VVs Ancient & Modern.
 

In order of receipt, Gentlemen,

ancient aviator,

The Wright Cyclone and Double Cyclones were used in many wartime and peacetime aircraft of the day: they are very well known. (They did a four-row job, too, IIRC - one of the "corncob engines".) But thank your daughter for her kindness !....D.

Reader123,

This reminds me of Tynwald Hill in I.O.M. Clearly one of the Far Flung Outposts of the British Empire that had not been Flung Far Enough. Looks like something built in Ur of the Chaldees (?) If it is an (ATC) Tower, then a few windows might have been an idea (and the ATC runabout leaves much to be desired)....D.

mmitch ,

My grateful thanks to you ! This is by far the best solution (if it works, and I see no reason why it should not). If they ever let me in at their end, it'll be a bonus.

(PS: have replied to your PM)...D.

Cooda Shooda ,

Please don't bother (see reply to AA above). But thank you for the kind thought. Any chance of leaning on your Key Heritage people to help mmitch and me to establish friendly relations between them and PPRuNe ?......D.

Thank you all for your help, Danny.

mmitch,

Stop Press - Key Heritage has let me in ! - all your doing, of course. Have answered a couple of their queries to whet their appetite, will now steer them back to PPRuNe if I can, otherwise may be buried under messages about VVs ......D.

Cooda Shooda,

Panic over - Stand Down !...D.

Thanks all round - particularly to you, mmitch, you've done all the heavy lifting !

Danny.

Pleasure Danny. I'm just a bit worried you have taken your attention of the radar. Perhaps MPN11 will keep an eye on it for you. :)
mmitch.

Vultee Vengance engine in the RAAF association of WA museum

http://museum.raafawa.org.au/images/...255-255-11.jpg

the museum website page it is on...
Wright Cyclone

Not sure I'm as qualified as Danny, mmitch.

And he were a teecher at the skool. I weren't! :(

dubbleyew,

There's posh for you ! Ta......D.

MPN11,

....and when you are a teacher, by your pupils you'll be taught.....D.

Will try to rescue Danny tonight, sitting all forlorn in middle of taxiway as he is.

Cheers to both, Danny.

Danny finds: A Lie is an abomination unto the Lord, but a Help in Time of Trouble.
 

After one or two desperate attempts to restart, I climbed down. Chiefy joined me. First thing, we must put ATC in the picture. It would normally be a black crime to use an aircraft frequency for contact, but now I have no intercom: necessity knows no law. We have power in the Truck and the radios are on: "Tell SATCO we've broken down".

To say that that caused some fluttering in the dovecotes would be an understatement. The circuit had already been changed to 09, but the last few landings on 27 were working their way round the taxiway behind me, until they were all back on the line, obviously no one could move out from it.

At this juncture, I refer to our map. All the loop dispersals shown were 1945 vintage; in the eleven following years they had all been broken up (or had been reclaimed by nature, and it's surprising how quickly that happens). There had been an exception: if you move south-east from behind the Tower, there remained the group of three dispersals shown, then just past the last one had been laid out (on the other side) a wide concrete apron for the Flight Line.

(All this is from memory, a look at the satellite map today shows that the apron has gone back to agriculture, there is no trace of it now, but then a lot can change in 50+ years). We were blocking the taxiway about fifty yards before the entry to this dispersal.

Now my whole crew were clustered round the stranded behemoth; of course I had to admit what I'd done. We came to a quick decision: put the tap back as it was and keep schtumm,..."Agreed ?".... Agreed ! Interested spectators were starting to gather from the squadron crewrooms, this was a welcome distraction from routine. Advice was plentiful, but none of it particularly useful (let's get all the studes out and have them push).

By now SATCO had passed the good news on to Flying wing: CFI was not amused and lost no time in getting on to Wg/Cdr (Eng) with scathing remarks about the standard of servicing of GCA vehicles. Before very long a Sgt MT Fitter turned up with his minions to assess the situation. He spotted the tank straight away, dipped it, found plenty of fuel and made an instant diagnosis: Water/rust in the fuel line, of course !

He scolded our mechs - Why was the tank on "Reserve"? Didn't they realise a Matador tank sat outside in all weathers and did very little running ? Could they not see what was very likely to happen ? The whole lot of them richly deserved to be on a charge !! (this with a part stern, part deferential glance at Chiefy, who assumed an appropriately vengeful mien).

My chaps (bless them) tried to look suitably sheepish and penitent, and somehow all kept straight faces. Sgt sent off one of his chaps for a jerrycan of derv, another for their home-made fuel line-cleaning gear, which seemed to include a lot of rubber tube, some funny bits and a bicycle pump. They climbed into the cab, took the cover off the engine and set about it. They cleared the line (not difficult, as there had been nothing in it to start with), primed it with a kind of icing syringe, tightend the joints, topped-up the tank, pressed the button, there was a splutter or two and it fired up and kept running.

