roving
April 8th 1968, tomorrow's local flying programme appears in Nav Ldr's office - shock horror! A day slot showing FEAF SASO AVM Le Cheminant paired with the OC Changi, Grp Capt Merriman for famil' with the "Mighty C130"!
Older wiser and more senior navs beat a hasty retreat, claiming all sorts of sickness. Lowly 21 year old Plt Off B48N is not quick enough and lo and behold his name fills the vacant nav' slot. The same thing happened when the night programme appeared.
2 weeks before, I had been 'chosen' from a cast of 21 navs to fill the slot when the trappers arrived from UK and Sqn Ldr Mike Nash ( top man ,sadly RIP ) was programmed to carry out Grp Capt Merriman's day & night cat'.
I like to think that I impressed the Staish so much that he asked for me personally when the time came to show SASO 48's new machine - only joking!!!
As it turned out I discovered that Staish had done an exchange tour with the USAF on Hercs' before the RAF got theirs, so he was the most experienced pilot on type at Changi. Sir P Le C seemed to enjoy flying the beast and I guessed was a very competent if somewhat rusty pilot. His visual approaches seemed to be quite low and many years later when I bought his memoir I found out why - he was an ex- Sunderland driver.
Last edited by Brian 48nav; 1st Nov 2017 at 08:30.
Reason: spelling