Ron and a couple of the other members of the squadron were standing clutching their beers as if they had been pole-axed.
“What up?” I asked.
“Bombay’s bloody dry! Some bloke who’s been to the Indian Staff College told us; there’s no bloody booze in the State of Maharashtra”.
We all agreed that if we were going to have a week or so of enforced abstinence we had better start tanking up now.
“What about the chap from 214 Sqn. who had gone to make all the arrangements.
“I know him. He’ll fix something up, there’s no way he will survive out there like that. He could organise a piss-up in a mosque.”
Whist I had been airborne a few more snippets of information had come down. The nine rupees wasn’t changing but they might boost up the laundry allowance to compensate. It had to be that way because we were staying in a hotel and we would have to buy our own food. Bombay was an absolute tip and you can’t even brush your teeth with the water. The Britannia was going to be so full of blokes that all the aircraft spares would have to go in the bomb-bay panniers. They had better be strapped down tightly otherwise the Javelins are going to spend all their time dodging spare wheels and suchlike. We wended on about real and imaginary problems until the bar steward announced that he was closing the bar.
The next morning I went into work at eight-thirty. The Britannia had already arrived with its characteristic silence and was standing on the pan being refuelled. In the crew room the spare crew were lolling about in khaki awaiting nine o’clock when they had to report for the flight. They would be in Bahrain tomorrow morning and they had two days off before their turn came.
We had the routine met briefing and I found out that the crew I had joined had to do a test of the new HDU that had been fitted to our aircraft. No 55 (Victor) Squadron had suddenly found that their in-flight refuelling training programme had been drastically curtailed but they were going to use us to salvage something. The boss hadn’t anything new but he expected to find out a bit more at the station operations brief. Just after that our spare crew lugged their bags over to the Britannia and at about ten the ‘Whispering Giant’ as it was known as took off with hardly a sound from its four turboprop engines. Shortly after it had left our particular Victor used up most of the runway and loads of decibels as its four Sapphires levered it into the air. We weren’t getting airborne until two o’clock so I ran through Brian’s fuel planning to India. It looked fine as far as I could see and as all the co-pilots had cross-referred to each other there was a fairly good chance that it was right.
The flight planning for this trip was minuscule. We were only punching up to Spurn Head and flogging the refuelling racetrack over the North Sea whilst the Victor did its stuff. We couldn’t stay for more than an hour; nor could he because unless he took fuel from us he was going to run short himself. My job was to calculate the take off roll according to the weight of the aircraft. As it was relatively light it was only in the region of 4,500 feet and the three-engine safety speed was before the final stop speed. It was not always the case. In the next few days we were going to spend a long time on runways not being able to stop or take off if we lost an engine. The Valiant acceleration check point, a line across the runway at 1,500 ft, had to be passed at, or in excess of, a calculated speed to prove that the aircraft’s acceleration was normal. That was about the only firm thing you could rely on. This one was about 80knots but 60 was not uncommon. With about an hour to go before take off we changed into our flying kit and boarded the crew bus.
Valiant BKMk1 XD820 was standing alone on the concrete off the perimeter track, pristine in its white anti-flash finish, the inevitable deafening Houchin generating unit running beside it. They were just completing the hose run-out checks and six airmen were vainly tugging at the hose and drogue assembly as it pulled them inextricably under the tail. The crew chief was standing beside the drum, checking that it coiled without any kinks. I clattered up the ladder to the cabin and in there was a sergeant operating the hose from the Nav-radar’s position. As the gauge went to zero there was a clunk as the drogue hit the travel stop and thankfully the Houchin quietened down as it was relieved of a couple of hundred amps.
The Valiant’s cabin was on two levels. The two navigators and AEO sat flying backwards looking at what was known as the coal face. No ejector seats for them. The AEO had the best chance because he was by the door and the poor Nav-Radar had to wait until the other two had gone. Up front the cockpit’s floor was about four feet higher. Two eighty feet per second ejector seats towered over the rear compartment. They had to be big boomers to get you over the tail as they found out when the first person to eject hit the tailplane with a lower powered gun. The seats were 90knots ground level ones but the canopy above them wouldn’t jettison satisfactorily below 120. I picked up the checklist from the AEO’s drawer. Everything was done by challenge-and-response in Bomber Command, even the pre-flight walkround.
We droned around the aircraft confirming that obvious things like engine blanks etc, had been removed. Under the undercarriage bay we confirmed the well being of the two enormous wheels on each unit. The flying controls had electro-hydraulic units that came off the Frazer-Nash gun turret of Second World War vintage. The flaps, two massive barn doors attached to the wings were driven by one motor via a horrific combination of shafts and gearboxes, as were the airbrakes. It had one saving grace. In the last extreme it still had the controls connected to the flying surfaces so it could, uniquely for its size, be flown manually. The walkround completed we went up into the cockpit.
It was a squeeze to get in between the seats to the front. Once sitting on the seat it was comfortable enough as long as the dinghy you were sitting on had been packed properly. You strapped yourself to the parachute and seat separately remembering to connect up the leg restrainers that stopped your feet from flapping around your neck if you were launched into a 600 knot air stream. I had to be especially careful that I strapped myself in tightly. The seat left the end of the triple cartridge gun that telescoped to 8ft at 80ft/sec with a 175lb pilot. I weighed about 155lbs so I was going to go out considerably faster. The rudder bars adjusted conventionally and the flat-bottomed U shaped control wheel could be adjusted for reach. It was mounted on a rod on the side and by pulling out a knob the whole thing could slide forward against the panel out of the way.
