Nimrod War Stories

[Wokkafans]

Top effort

Will to survive defies the sea Nimrod crew pay tribute to fisherman's superhuman effort to pull himself on to liferaft - Herald Scotland | Sport | SPL | Aberdeen

[AnglianAV8R]

Phew!

Please pardon my interjection as a mere civvy PPL, but that is bl**dy fantastic. Spotting a single body in the ocean swell !!! Just fantastic and I can't bring it in myself to forgive Cameron for throwing away such a vital skill set. To all of you who served, I know you had some great times and even got paid for it, but your skills were sincerely appreciated by a lot of us non military folk. There isn't a lot in modern Britain that makes you proud and it was that sort of story that would boost morale

[TaccoHell]

In fact, one of the CXX roof painters was a red-headed Nav and former dentist. Bob Joseph, who was then OC206 helped deflect some of the ire by pointing out that. as 120 had recently won an award for tactical excellence, the new roof was an homage to CXX Tactical Sword, and not in any way an insult.

Guilty your honour! Along with J*m E****ll. We almost fell off the roof from laughing. I wish I'd kept a copy of Bob Joseph's letter, it was genius.

[Riskman]

This is taking nostalgia to extremes. How did you do it?

http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/de...p2011-0602.doc

(For the mystified - search on Kinloss)

R

[Hoots]

Lots of dinghy's dropped for the Sonia Nancy late 1990's will need to check log book, by two nimrod's, was 4 jan. Sea king crew were immense getting 10 guys off rapidly with radalt varying 100ft due to the sea state. Sure was a stormy few days, MV oak just a few days before on new years day lost part of it's load and limped to shelter listing badly. Happy days.

[Rossian]

I'm sure that ...

.....will come up with the full details, but a certain pipe smoking Yorkshire captain dropped ALL his ASR and dinghy pairs to a crew who were unwilling to jump into the sea. As they turned back to see the position of the last drop and ran in the ship just rolled over and all were lost.
ISTR it was a Korean crewed grain carrier. As I say someone will put me right.

The Ancient Mariner

[Seymour Belvoir]

Rossian,

ISTR the Korean bulk carrier was the Cecil Angola (sp?).

I remember being amazed that despite what happens in the pool drills, all the MS10s inflated the right way up!

[Pontius Navigator]

Fascinating and awesome.

I recall being asked by Group Weapons in the late '70s if ASR was still required as they were running out of stores and wondered whether to order newkit.

[letsgoandfly]

Riskman, please clarify the point you're trying to make.

Otherwise, numerous SAR ops without dropping ASR or dinghy pairs, always wondered how an ops load 0 would be received upon return!

[Not Long Here]

I suspect Riskman is referring to the list of stolen property which includes an aircraft fuselage nicked from Kinloss

[ANAPROP]

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

Very soon after airborne out of Sig when the No2 gulped its oil and had to be shut down. Eng still going through the checks when we get a"rib 2 overheat" on the other side. Immediate actions include throttle back the engines on that side. So heavy and on one engine, we were going down...

Co-pilot puts out the mayday to Sig ATC, Eng runs the checks...

Fortunately, once the air supply leavers were shut, the problem went away and the engines could be throttled up, but for a few moments...

[kevnurse]

Very soon after airborne out of Sig when the No2 gulped its oil and had to be shut down. Eng still going through the checks when we get a"rib 2 overheat" on the other side. Immediate actions include throttle back the engines on that side. So heavy and on one engine, we were going down...

Co-pilot puts out the mayday to Sig ATC, Eng runs the checks...

Fortunately, once the air supply leavers were shut, the problem went away and the engines could be throttled up, but for a few moments...

As a "War Sory", thats a very serious incident that you are describing: a heavy 4-jet ac powered only by one engine and "we were going down.." I feel that I must comment. Either your flight deck crew went against all their training or you are mistaken. I prefer to believe the latter.

Firstly, no issues about the oil system failure. If the indications required a shut down, so be it.

The immediate actions for a Rib 2 overheat do not include throttling back the engines on the affected side. In fact, the requirement is for them to be left untouched if possible (probably at high power, if "very soon after airborne"). Ultimately, at a later stage in the drill, one of the engines might have needed to be throttled back, but only when it would have been appropriate to the overriding need to fly the aircraft safely. In this case, throttling one engine all the way back to idle, while another one was shut down, would have been a serious mistake. A slight reduction in power (usually to approx 90% HPRPM) to extinguish the warning, then dump fuel to a safe 2 engine operating weight (20 minutes) and finally idle/shut down the engine, would have been the airmanship answer. If you were going down, it was because the P1 woud have recognised that he would have to descend due to the loss of the 1st engine and the probable reduction in power on another one. At no time were you in danger. The mayday call was probably due to the "SOP" that when overseas the crew will get the attention of the ATC controller and receive their immediately required revised clearances without any language difficulties.

I cannot believe that the flight deck crew acted in the manner you describe.

[ANAPROP]

This was in the mid eighties, so my memory may have faded. However the engines were definitely throttled back (to what extent I don't know). We definitely commenced a slow descent to maintain speed, and we definitely put out a Mayday (we were at no more than 10,000ft). You are probably right, the flt deck were following SOPs, they behaved as usual in a highly professional manner. Most of us had experienced an R2OH or 2 in the past, so realised that the problem would likely go away once the levers were shut so no real drama. We did of course dump fuel & RTB. I dare say the incident report is still out there buried in a file somewhere...

