Flying the Canberra
 

Looking at photos and plans of the Canberra, I would guess that Vmca was rather high (widely spaced engines, tiny rear vertical area - and with the ECM version in particular a large vertical area ahead of the CG). I'd guess then that Vapp would be fairly high and that single-engine go-arounds would not be pleasant?

Also, were RAF crews drawn from the FJ stream, or ME stream?

Canberra "on one"
 

This from memory, so I expect to be corrected by those with access to "the books" (and/or better memories) ..
Canberra asymmetric speeds depended on the Mark. The lower-powered Marks B2, PR3, T4 would have had a "safety speed" (as we called it) of 120 kts, while the B15's was 175 kts, on which, with all wing stores on, you kept a finger ready during and just after take-off to go for the "wing clear switch", to get into a safe speed region should one of Mr. Royce's motors do a nasty on you.
On the approach on one engine, you kept the flaps up (remember that they were either Up or Down, no in-betweens!) until you were sure of landing, and then you were committed. If you weren't nicely settled at that point, you overshot and went round again if you were wise and didn't want a fit of the knee-tremblers. Single-engined "Rollers" (touch & go) were out except for the T4, demonstrated by your instructor, because of the Avon's somewhat hesitant response from idling, while some Squadron pilots, such as IREs, would be qualified to perform them (again on the T4), after a check ride.
At the end of flying (or refresher training) you fouind yourself posted to the Canberra OCU (or not), but I don't think there was such a thing as "streaming" at that time (50s/60s) - your instructors assessed you and made "appropriate recommendations".

Canberra Streaming
 

Certainly in 1964 the guys who got posted to Canberras were from the fast jet stream (as opposed to the twin engined stream as nothing was hugely fast then). Come to think of it the Gnat was quite fast but I did my Advanced Flying training on Vampires as the Gnats were having initial serviceability problems.

ACW

Trim Stab, your question abut experience is slightly limited. Remember that the Canberra was a significant force in the 50s and 60s. As a general split, the RAF was leaving the piston age and on its way to becoming an all-jet force with transport types being the exception (and of course RW).

The jet force was either fighter - Vampire, Meteor, Hunter, Javelin - or bomber - Canberra and V-Force. The Canberra was almost de rigueur the intro to the V-Force with copilots having one Canberra tour under their belts.

As the years wore on and the new aircraft matured so the criteria relaxed. With the introduction of the F4 and Buccaneer bombers in the late 60s and the Jaguar and Harrier bombers in the 70s they were clearly fast-jets compared with the Canberra. The other stream, in contrast, was multi-engine, Victor, AT, Shackleton etc. The Canberra was the odd one out but still tended to be an intro to fast-jet.

Many fast-jet crews were ab initio however other ab initio aircrew were sent to the Canberra, almost on a make or break basis, before moving to the modern FJ. With the reduction in the Canberra force to just the PR9 there as still a question of what to do with ab initio FJ aircrew that were not quite up to speed. The GR1 then became the make or break posting with the best crews going to Harrier, F3 and Jaguar.

A very broad brush and I shall probably be flamed but in defence I will say I was for a time on both FJ and ME Flying Trainng sub-committees.

Ask One Who Knows !
 

Dear Trimstab
I shall shortly be enjoying the company,at my favourite pub/ folk- venue in Buckinghamshire, of a venerable Canberra pilot,(the landlord ),and will,of course,ask him for his views !!

I went to Bassingbourn straight from training, did 6 months on PR7s and then converted to PR9s. The only thing I can add to the information posted earlier is that it was not permitted to use more than 90% rpm on take-off as the speed at which full rudder could hold the full thrust of the live engine, if the other one failed, was something over 175 kts (as I recall it). If one did happen to use 100% the engines made a very distinctive extra noise which could be detected in the Sqn Offices and "discussed" after landing! A marvellous first tour I have to say!

Canberra on One
 

That is a remarkably high speed, but about the range that I imagined it must have been, looking at the design.

Can you remember what Vso was (stall speed in landing configuration)? I'd imagine that it was quite reasonable, given the high aspect ratio straight wing. I'd guess that approach speeds were determined by the high Vmca, rather than the low Vso.

