we came to the UK to meet my mothers family. It was better than any films or pictures. London left an impression: The steep wooden escalators in the Underground; black cabs that turned on a six-pence; bright red double-decker buses; Piccadilly Circus; Evening Standard vans with doors jammed open; Guinies, Pounds, Half Crown, Ten Bob notes, Shillings, Ha'penny, Farthing, Changing of the Guard, Tower Bridge, etc, etc. I was fortunate enough to to the tourist bit. When we got out of the city, the countryside was a shock. Here were small and oddly shaped fields, stone walls, sheep, and the view changed every half an hour. It was a shock to this prairie boy. Meeting my mothers family was wonderful. I suddenly gained loads of cousins (my mother had six brothers and two sisters).
When we were returning to Canada, I felt a selfish regret that we couldn't stay. And my dream of joining the RAF faded.
My father, a para-qualified Light Infantry Officer retired at minimum age (45), and went back to university as a mature student where he gained his second degree. Prior to joining up, he was a qualified chemist (not the pharmacy kind). He had decided to follow in his fathers footsteps and on retirement turn to teaching. Unfortunately, there was a glut of teachers in Canada at the time. So my mother suggested the UK. I was asked if I would mind moving to the UK to live.
Didn't have to chew on that one for long.
To get to the UK, we needed to short haul from Vancouver Island to Vancouver, and the task fell to a Vickers Viscount. Sat at a window seat (they were nice, big windows on Viscount's) I overlooked the port inboard engine. This long, sleek and highly polished unit had an internationally recognisable badge placed to be seen from the windows. The double 'R's of Rolls Royce. I looked at this shining and smooth power unit and told myself that one day I would find out how it worked. That engine was a Dart.
Fast forward a few years, and due to unrelated circumstances, we have the OIC of the 'local' CIO (30 miles away) around for dinner. As we ate at a table Paul and Linda McCartney were familiar with, I was enthralled by this mans reminiscences. About a year or so later, I had decided the time had come. I dropped out of the second year of sixth form, and elected to bypass university. I asked my father to accompany me to the CIO. Mildly surprised, he agreed. The same Flt Lt was in post, and he made my father and I most welcome. It was 1977. After a good catch-up and reasonable coffee and biscuits, he got down to business. He knew me (we had met only the once), he knew my family (ditto), my educational qualifications were more than good enough (minimum requirement of five 'O' Levels including Maths, English, and a Science subject, none of the limp-wristed, airy-fairy Arts subjects) and I exceeded these, healthy, spotlessly clean record. Oh, he talked me up well.
"So you want to be a pilot. No problem. We are recruiting right now, so there will be no delay, what, what did you say?"
I said, I want to join the RAF. I didn't say I want to be a pilot.
Silence...
"Well, what were you thinking of doing?"
I would like to learn how aeroengines work.
"Oh, that's all right then. We train you up completely on them as part of your pilots training".
No, I don't think you understand what I mean. I want to learn down to the last detail how aeroengines work. I would like to be an aircraft engine fitter.
For the next 20 minutes, the Flt Lt and my father tried their hardest to try and persuade me to change my mind. To no avail.
I take it I can always choose to learn to fly once I am already serving?
"Yes, yes, but it would be much easier for you to join as a pilot before you become too old to be selectable".
I'll take my chances on that.
"Well, you will have to wait nine months before the next slot is available for engine fitter training. But you can join up right now to be a pilot. Right now."
Thank you, but I'll wait that nine months. I've waited many years for this.
The aptitude tests I sat were strangely far more intense than the tests my fellow engine fitter trainees sat. Maybe the OIC CIO was being as prepared as possible in case I changed my mind. I didn't.
To this day, I have never regretted this decision, and although I am certain my father was disappointed, he never said so to me.
Camlobe