[BEagle]

Most of us had experienced an R2OH or 2 in the past...

That does rather throw some doubt upon the airworthiness of the system design.

[Pontius Navigator]

In the 70s, when the aircraft were relatively new, and still being delivered (XZ) I recall few incidents and none, AFAICR, of a shut down. We may have had the odd hydraulic problem but that is why it was an hydraulic aircraft. The worst problem was the Marker Marines and flares cooking off.

[Duncan D'Sorderlee]

And if any crew peformed differently to that suggested by kevnurse, then they would soon have been Cat-less!

Beagle, whilst crews will have experience a Rib 2 overheat or 2, they are likely to have been in the Nimrod Dynamic Simulator!

Duncs

[davejb]

Errm,
sorry - but I logged Mar 24 1993 XV 227 40 minutes day, RTB Rib 2 overheat, and I can vaguely recall at least one more... and my flying hour count is impressive for a Tornado pilot but barely gets me through the door of a maritime reunion, so an airborne Rib 2 wasn't common, but I suspect I'm not the only kipper guy on here who thinks the line about most folk having experienced one or two in their time is accurate.

Memory is hazy, but a rib 2 O/H - whilst being a fire warning and therefore taken seriously - usually didn't turn out to be an engine fire when investigated, as I recall? I do seem to remember that on that day in 93 I was reasonably calm and thinking 'this'll turn out to be the fire wire having a senior moment'... though as a siggie I did believe in the power of seaweed, chicken bones, and knew far too little about a/c systems, I will admit.

Rib 2 was definitely not a DSS only experience.

I am more than happy to defer to Kev on the technical side, of course, as he's not exactly a beginner as far as Nimrod systems go.

You piloty type people would be mighily warmed by the faith we down the back used to have in you*, even those piloty people who made it through Biggin on the strength of a PE degree.... (THAT, however, is another story, isn't it Co? <g>)

Dave

* Mind you, for anything serious, we were usually more happy about the fact our eng's were enlisted scum with scabby knuckles.

[Daf Hucker]

Dinghy Dropping

The Vulcan @ #59 you asked for dinghy dropping stories.

I was on the crew with Norman Tench that dropped dinghies to 2 crew members of a catamaran that was about 300 miles SW of Ireland. The guys in the catamaran wrote an article for Yachting Monthly about the rescue, which would have been about 1981-ish (I haven't got my logbook with me at the moment). I think that the catamaran was called "Boatfile" or something similar, and belonged to Chay Blyth. Yachting Monthly presented a painting of the rescue to the crew at the International Boat Show in London the following January, might be worth trying to contact 206 (R) Sqn and see if they still have the painting, I think it detailed the crews of the dinghy and the Nimrod.

Anyway the story as I remember it -

A Nimrod flying the then Defence Minister John Knott was diverted after a distress beacon was activated south-west of Ireland and started to get a fix on it when they had to rtb at PLE. In the meantime we'd been called out to go and help. We found the guys after a bit of a search, in survival suits, but in a sinking dinghy. We lined up to drop Lindholme gear which landed close enough for the guys to get into (one of the guys stood up in the dinghy, holding the cover up like a sail as the other guy hung over the side acting as a rudder!!!) What we didn't realise is that only the dingy and one survival pack actually left the bomb-bay and there was a couple of hundred yards of line trailing after the aircraft. Satisfied with a job well done, we decided to climb above cloud for 30 mins to wait for the chopper to come out. After the half hour was up we decided to check on the dinghy to make sure all was well - to our horror, the dinghy was deflating and the guys were in serious trouble again. We made another Lindholme drop (again a faulty release) but the guys ended up with another dinghy dropped almost on top of them due to Norman Tench's accurate dropping. They managed to get into the 2nd dinghy, but left the Sarbe beacon in the old one, at this stage we hadn't seen them get into the new dinghy and couldn't see any signs of life in the new one and thought we'd lost them. At some stage in the events, we'd vectored a Fyffes banana boat onto the dinghy, but they couldn't get too close to them due to the sea state (it was horrendous). However, they had seen the transfer and let us know the guys were safely in the new dinghy.
A SAR Seaking made it out to the dinghy after refuelling in southern Eire and possibly a rig (it was a long time ago!), lifted the guys and took them to hospital. We landed at St Mawgan as the "national press" wanted to interview us - one guy from the Bristol Gazette!

As I've said, this all happened rather a long time ago, so may not be entirely accurate. I'm sure that there are one or two other members of the crew that look at Pprune from time to time that can corroborate/correct my memory. I'm sure that there will be a record in the 206 Sqn F540. I'll PM you with the date when I can get hold of my log book.

Daf

[Duncan D'Sorderlee]

Dave,

I didn't say that it didn't happen; just not with the frequency intimated earlier. And, of course, the reason that we practised in the NDS was in case it did happen!

And I've no idea to whom you are referring wrt the degree in star jumps!

Duncs

[jamesdevice]

Yeller Gait

are these the photos of the "Irving Forest" you meant?
Courtesy of Google