Somewhere around the 23/24 January, 1967 a Beverly flew us, (a Pongo Air Troop with Bell47G helicopters), from Gutersloh to El Adem.
I was in the nose all the way down the Rhone Valley but had to go back to my seat for the landing in Nice, where we had lunch, (naturally!!!), after which we proceded to Malta for the night stop.
The memory of the Malta-El Adem leg is a bit dim as we must have eaten some bad food whilst down 'The Gut' the night before!
In El Adem we off loaded and disappeared into the desert for about a month.
We flew back around the 20th/23rd February via Idris, in Libya, Malta having closed to us due the UK's announced intention to pull out of the Naval base. We night stopped at Nice on the way back - perfect!!!

Remember seeing the Beverly in action in Aden 1963/64, arriving fully laden but departing fairly empty from an up-country airstrip, did a very impressive 'beat-up' of the strip on it's way back to Khormaksar.

I flew in one ex Thorney Island whilst I was youthfull Observer, on AE Duty, and I remember if the old grey cells are still there, being in the Flight deck during taxi. There was something that looked like a large Billiard ball on the console, which, when pulled up had a long square section attached and the whole thing folded Backwards to form a tiller. That was attached to the nosewheel, and steered the beast. Just like sailing a dinghy. the whole aeroplane could be called an old man's aeroplane, inasmuch as the switches were huge, and the dials were twice as big as normal.!! No wonder a few ended up as restaurants. There used to be a theory that this was how and why they were designed, but half way through building, they found that there were a shortage of transport caffs, so it was remustered as an aircraft.

Taildragger
Yes, the Bev was somewhat 'agricultural' in the controls department. That retractable tiller meant that, initially only the captain could taxy the beast. The right hand seat guy was essentially a flaps and power setter - not even the gear to take care of! After a few years of service the 'fully integrated co-pilot' was introduced and in order to give them complete control access, an even more 'agricultural' add-on was made to the tiller to allow steering control from the rhs. 'Heath-Robinson' would have been proud!:)

I have only just found this thread and it has brought back so many memories. I would like to start off by correcting a lot of the inaccuracies in previous posts with reference to the fatal crash of Beverley XH117/Z of 53 Squadron near Abingdon on 5 March 1957.

The aircraft took-off at 1102Z headed for Cyprus as "Rafair 3052".
Apart from the 53 Squadron crew of 6, there were also 4 crew members from 47 Squadron on board deadheading to Cyprus and 8 RAF policemen and their dogs. The aircraft was also carrying freight.

Just after take-off a serious fuel leak developed in the vicinity of No. 1 engine and because of the serious risk of fire the engine had to be shut down. An immediate BABS letdown back to Abingdon was initiated but at 1,000 ft on finals No. 2 engine also failed. The aircraft immediately lost height and eventually struck a set of power cables and some elm trees before cart-wheeling into a row of houses at Sutton Wick, Drayton just 2 miles south of the airfield.

Four of the 53 Squadron crew (captain, navigator, signaller and aqm) died in the accident. The 2nd pilot and the other navigator were badly injured. Three of the 47 Squadron crew died (2nd pilot, signaller and aqm). The 47 Squadron captain was badly injured. All 8 RAF policemen and their dogs perished as did two civilians on the ground. Another civilian was injured.

The accident was caused by a non-return valve in the No. 1 port fuel tank which had been fitted back-to-front and this had caused the massive fuel leak around No.1 engine and the starvation of fuel to No. 2 engine. The crew most certainly did not shut down the wrong engine - they didn't even touch it!

The 53 Squadron 2nd pilot was badly burned in the accident but did recover from his injuries and got back to the squadron. Sadly he died not long afterwards when his MG hit a bridge one night. The last known survivor of the accident (the 47 Squadron captain) died a few years ago.

If any of you out their need to know the names of the people involved I will happily forward the details if you contact me by email through the pprune system.