While all this was going on, we had collected a tail of two Meteors and a Canberra, their occupants looking forward to a nice warm coffee in the crewroom. A Meteor burns three gallons a minute at ground idle. Canberras I don't know (four - five ?). They had to shut down and sit it out till we got going again.

How long was that ? Perhaps half an hour. Luckily the rest of the operation went "straight out of the book", and I managed to "hit the spot" first time. Once in position, and the truck "on tilt", the very first Vital Action is: -

"Get the kettle on".... "We'll all have a nice cuppa before we start"...."What's that ?" ....."Approach moaning about how long ?"....."Tell 'em we're Running Up the HT ".... "How long will that take ?"......"As long as it takes, of course !"

Really, some people ! (of course it was clear blue, unlimited vis, no panics).

And I'm in the clear !

Good evenin' all,

Danny42C


What they don't know won't hurt 'em.

Ahh Danny,

That "makes I larf it do", all I say is there but for the grace ........

In my day, you would be known as "a bit of a lad".

Smudge:ok:

In my day, you would be known as "a bit of a lad".

Well said, Smudge. I rather suspect that we all suspect that he still is - long may that so continue!:ok:

Jack

Danny42c
 

Danny, I wonder if you remember me. We were at Shawbury as instructors and I was SATCO Leeming 1967 -69. Jan and I have just had our 80th Birthday bash.

I also served with Jack Harrild at Chivenor 1961-64. He was a character.

With reference to the Hunter 1 in 1 flame out recovery procedure the Hunter only descended at 1000ft per mile when the undercarriage was down. Up to that point it glided quite well. Using the CADF we used to line the aircraft up with the runway when inbound. The Eureka beacon was postioned 1 mile from the runay threshold. The pilot would call out his height and range from the beacon and we would deduct 1 mile from this range. The pilots of course had difficulties with the maths so we did it. When the aircraft reached the 1 to 1 position, eg 3000ft 4 miles (deduct 1mile that make 3 miles) the pilot would be instructd to select undercarriage down and was now in the 1000ft per mile descent position heading for the threshold. IF possible the MPN 11 GCA would take over. By servoing fully up the radar return would appear on the azimuth screen,
providing greater accuracy.

At Leeming you will remember that this procedure was not suitable for the JP and instead would descend from the overhead in a controlled spiral.

All the best HarryT

Fentiger,

Hallo, Harry ! How could I forget you ! - and our days together on the School and later under your benevolent sovereignity during my final years at Leeming.

First let me welcome you to this best of threads in this best of Forums in the cyberuniverse. I came to it very late in life as an unskilled silver surfer some two years ago; after standing on the sidelines for six months lost in admiration for the giants and their stories, I took the plunge (Post #2250 on p.113) and the rest is here.

Now it seems that I'm the Oldest Inhabitant and it looks as if the Thread may well die with me, but I hope the Moderators will allow it to have an after life of some sort. They allow us surprising latitude, as perhaps you know - you may have kept a crafty eye on us for ages, for all I know.

80 - that's no age ! You're nobbut a lad yet ! I'm trying to keep my stories rooted in my stations to give them some coherence, so I have to finish Strubby (and there's a lot more to come) and then go through Thorney Island, Geilenkirchen, and Linton before I get to the School and finally to Leeming. For the last two I will have to box carefully indeed. We already have ex-"new boys" from the later Leeming recruits, ex studes from the School, and a a QFI from Leeming (who may make themseves known to you by PM if that is their wish). You are right about the 1/1 method, of course, no flamed-out pilot would drop wheels or flaps until he was sure it was "in the bag".

I'm pleased that you, and Bob MacEvoy and other young men we knew, made it to the top (sad about Bob Warwick). Come on in, the water's fine !

Danny.

Fentiger, how marvellous that Danny has a colleague at last to exchange memories with. It is perhaps a marker of his story that he is now approaching that part of it where this will perhaps happen more and more.

...which brings us to your proposition Danny. It is only too typical of you to express the wish that if indeed you are the last to tell us the story of "Gaining An R.A.F. Pilots Brevet In WWII" then the thread should continue anyway.

Ignoring the latitude universally agreed that anyone who served in WWII in the RAF, or indeed in the FAA, or in Army Aviation, is welcome here, I have to reluctantly disagree with you. I can sense the immediate and instinctive opposition that will cause amongst your devoted followers, if for no other reason than that I am one of them! So I beg forbearance while I make my point.

