Danny misses his Chance to become a (minor) Celebrity (Part I)
It was almost lunchtime and "slack water" in ATC. The pangs of hunger had driven all our flyboys over to the Mess (I was feeling a bit peckish myself), and there was "nothing on the board" to trouble Approach. All was quiet and peaceful. Too peaceful by half, I thought, as I felt the old itch between my shoulder-blades that warns of the arrow that's coming.
Surely enough, a phone trilled. It was the Emergency Service. It seemed that a lone US "Voodoo" in our area had suddenly developed a massive fuel leak, the pilot could almost see his fuel gauges moving down. He had to be got on the ground ASAP (or even sooner) before all went quiet in the engineroom and they had to bang-out. I do not know the Voodoo, but suppose he'd flamed one out. We were the nearest suitable airfield, he was only thirty miles away, they'd pointed him in our direction, would we kindly take him off their hands ?
Action Stations ! We were now all using the ARC-52, so: "put him over to our Approach", I said. He duly complied, and we exchanged salutations and I told him (callsign forgotten) what we had to offer. Tony H. on Approach had him on CA/DF at once, his heading was good and he should be in clear sight of Leeming in a few moments. We didn't need Radar, for the important question now was not "how far ?" but "how long ?"
I confirmed to Emergency that we had their man, alerted Local, they brought crash vehicles to instant readiness (for anything could happen). Our chap was quite high (15,000 ft, IIRC) and was wisely hanging onto every inch, until he was pretty well on top of us and could risk coming down. "Field in sight, 12 o'clock !"......"Over to Local on 290.2" (now why do I remember that, when I can't remember any other UHF frequency apart from 243.0 ?). Job done ! It was "in the bag" now (barring accidents).
Tony laid his headset on the desk: "Can I go up and see him come in ? " I'd been intending to do that myself (if the worst happened, the more good witnesses for the BoI, the better). On the face of it, there was absolutely no reason why he should not. We could both go up; Radar (Approach qualified, of course) could easily look after the shop on his own. But somewhere in the depths of my brain a little red light flickered (I've never known why). "You stay where you are !", I growled, rather curtly. Tony looked surprised and a bit hurt (so was I at my reaction).
No more than thirty seconds later he was back with us. They'd lost the airfield ! Five tenths blue and unlimited vis, and they'd lost the airfield ! "Where the Hell has he gone ?", I demanded of Local: "Didn't you keep an eye on him ?" ... "He was wide and high downwind for 34, went behind a bit of cloud, then he just sort of disappeared" was the unhappy reply.
Meanwhile the Voodoo was thrashing about all the over the place, they weren't far away, so our CA/DF trace was leaping about like a fish in a creel. Radar couldn't help Tony much: even with MTI out to 20 miles, the whole Vale of York was crawling with Bloggs all the time in those days, all going in different directions at different heights, and nobody looking out of the window much (hence the popular civil designation: "Death Valley").
His fuel needles were on zero now, every second counted. We couldn'd dare send him back to 243 or spend any time on identification turns. Somehow Tony lassoed him and brought him back a second time. This time he stuck to the circuit like glue - but all of us in Approach froze like statues in our positions. What next ?
A few moments later came the Happy Ending. His fuel gauges were underreading (no bad thing), the tyres were on the tarmac; they were safe - he even had enough left to come round the taxiway and onto the Servicing Platform before shutting down.
Tony and I looked at each other wordlessly, thinking of what might have happened if !'d said "yes" two minutes before, and we'd started out as soon as we'd passed him to local the first time. We'd have been half-way up the stairs and been caught flat-footed when he went adrift.
Radar would jump across into Tony's position as soon as he learned what had happened - but how long might that take ? Tony's headset was on the desk, I don't think we had a monitor on Approach. Radar would possibly not hear the Voodoo calling again until he put a monitor on frequency; as he'd nothing on his plate (as he'd think), he'd see no need to hurry.
It would not until we strolled into Local and met the horrified gaze of the Controller that we'd all realise that the Voodoo was swanning around under nobody's control. Of course Tony (or I) woud jump onto the slave D/F console at once - but it was possible that the pilot, unable to raise us on Approach, had by then come back over on Local, who'd send him back to Approach ....... And all the time the vital seconds which we were wasting would be ticking away. The result might well have been an avoidable disaster for which we would have been wholly to blame.
Now of course all this was pure supposition, it didn't happen, did it, because I'd said "No", and that was the correct answer. So that's all right then ?
Well, perhaps not quite. The tale has a twist in it - (the Title hints of it). Part II follows in a day or so.
Goodnight, all.
Danny42C.
Great Oaks from little Acorns grow.
Last edited by Danny42C; 10th Sep 2014 at 21:56.
Reason: EDIT. Spacing.