2500:

If you are the nephew of one of those on board XH117, I will be happy to send you 2 photographs of the crash. Not long ago I did just that for the relatives of one of the policemen. Contact me as above.

Cornish Jack:

I think it was quite unfair and unkind of you to twice state that the crew shut down the wrong engine. They did nothing of the sort. The second engine failed due to fuel starvation.

Have you any idea what sort of effect your statement could have on a surviving relative if he were read your statement and think that all those people died because his father/brother/uncle was careless or negligent? How on earth could the crew in the time available to them have known that an airman had fitted a vital non-return valve back to front? Could you have done any better? I think an apology would be nice.

In fact, I think your memory is altogether a little bit defective. It was a 53 Squadron aircraft and not a 47 Squadron one. The aircraft did not crash into the dog pound at Abingdon and the crew did not shut down the wrong engine.

Moving on to flight engineers; I am their No.1 fan and I wish every aeroplane had one. You say that they appeared on the Beverley as a result of this crash. My records show that the first flight engineer did not appear on 53 Squadron until June 1959 which is more than 2 years later. At first they didn't even have a proper seat but had to sit in a fold-up film director's chair!

My information is that they were originally left off the Beverley for only very short flights were anticipated and it was felt that the two pilots could cope. Ten hour flights then became common and the co-pilot often had to dash off to hand-pump oil into the engines. Basically two pilots could not cope safely with flights of this duration so they posted flight engineers in. In any event, the presence of a flight engineer on the flight deck of XH117 would not have made the slightest difference.

Ending on a lighter note I sadly only got to fly the Beverley twice (El Adem - Bomba - El Adem on Exercise Triplex West in October 1963). I talked my way into the right seat of a 47 Squadron machine and it would be fair to say that I had to buy some beer to oil the process!

I had a good briefing beforehand especially on how to get the thing into reverse for I was going to have to do that at Bomba. Anyway, out came the famous tiller from the centre console and Fred the captain steered us out onto the runway. At 50 knots the rudders were working so he handed over control. I simply could not believe how light the controls were. The great lumbering beast had power controls so you could fly it with your fingertips. My usual machine was the Whistling Wheelbarrow and that was very heavy by comparison. Fred took over on finals at Bomba and put it down on the sand strip calling for reverse and "Plus 4". I was quite impressed by the sandstorm that we created.

It was to be the same deal on the way back but this time I was to be allowed to do the landing. Just as we were starting the first engine, the aqm called upstairs and said that he had an RAF Sqn Ldr downstairs who needed to get back El Adem urgently. No problem says Fred, send him up. We carried on starting engines and the Sqn Ldr sat down at the back of the flight deck, plugged into intercom and strapped in. To my horror I suddenly realised that he was one of the Trappers from the Transport Comand Examining Unit. Now Fred didn't know the guy from a bar of soap but I did for TCEU was at Benson where I was based and said Trapper knew who I was too.

This was not a good situation. I couldn't tell Fred for the Sqn Ldr was on intercom. To make it worse, I stood out like dog's b*lls with my blue Airmed headset ( the Beverley chaps wore big black Amplivox headsets). Anyway, we duly did the 50 knots bit on take-off and so I flew back to El Adem. The landing was not exactly smooth but then the Beverley was very strong.

The Sqn Ldr disappeared downstairs and I promptly told Fred that we were in the sh*t and why. There were sad faces all round. I went down and found the Trapper underneath the wing. "What the hell are you doing in a Beverley?" said he. "I always fancied flying one, Sir" said I. "Well" he said "I am having a bad day too for I have just walked out of a blazing Belvedere which had an engine fire after take-off and it is no longer". He strode off and I never heard another thing about it but it did make me realise that it could be useful to be in the right kind of aircraft when next the Trappers appeared unexpectedley!

Mr_Grubby:

I have just read your query about the story surrounding the ferry flight of XH122 of 84 Squadron from Khormaksar (Aden) back to UK. Now I cannot be totally certain that XH122 was the aircraft involved but I certainly know the story.