You have posted on another thread that while the odds against survival in the BoB or the Bombing Campaign were harsh, no such risks pertained for you while based in India. Really? I seem to recall accounts of dive bombing Japanese positions, of being stalked by a Japanese fighter (mercifully unbeknown to him thanks to your fine airmanship), quite apart from facing a ditching while loaded with war gas. So what's my point? It is that you share that quality with all your predecessors in this best of all PPRuNe threads, humility. It is that quality that enfolds this thread. It is that quality that defined your generation. It is why, when this thread slips into the great labyrinth of the PPRuNe vaults it should remain true to its title.

No doubt in turn, attention will turn to those who gained an RAF Pilots Brevet in the Cold War. We have only to think of the Korean War, the Suez Campaign, Malaya, Aden, etc, to realise that there will be much of interest and historical record to be covered, but not with respect here. That is for another thread and, I suspect, another time. If it falls to you to bring this thread to an end, and that is by no means certain, then I for one cannot think of it being in better hands for doing so. WWII was always the starting point for those who told their story here. It should remain so.

I'll get my coat...

A quick hello to Fentiger from one of your former students on the Radar Approach Course … nice to see you here! :cool:

PG

Vultee Vengance engine in the RAAF association of WA museum

http://museum.raafawa.org.au/images/...255-255-11.jpg

the museum website page it is on...
Wright Cyclone


How I wish I'd known about this museum when I worked on the NW shelf in WA. I lived in Perth for 18 months, which is fairly close to Bull Creek.

Such is life!

In Days of Old, when Knights were Bold.
 

Chugalug,

Once again I have to thank you, on behalf of all the wartime generation, for the generous tributes you have paid us on several occasions in this Thread. But I think it would perhaps be better to attribute such virtues as we may have possessed to the well known national characteristic, perfectly put into words by Kipling:

"Greater the deed, greater the need
Lightly to laugh it away.
Shall be the mark of the English breed
Until the Judgment Day".

As to my own case, although it is true that no one can be 100% safe in war, some are in much more danger than others, and it would be unfair to the Bomber Command heroes (and I use that word advisedly) to place their sustained heroism in the same league as our lesser risks in the VV operations. Bluntly, (nearly all) of us lived: half of them died.

Of course, it was the "luck of the draw" - "We each had to fight the war we were given", anyway. And there were cases like Gibson's - survived 100+ bomber ops, only to be shot down (as many believe) in a 'blue on blue' incident in the end.

Qué será será ...Put your coat back on the hook !....D.


OffshoreSLF,

I'm sure there must be Double Cyclones flying around yet (didn't the Mk.I Daks have (single) Cyclones, and aren't they still airborne in odd places - drug running in Columbia, perhaps ?) If so no reason why their big brothers (the 2600 cu.in. Doubles) should not also be).

Studying the picture, just imagine what it was like with those two (open) exhaust stubs (21 litres a side, running under 40 in (Hg absolute) boost), bellowing six feet ahead of your ears in an open cockpit. No wonder the medics found we were all high-tone deaf when we got home !....D.

With that sombre exchange of comments, will put up a funny story next time.

Cheers to you both, Danny.

Danny Cannot Believe his Eyes.
 

During my three years at Strubby all sorts of things have happened which I think I may have written about in an earlier Post . Now that I no longer have my log-book as a time-frame to hang my stories on, I have hoped to tie them to the station I was serving on at the time, which should avoid my telling the same tale twice. But there will always be a chance that I have "shot that particular fox" already, and I hope you will excuse the lapses of memory. Try this for size.

The RAF, of course, could not countenance the idea of your being idle in the odd hours of the day when you were not actually on watchkeeping duty. Everyone had a Primary Subsidiary Duty on the station, and nearly everybody a Secondary one, too - usually as Officer i/c an airmen's Barrack Hut. For the life of me, I cannot remember what was my Primary at Strubby (so it cannot have been too onerous), but my Barrack room (actually a Nissen hut) sticks out in my memory.

It was the occasion of the Annual AOC's Inspection. The night before, the Hut Corporal and I had kept our chaps' noses to the grindstone to some purpose. The lino had been "bumped" till it shone, the coke stove cleaned and blackleaded to a dull gleam, poker and coal bucket polished, the windows cleaned, fag-ends cleared out of the sand in the fire-bucket, the lamp bulbs and shades dusted, the hut surrounds tidy - you name it, we'd done it. Even the SWO (on his final round of inspection) found little to complain about.

Of course, that wasn't the whole of it. Their job wasn't done yet. Before Reveille next morning the Corporal got them up: every bedspace had to be perfect, beds made up in exact accordance with regulation, bedside lockers neat (artwork stowed away, greatcoats - if not being worn on parade - hung neatly, buttons (and spare boots) brightly polished). They would not have much time for breakfast before it was time to change into Best Blue for the Parade.

When I left the Hut for my own breakfast, I was well satisfied. My hut might not carry off the Best in Class, but it would not be the worst. I looked back on sixteen perfect bedspaces in a perfect Hut. The honour of ATC would be safe in my hands. Or so I thought.