If one was ex Piston Provost/Vampire scheme in the 50s', prior to the OCU at Bassingbourn you did an "Asymmetric" course on the Meteor at Worksop. Excellent lead in to the Canberra and the basics of asymmetric', including leg-strengthening in the gym, were drummed into one. Don't get "low and slow"!

PR9 take-offs
 

90% was the standard rpm for take-offs. I can't remember the safety speed, although it might have been 180kts. We did a det to an airfield in a hot country where the there was no barrier and the over-run was very strewn with boulders. After some discussion, we decided on 100% take-offs. The safety speed was much higher (220kts IIRC). At max operational AUW, the event was rather less comfortable than a normal launch for me, sat in my cupboard up front.

The Canberra PR9 Safety Speed was 150kts for 90% rpm (8000lbs thrust per side) and went up tp 170 if you used full power (11,250 per side). 90% rpm was the norm, but it accelerated so quickly if you used full power that it was a struggle to get the gear up and locked in time, even when heavy.

We did practice assy approaches on a regular basis. IIRC we had to do 12 per quarter; 6 each of Viz/Inst and a mix of landings and overshoots. Given that we couldn't roll from an assy landing, this was the harder stat to maintain. The guys up front in the nose probably found those 6 overshoots per-quarter uncomfortable, especially when in the visual cct halfway round finals. More so when a lot of the guys on 39 had only ever flown a bit of T4 before being let loose in the mighty PR9. Lots of potential to screw it up if you didn't fly it correctly by levelling the wings and ensuring you maintained directional control (ball!!). That is probably why we used a VCH of 600ft. At least we had a powered rudder to help, but always flew these with the trim re-centred.

If my memory is correct a B2 or T4 flew an asymmetric approach at 145kts, at 600ft you overshot on 1 engine or committed to landing. Once below 600ft you reduced speed and selected flap when certain of reaching the runway. This compared with a 2 engined approach at 120kts with 110kts over the threshold.
Night asymmetric was only with a QFI in a T4, so that meant you could extend the crew duty day to the 2 pilot 16 hours. 3 day trips and then a fourth in the T4 –with engine running pilot change over on the taxiway before 20minutes of night asymetric circuits.

Hmm interesting stuff, remember them fondly as a child, and even then they were almost a historic flight, but I was watching Temora's (?) Flying example at RAAF Amberley in 2008, and the was pure magic..especially the historic fly bys...Hudson, Meteor, Canberra, F-111.....possibly not seen anywhere else (?)...great stuff:ok:

By the late 70s/early 80s (when I had some great vacation attachments to Canberra squadrons), all Canberra first tourist pilots were coming from the Hawk - some from Valley (4 FTS), and some after some or all of the TWU Hawk course.

It seemed to me that most (if not all) of the young Canberra pilots I met then spent a tour or two with 7, or the 'Tatty Ton', and then fed back to Brawdy, from where the bulk seemed to be streamed single-seat/fast-jet.

Senior blokes on the Canberra TF squadrons confirmed that one of the Canberra's most useful roles, in this, the twilight of its career, was in giving a bit of extra development to blokes who were FJ-capable, but who had narrowly failed to make the grade on TWU, perhaps 'slow learners' or perhaps having suffered a particular setback.

The Canberra was challenging, and flew a variety of roles (even within the TF squadrons) and clearly helped to turn young pilots who had (for one reason or another) failed training into productive fast jet pilots.

This was a problem, they said, as it made it harder to find Flight Commanders for the Canberra squadrons themselves - since all the first tourists bug.gered off back to the FJ world!

In later years, I became aware that whenever I went to a Harrier or Jaguar Squadron, I'd find a few pilots whose first tour had been on the Canberra - with the Jag Force, in particular, seeming to be riddled with PR9 mates.

Jackonicko

It isn't quite true to say that all ab-initio Canberra pilots were ex Hawk studes. I joined 360 Sqn at Wyton after the 100hr JP3 course and METS on the Jetstream (plus 231 OCU at Marham in 1980). Two further guys on my Finningley course also went to the Canberra, one to 100 Sqn and one to 7 at St Mawgan.

I would have to admit that Idid find the performance of the Canberra T4 a bit terrifying after the sedate Jetstream, and I joined the Sqn with about 240 hours total in my logbook - which made the AEO's in particular look at me a bit sideways.