Like everyone else in Aden, 84 Squadron had a "hangar queen". (This was usually an unserviceable aeroplane which sat up on jacks in the hangar and had bits robbed from it until spares could be got from UK). Eventually just enough bits would be hung on the hangar queen to get it back to UK for a major overhaul.

In the case of 84 Squadron, they had a Beverley which had been grounded and had been categorised as Cat 5 (scrap). This had come about because crews had started to complain of strange noises and it was discovered that the mainspar attachment points were badly worn.

When our wonderful government decided that we were going to pull out of Aden, the Station Commander made it known that he wanted little left behind and that included 84's hangar queen. The engineers had another look at it and decided that the wings were not actually going to fall off (at least not yet) and it was cleared for another 5 landings or so - just enough to get it back to Bicester for scrapping.

Needless to say, crews were not exactly queueing up to do this trip so the carrot was dangled that if they agreed to take it back, they could put their cars and personal effects in the back for the journey to UK.

Although it had many defects and was leaking oil everywhere, all went well until they went to leave Luqa on the last leg home. The Chiefie from VASF informed the captain that his young Sqn Ldr had grounded the old girl and that was that. The captain sent for the Sqn Ldr and asked him to show him where exactly it said that he could ground an aircraft which had already been categorised as Cat 5 (scrap)!!!!

Needless to say, there was no answer to this bizarre stand off so 30 minutes later they were on there way back to UK. I would guess the timing to be around August/September 1967.

The final withdrawal of 84 Squadron Beverleys from Aden came in the first week of November 1967. One of my mates came out of a thunderstorm going up the Red Sea on 2 engines and had to throw it on the ground in Jeddah. I took 2 replacement Centaurus engines down to him in XP412 on 8 November. His aircraft was "U" of 84 Squadron and the groundcrew had added to it so that it showed "UK or Bust" in bloody great letters and there was graffiti everywhere else over the fuselage for it was not expected to land anywhere but an RAF airfield and here it was in the middle of an international civil airport! My mate was pleased to see me for I think he found his modified aircraft to be something of an embarrassment at the time.

I believe that one of the other aircraft (flown by the boss?) also lost an engine in a thunderstorm, had part of the windscreen come in and was also closely visited by Egyptian Air Force Migs passing Cairo. They landed safe but very wet in El Adem.

JW411
Thank you for your input. I note your info re. the Abingdon accident. This is somewhat at odds with the version which was extant when I did the OCU in '58. However the incorporation of FEs was a follow-up to that accident.
If you feel that I have been offensive in my postings, I offer unreserved apologies to anyone who sees it that way.There was no intention on my part to denigrate the crew involved - I have lost far too many colleagues on the Bev as well as other types to try offering 'smart-arse' 20-20 hindsight. I was making the point that, without the subsequently fitted torquemeters, a failed engine could not be easily identified. The FEs were added to monitor these instruments and the delay was about the norm for a 'mod' of that sort.
Defective memory?? You may well be right. One of the accompaniments of advancing years, however, not so defective that it would have failed to note a "co-pilot often dashing off to hand pump oil to the engines" Not that I ever recalled... Pre FEs it was the Signaller's job and post FE's it was theirs , or, more often, shared.
Fascinating parallel with your TCEU experience but this was to do with a Friday night 'get back for the weekend' to Dishforth from Abingdon. This time the 'gods' made a last minute intervention to keep the 'trappers' away from us.

:D

'Trappers'

I apologise for my aircrew type ignorance gentlemen but do I suppose that Trappers, as per the last two comments, are one and the same as Check Pilots, if this was the case did having these CP's on the flight deck make you guys ever so slightly nervous?

Cornish Jack:

I thank you for your reply. I'm sorry that I had to say what I did but I have learned the hard way that you have to be very careful what you say or you stand a great risk of badly offending someone.

My information comes from a precis of the official accident report produced after the Board of Inquiry and obtained from Air Historical Branch. It is quite possible that all of this information was not yet published or available when you did the OCU but I would have thought that the guts of the matter would have filtered down the grapevine by word of mouth.