After Parade, the troops dismissed to their places of work. The AVM, faint from his labours of inspecting the ranks, and standing on the saluting platform for a few minutes during the march-past, retired to the Mess for a restorative coffee and bikky.

The Hut Corporal and I raced back to the billet. The airmen's accommodations were first on the inspection list; I reckoned twenty minutes to ground zero. Confidently, we went in, savouring the rich smell of floor polish.

I thought I was hallucinating - indeed prayed it might be so. There were fifteen perfect beds, and on the end an untidy huddle of blankets from which resounded a hearty snore. Officer and NCO stood transfixed with horror for a full second, then without a word hurled themselves on the sleeper.

We ripped the blankets off and threw the poor wight out of bed. It chanced that our line of huts was hard up against an untidy hedge on the outside of the site. We let him put his boots on, tossed a blanket round his pyjamas and bundled him out, through a gap in the hedge into the adjoining field. There he was threatened with death if he showed his face again before we called him. Luckily, it was warm-ish (or what passes for warm-ish in Lincolnshire) and not raining.

Then we shot back to the hut to restore as much of the status quo as time allowed. Nine minutes now. Never was bed made up: biscuits, sheets and blankets together at the head, and all made good, so swiftly. But then, there were two skilled operators on the job - I'd been an 'erk', the old eye had not lost its cunning nor the old hand its skill. The bedspace should withstand a cursory glance. We hoped for the best.

Zero hour came - and went ! It seemed that the AOC had lingered overlong in the Mess, he was running five minutes late, only a selection of huts would now be inspected. After all our hard work, ours was not to be one of them ! We waited for the stand-down: "the Captains and the Kings departed". We rescued our shivering castaway and the story came out.

I think he was a NS airman, and this was his first AOC's Inspection. After his labours in the hut last night he'd been grabbed at the very last minute for Guard duty - someone had dropped out. Returning bleary-eyed in the morning to the empty hut and finding all quiet, he thought that the inspection had already been carried out and had gratefully dived into his pit.

You've gotta larf, haven't you ?

'Night, all,

Danny42C


These little things are meant to try us.

Ahh Danny,

Little changes over the years. I had a mate found asleep in his bed on an AOCs rounds. He was charged by the SWO and duly marched in to his boss. Like your chap, after finishing a 12 hour shift, returned to basher and assumed inspection done. The charge was thrown out (quite rightly IMHO) but to this day I always thought that the AOCS could have been more considerate for ongoing ops, and do his inspection earlier. Keep em coming Danny, its all getting closer to home now.

Smudge :ok:

Fear not, Danny, for like all good stories it improves with each telling! The frantic energy with which you both evicted the wretched somnolent and made good his bed space would have done justice to one of Mr Chaplin's moving picture productions (with appropriate allegro accompaniment).

I am sorry to learn that you are minus your log book. If you have mentioned it before I apologise, but I hope that you are only without it temporarily and are to be reunited with it, for mine is an essential prop for when where and what as I'm sure is yours. If it is not temporary then I hope that it is at least arranged, in short that it is not lost to you.

If I eulogise too much about your generation then again apologies. Your Kipling quote is most apposite, but he was a man of his time and so are you. Of course the Bomber Boys suffered a grievous loss rate and most others less so, but there was a wartime spirit that was found throughout, whether it be in our blitzed towns and cities, at sea in the Merchant and Royal Navies, on land in the many Army campaigns, and in the Royal Air Force on the ground and in the air. They did their duty, be they high or low, and we are all the beneficiaries of it.

High Tone deafness is a professional hazard for pilots. I once did an audio test for an RAF MO. He studied the readout and like Hercule Poirot pronounced, "You are on helicopters". "No", I replied, trying to hide the triumphant putdown implicit. "Then you are on Hercules", he countered (correctly).

You ascribe your lost frequencies to the Wright Cyclone, mine evidently was courtesy of the Air Turbine Motor that shrilled away throughout our walkrounds. No ear protectors for us in those days, nor in yours, I'll wager.

Chugalug,

Sorry about my not making myself clear about my logbook. It sits by my side, battered but unbowed still. But the last entry, sadly was on 16.11.54, Meteor IV, VW290 - then silence, (CMB chopped me for good three days later).

So now (almost two years after) I have to tie my memories down some other way.

Cheers, Danny.

Fntiger
 

Hello MPN11. Thank you for your hello. Unfortunately I cannot place you. In my time at Shwbury students used to do the initial course and then come back about 6 months later for the MPN11 course. They would greet you in the mess and I have a terrible memory for faces so would say "Hello Sport" quickly dash into the office the next day to look at the course photos and put a name to the face. Cheating really but am hopeless at faces and now 80 years for age so getting worse.