Many thanks for all the stroies and the 'that was almost us' moments. When I first became a pax (almost exactly 49 years ago) the VC10 still had sextents of course. I recall seeing them when getting my Junior Jet Club Log Book signed and visiting the flight deck!
I'd like to quote a navigation story from WWII, as it seems relevant and I certainly don't need to start another thread. This is a small extract from my father's (out of print) book Pursuit Through Darkened Skies: An Ace Night-fighter Crew in WWII (Airlife's Classics) by Michael Allen DFC (Author) Publisher: The Crowood Press Ltd.
My father became a specialist Radar and Radio Operator working with Fl Sgt Harry White Sgt Harry White [later] Air Commodore White CBE, AFC, DFC and 2 Bars on the 'Night Intruder' role - but that was to come. At one stage they were temporaril attached to a delivery unit to ferry new Beaus to Cairo. This is much abbreviated and here to illustrate the problems of navigating the desert in 1943 ...
By the 11th February 1943 we had picked up a brand new Beaufighter from Bristol’s factory at Filton and were flying it round the Irish Sea on a fuel consumption test. This lasted for 5.05hrs and we then took it back into Lyneham, to prepare for our departure to the Mediterranean. Collecting the Beau from Filton was rather like buying a new car - without having to pay for it! At Lyneham we learned that we were going to fly Beaufighter V8646 out to Cairo as part of the reinforcement programme for the Beaufighter Squadrons in the Middle East.
Our route out would start at Portreath on the North Cornish coast and then via Gibraltar; French North Africa; Libya (recently liberated by the 8th Army); Cyreniaca and on to LG 224 at Cairo. We would probably be going in company with four or five other Beaus, although not in formation.
We left Lyneham on the 19th February in V8646 and headed South West for Portreath on the North Cornish Coast. At 8.05 hrs. on the following morning we set off for Gibraltar. With a good Met. forecast we passed over The Scillies and turned South across the Bay of Biscay for Cape Finisterre. My Log Book reads:-
Hit Finisterre on the dot and then plain sailing i.e. flying down the Portuguese Coast, outside Territorial Waters and turning Left, when we got to the Mediterranean. All of us landed within 10 minutes of each other. Our flying time was 5.40 hrs.
We had a day in Gib, feeling very important and cocky having made it and completing the first 1,000 miles of our journey to Cairo without any hitches. On the 22nd we took off from the strip at Gibraltar and set course for the French North African Coast and a place called Blida, I wrote as follows:-
Met. w/v [wind velcocity] - given to us at GIB - not so good. P.P. on Tenes, then saw Algiers before going in. What a BL**DER of a place. Flying time 2.55 hrs.
We flew on the following morning, climbing over the Atlas Mountains and, although our destination was the recently captured Italian airfield at Tripoli, we had to fly a dog leg out over the Desert. This was to keep us and our new aeroplane clear of the fighting which was still going on, as the 1st and 8th Armies advanced to squeeze the Germans out of Africa.
Our route lay via Touggart and Gaadames to Castel Benito, but I don’t recall seeing either of these two places. The trip took us 4.55 hrs. but there is no mention in my Log Book of the struggle I had with the sheaf of maps I had picked up at Gib and my efforts to distinguish a Second Class Camel Track from a First Class Camel Track, as we cruised at 8,000 ft. over the Sahara Desert … and thought perhaps we should have joined the French Foreign Legion with Beau Geste and his brothers rather than the RAF.
I should mention, for the uninitiated, that a First Class Camel Track was shown on our maps with two dotted lines, whereas the other had only one dotted line. They looked fine on the map but when I looked down from my cupola in the back of the Beau, I saw neither tracks nor camels!