I'm still a little bit at a loss to understand how the fitment of torque gauges or the presence of a flight engineer would have changed the price of bread when it came to the demise of XH117.
The first engine was deliberately shut down by the crew because of an observed massive fuel leak in the immediate vicinity of the engine. Now then, I went solo in 1957 and haven't flown since 2230Z last night and that decision still seems to me to be very sensible.

How were they to know that the neighbouring engine was going to quit a short time later due to fuel starvation. Once again I can't imagine that the presence of a torque gauge or a flight engineer would have solved that particular problem.

Anyway, I don't know much about the Centaurus but I did have some experience of the Hercules. I can well remember the ground school instructor saying that the definition of a genius was a man who could describe and explain the sleeve valve principle without the aid of a working model or a blackboard!

John (Gary) Cooper:

Some of the Trappers were fine but a hell of a lot of them in those days were not. They were aptly named. A lot of trapping went on and precious little teaching and they could be very political animals.

They could turn up without any notice wherever you might be at the time. I can remember one guy in particular. He got on in Cyprus and did not get off until Hong Kong. By that time I felt as if I had done the equivalent of 4 CAA instrument ratings and around 6 sets of ATPL writtens! I swear the guy used to sit in his room at night picking the wings off butterflies!

JW411
Thank you. It does not surprise me in the least that the crewroom version of (even relevant) events emerge as 'Chinese Whispers'. Just to try to clarify my point - there was no intended criticism of the crew or their decisions. The lack of torquemeters was, apparently, considered to make identification of a failed engine difficult. The PRESENCE of t/ms was considered to be a worthwhile 'mod' and, thus, was incorporated. An already full instrument panel meant that siting required an extra pair of eyes able to scan them - hence the FEs (yes, and their 'director's chairs). The later, more permanent installation was in true Bev tradition - that of the 'brick-built outhouse'.
J(G)C
As JW says, the 'Trappers' were many and varied. They all generated a preceding period of concern and their remit was to check both ground (technical) competence as well as flight checks.
Not being the brightest tool in the woodshed, I used to find their visits very worrying. One (Chinese Whisper??) version of a Q and A session by one of their Signaller checkers supposedly included the question - "How can you distinguish the positive terminal of a battery?" After all the more obvious answers, meters, labelling, size etc. the candidate gave in and was rewarded with the information that , if a potato is applied to the positive terminal it turns black. (No, I have never been so anorak-ish as to check the validity!!:) )Included in all of these sessions was one devoted to the varied survival scenarios. The same candidate was asked for sources of food while surviving at sea. "Fish and chips" came the reply. "Chips???, from where", asked the puzzled 'trapper'. ......
You are ahead of me, aren't you?:)

Cornish Jack:

I do like the black potato story! I suppose we are drifting off topic as is usual on pprune but the daftest question I was ever asked was posed by a Sqn Ldr Trapper from CFS when I was learning to fly the Vampire.

I was asked what the longest single piece of metal on the aircraft was. Needless to say, I got the answer wrong. What he wanted to hear was - the generator windings! I have never been able to work out the relevance of this wonderful and deeply thought out piece of information! It certainly has never helped me in my subsequent flying career.

JW411:
I read an 'I learnt about Flying from That' in Air Clues once an article from a QFI who had asked a nervous JP student that same question, as they were taxying out. Having guessed the spar and the longerons he was told to forget it.

When they were lined up on the runway the student was puzzled about why, when he opened the throttle, the jet wouldn't roll. After several attempts to take off he admitted he was stumped. The QFI said "The reason we're not moving is that I've got my feet on the brakes, because I'm concerned that we have 100 feet of useable runway in front of us and six thousand feet behind". The moral being don't ask daft questions at inappropriate moments

Tangmere 1963

http://www.btinternet.com/~simon.gur.../Beverleys.jpg

Mr G.