It was a wonderful aircraft though, and for a first tour it could hardly have been bettered. On the original question of single engined safety speeds, as I recall it was about 140/145 knots for the T17.

I stand corrected!

I should have been less definite.

My memories are of 79-82, and all I can say is that on 7 and 100, your course-mates eluded me!

Where did you go after the Canberra? Nimrod, I'm guessing?

I expect that you'll confirm the large number of blokes who did as I described, though, although perhaps it was different on 360?

Trim Stab
Above 600ft no problem, or less so than on take-off, favourite place for certain QFIs to throttle back an engine. Full rudder, 10deg bank, throttle back and descend to accelerate to safety speed before climbing slightly cross controlled.
Below 600ft and below safety speed IMC - abandon (by the book) If VMC -runway in sight throttle back the live engine to retain control and accept undershoot or the grass or abandon. Certainly know of one case of a surge on short finals where they ended up touching down parallel to the rw but landed across the unoccupied QRA pans and all got out but with minor injuries (even the pax in the jump seat).
It was rumoured that the engines on the Canberra design were moved out from close to the fuselage as the Avons were looking to be very delayed and piston engines and props could then have been fitted in the interim.

It's a long time ago, and far away, but I do recall the intricacies of 'planning for a refused TO' and the soi-disant 'Dead Zone' between the airspeed at which the jet got off the ground, the Single Engine Safety Speed ( at which a fit, prop-forward of a driver/airframe could maintain full rudder as well as enuff climb-out power on the live engine ~170-180knots ).

Simply put, if you're just airborne and low, below Safety Speed, and you lose an enjin - you're not going to get away with it.

The Canberra B12 with Avon 109s, operating out of >4000' AFB Waterkloof on a warm Highveld summer's day, struggled to push enough Bernouillis out the back. I was of a 'Cottesmore' vintage conditioned to calculate EMBS and Stop Speeds, correcting for density, runway length, temperature and AUW, etc. I was alone, on that squadron, as the only guy who bothered. Geek!

There was one such afternoon when, fully fuelled, just as the nose was being lifted at around 130kts, the port donk surged big. Natch, my man pulled them both back sharpish. There was no way we were going to fly.

'Stop Speed' - that max. below which a full emergency application of brakes might just stop us on the remaining tarmac - was around 83kts, as I recall. We were way above EMBS (Emergency Max Brake Speed), and the brakes would burn out to nothing well before we made a fast upwind-end departure and went off-roading. The overrun was a boulder field, then a gully, and coming up fast. A 'far-end fireball' beckoned. As per SOP's, I called "No brakes. Aerodynamic braking only. Hold the nose high...." But that was not going to be nearly enough.

The airbrakes were close to useless on those Cans, but we had urgent need of more Aero-D braking. Then I remembered the config for a steep descent....

"Open the bomb doors." The old ( no, nearly new! ) B12 opened up like the Space Shuttle, grabbing huge Aero-D drag.

That did it. It was like running into a snowbank. Not that anyone from around there had ever seen a snowbank. The speed washed off hard, and we were down below 60kts before the elevators stopped holding the nose up. A normal application of brakes to 'fast walk' left us with about 1000'. Phew!

No. That 'procedure' wasn't in the SOPs. Or anywhere else we'd read or heard, before or since. That's one of MY pages from EK Gann's 'Fate Is The Hunter'.....

:hmm:

Ah !!! Memories ...
 

One more distinctive feature of Canberras with the early Avons was when there was a cross-wind for take-off: Line up facing about 30° (?) to the centre-line, accelerate the engines to about 5,000 (?) rpm, release the brakes and turn onto runway heading as the bird began to accelerate.
This was to let the 2-position inlet guide vanes sort themselves out, after which the sailing was plain.
My route to the Canberra was Vampire/Venom DFGA in 2TAF after FTS, short V-bomber tour, eventful ground tour in Berlin, Confrontation in FEAF on Canberras ... Nice way to end one's service ... :ok::ok::ok:


BTW. A comment above about it being difficult at one stage to find Canberra Flight Commanders makes me wonder now whether that was why I was made one ... (I didn't think so at the time !).