We put on our helmets and made sure everybody was on line. Being an all-electric aeroplane all the checks and all the flying functionals could be done with the Houchin before engine start. We closed the bomb doors, did the cockpit checks and the crew chief confirmed that the flying controls and flaps all went the right way. We always started No3 first, probably because it was on the other side of the door. The corresponding throttle was advanced out of the high-pressure gate to ground idle and the captain selected the engine on his start panel and fired it up. The RR Avon 205 was an easy starter and settled down at 3,000 rpm. The other three followed suit, the Houchin would be disconnected and we were ready to go. We stopped at the holding point, checked the take off configuration and when cleared to line up and take off we moved on to the runway.
My job was to look after the engines and call out the relevant speeds. The brakes were man enough to hold the aircraft as I advanced and balanced the engines at 8,000 rpm. I confirmed that everything was as it should be so John released the brakes and at this weight we surged forward. I had one eye on the engines and the other eye awaiting the acceleration checkpoint. As it swept under the nose I looked at my ASI which read 88 knots and called “Up Eight”. Almost immediately afterwards I called “Safety Speed” and at 105 knots which was twenty five before the calculated take off speed I called “Rotate”. John pulled back the control arm smoothly and it got airborne at 130 knots. He called for the undercarriage at about one hundred feet and when that had cleared we pulled up the flaps, pulled back the engines to 7,800 and continued with the rest of the after take off checks.
We settled down at 32,000ft and when we reached Spurn Head we took up the race track to await the Victor. He wasn’t going to be very long so we established 240 knots, opened the bomb doors and streamed the hose. The refuelling basket was a rigid one that looked like a shuttlecock and behaved much the same way. One had to hit it quite firmly to make it work for if you were too gentle the resistance of the valves would drive the hose in.
The Victor came up on the frequency. There was a trial with a Tacan beacon that was fitted to our aircraft, predominately for single seat fighters to find us, and the two AEOs were comparing notes to see if it was working. It apparently was and in a few minutes the Victor drew up beside us. It was the first time for the pilot under training so the instructor was showing him the relative sizes of the tanker and the refuelling gear. In other words he was showing him that he would be practically in the bomb bay. He then fell line astern and having done the preliminaries we cleared him to carry on then sat back and waited.
The pilot under training behind us was a long time bomber pilot and for him to fly in close proximity to another aircraft again was going to take some getting used to. The instructor would formate it just off the drogue to get him used to it and then the pupil would spend at least ten minutes cavorting around it even though it was relatively still. Once he had got used to it then he would be shown the procedure. He asked us for clearance to contact and I switched on the refuelling tanks. The refuelling hose operator cannot see the receiver, not even on a TV. He only knows what is going on via his hose gauge and fuel flow meter.
“Contact.” Paul called, and then commenced a running commentary of what his instruments were telling him. “Five, ten, fifteen, fuel on, three-five, four thousand.”
He had pushed in fifteen feet of hose and was taking fuel at 4,000lbs/min. The Victor then pulled off and asked for some dry contacts.
This time it was the student. “He giving it a nudge, no he’s not. Here he comes; five, ten, five, he’s gone off the end. He’s in again, fivetenfifteentwenty, he’s gone; restreaming.”
When a pilot comes in too fast he invariably goes out so fast that the drum brake comes on and pulls the drogue off. This means that the hose has to be restreamed to its full length. There was a long pause as the Victor flew back to the same airspace as we were using and he tried again. He was getting better and after a couple of sessions holding a reasonable position we were asked to go wet. As the time was being used up it was a good idea and we waited.
Paul started. “He’s in, ten, fifteen, fuel on, four thousand, twenty, twenty-five, twenty, fifteen, twenty.”
He wasn’t the steadiest bloke in the world but for the first time who is. He was now being affected by the increase in weight and was starting to drag out. He overcorrected and came roaring in.
“Thirty, thirty-five.”
I didn’t need to listen; I could see by my control spectacles that he was in close.
“He’s lost it; his probes gone, fuel going off.”
With that Paul hit the stop switch on the pump. The sudden rise in the flow rate to 5,000 plus told Paul that the hose was pumping fuel through an open probe valve into empty air. What had happened was that the Victor had got so close that with a combination of concern and his tailplane coming into our jet wash he had pushed down and taken off the probe end.
A call from the Victor, “We’ve lost our probe, I’m afraid.”
He had seen it before but the new bloke must have been terrified watching a drogue dancing in front of his windscreen shovelling fuel at 5,500 lbs/min all over the cockpit.
There was no harm done, more pride than anything. He was not the first and not going to be the last. We went through the various checks. The hose had to be streamed for twenty minutes to ensure that when it was wound in there was not any fuel in it to deposit itself in our bomb bay. Whilst this was going on I brought the transfer tank on to the fuselage group. I left the bomb bay tank for the port underwing so I could get rid of it at the top of descent jettison checks. By the time the bomb bay doors had been closed up we were approaching the descent point known as REP3 (Radar entry point, thirty thousand feet).