To NZ, part 2
OK Danny, Icare9 et al, here's part 2. Next up will go back a few years in time, with memories of that gentle giant the Beverley.
For the night of the 24th. our crew was lodged with various local families, and I found myself in an attractive modern house overlooking Wellington where I was pampered and over-fed by my hospitable middle-aged hosts. Next day our sequence was due fairly early in the day's events and had already been cleared with the airport authorities. As I recall, we made two fly-pasts at low level, one slow with everything hanging down and one fast; this latter at VNE and then throttles to idle approaching the airfield, thus providing a silent passage in contrast to the din of the jets. Aided by a low all-up weight the landing run was satisfyingly short, and by remaining in reverse idle after coming to rest the Britannia's backwards-taxy capability was convincingly demonstrated to the appreciation of a large crowd.
With this over I was free to watch the larger part of the programme yet to follow. For the locals, one of the highlights was to be the Vulcan display which it was hoped would terminate with a full-stop landing. Normally the runway would have been considered a bit on the short side, but given the aircraft's low fuel load and the typically Wellington weather on the day itself - a gusty breeze, fortunately from the north and straight down the runway - no problem was anticipated in stopping with the aid of a drag 'chute. The Vulcan duly appeared, following its sequence with a couple of roller landings the second of which was nicely judged and could easily have become a full-stop had the 'chute been streamed. But rather to my surprise the throttles went forward again and the B1 climbed away for a third arrival, the PA system announcing that this would be its final landing. Right from the start the approach looked wrong, very draggy and far too flat, and I watched with increasing unease, well aware that the vertical distance between the pilot's eye level and his mainwheels was far greater than usual given the very high angle of attack - a dangerous trap indeed in view of his excessively flat approach. Indeed it became patently obvious that even if he made the runway it would be a very close-run thing, and I willed him to take remedial action before it was too late; in vain, for a shower of dirt flew up as the mainwheels touched in the short undershoot area and with deceleration the Vulcan tilted increasingly to the left during its landing run, the main leg's drag link fractured due to the bogie impacting the runway's raised lip.
With nil support on the port side, the stricken Vulcan continued a leftwards veer which I saw to my horror would take it into the public enclosure. Just in time, with wingtip almost scraping the hard stuff, one correct decision was taken and the throttles slammed forward so that it roared back into the air with fuel streaming from a ruptured tank. Apprehensively I watched clouds of kerosene mist swirling about in the jet efflux, and waited for the seemingly inevitable explosion which thankfully never came; however, had the fuel been JP4 rather than avtur it might well have been a very different story but as it was the Vulcan disappeared slowly into the distance, heading back to Ohakea.
The display continued, in fact the RNZAF seemed determined to provide the crowd with further thrills when one of their Sunderlands made an extremely low pass; pushing his luck somewhat I thought, watching it disappear momentarily behind a low building between me and the runway. However its tail fin remained visible, and I was intrigued to notice that this suddenly dipped out of sight and then reappeared a second or two later. There followed some rather excitable comment from the PA which I failed to pick up, but subsequently learned that the flying boat had encountered what old timers would call an air pocket and thus scraped its keel on the runway. This had somehow started a fire in the bilges and, following futile in-flight attempts at extinguishment during the short hop back to its Auckland base, the pilot alighted as near to the shore as possible in hope of reaching the slipway before foundering - in which he was unsuccessful, thus depleting his air force of one of its few remaining Sunderlands. So altogether the airport's opening could only be considered somewhat inauspicious, although the crowd had had the benefit of some unscheduled thrills at no extra cost (to them, anyway).
At the end of the day we ferried XL638 back to Ohakea where the crippled Vulcan squatted ignominiously on the grass, its pilot having to some extent redeemed himself by carrying out a well-executed arrival on nose and right legs only. Six days remained of our sojourn in NZ, I cannot remember why so many but fancy that delayed arrival of a replacement Vulcan might have had something to do with it as, for 617, the whole global flight was some sort of training exercise. We had no complaints, for there was the matter of a pressing invitation from a local farmer.
I think that we were first introduced to Pat Gilchrist at some hospitality function in the area farmers' club, to which we were later invited to return on a more casual basis. This was of course long before the Antipodean nations liberalised their archaic drinking laws, the basic and very dismal pubs offering only the horrors of the notorious "six o'clock swill", and so the facility of a private club was more than welcome. To comply with the law it was not possible to order individual drinks over the bar; instead members had their private lockers (it was of of course a male-only club) in which were kept such bottles as they themselves supplied with the barkeep's sole function being to provide glasses and ice. Again, memory fails me as to how we managed to stand our round under such a system, but suspect that bottles were obtained from the officers' mess and then passed on (probably illegally) to our friends.
Anyway, Pat invited several of us to stay overnight on his sheep farm some miles away. Fairly remote, with only a couple of other farms distantly visible, by the UK standards of those days the house was luxurious to a degree and the farm itself looked very well equipped. Some friends had been invited to the evening meal and we were promised a good feast of local produce, but in the event pre-dinner drinking went on so long that the excellent joint of meat was done to a frazzle by the time we got to table. Local hospitality being what it was, this was unfortunately not the only occasion when similar waste of good food occurred - I fear that New Zealand women of that era had to put up with a lot!
As a gesture of appreciation for all that had been done for us, on the 28th XL638 provided a two-hour tour of local sights that included Mt.Egmont and Lake Taupo among other attractions; it also enabled us to thoroughly check the aircraft and its equipment prior to the long flight home via the Pacific and USA. For all but a very few of our passengers this was their first flight in a turbine-engined aircraft, so they were much taken with the Britannia's smoothness and relative silence. Particularly impressive was the demonstration of standing a coin on edge in order to show the lack of vibration, however it did help to use a coin with a good edge; we also ensured a slight and surreptitious increase of prop rpm prior to the demo!
Our final event was to be part of the static line-up at Ohakea's own open day, where XL638 attracted much interest and favourable comment as the largest and newest aircraft on show; all day long a straggling queue waited for their turn to have a look inside. The flying display was without incident, although the only thing I recall was one of the USAF visitors going supersonic by request, which shows how long ago it all was. It was less exciting than might be imagined, because in those far-off days very few aircraft were able to exceed Mach 1 in level flight and so it was necessary for him to climb to a vast height and then dive towards us from afar; all we knew of it was a loud double bang, the aircraft remaining invisible.
Bidding me farewell on the first day of November, the Station Commander bade us return "at any time; you guys are always welcome, but for pity's sake don't bring the other lot”! His actual words were rather more forceful, and I had frequent cause to remember them on the way home as we experienced further contretemps in addition to what had transpired so far, but that is no part of this tale.
ADDENDUM:
This was not only the first proper route trip for any of us in a Britannia, it was also the first lengthy flight of any description undertaken by an RAF specimen. The aircraft performed flawlessly, the only problem that I recall being with a flap motor that was rectified outbound at Akrotiri. At that time the familiar rigid procedure for use of cowl heat (the engine anti-ice system unique to the RAF Britannia) had yet to be formulated, and the only guidance we had was to use it (as I recall) in "visible icing conditions". Luckily we encountered no such conditions during the entire circumnavigation, which was probably just as well in view of the Proteus engine's notorious susceptibility to icing; even EGV heat had only to be used once or twice. Also, the engine problems that were to come in the New Year lay in the future, so we were spared having to drag our way round the world at a miserable 11350 crpm even if we were limited to 11500; a few years passed before uprated turbine blades allowed us use of the full 11650 for climb & cruise.