Meteor Accident Statistics
 

I have just come across a review of a book called "Meteor - Eject" by Nick Carter. The book contains statistics about loss rates, can anybody who served in the 50/60s confirm these - they seem horrendous?

1. 150 total losses in 1952
2. 68 lost after running out of fuel
3. 23 lost doing official low level aeros displays
4. 890 lost in total
5. 436 fatal accidents between 1944 and 1986.


Then there were Canberra assymetric practice losses to add to the overall picture. How much better things are today, on loss rates at least!

I lived near RAF Merryfield in the 1950s which housed 208 AFS at the time. From what I've heard from those who were around in those days, the accident record you've unearthed seems correct. One night, for example, a whole wave of aircraft was lost when they all had to bail out due to fog, no fuel and no divs.....or so I was told several years later.

I have just finished reading 'Meteor Eject'
Very good book, well writen.
The attrition rate was horrendous.

Mr G.

Some Meteors, eg T7, did not have ejection seats and just to spice up life a bit more, the T7 in particular had horrendous, leg trembling rudder forces when flying asymmetric. Simulated engine failure after take-off and single engine overshoots were, shall we say, a physically demanding event that left little margin for error.

Simulated asymmetric flying killed a lot of people in aircraft such as Meteor and Canberra. Well in excess of fatalities due to actual engine failures.

lm

I was once told that when Driffield was a Meteor AFTS (or OCU?) the loss rate was 1 per week and there was a standing funeral party. They say there are still the marks in the cliffs around Flamborough Head where a 3 ship impacted trying to get back to Driffield under the weather.

I can confirm the pretty horrendous leg forces needed when assymetric at low speeds, not a task to be undertaken lightly.

There was also the problem of "The Phantom Dive". In the T7, and maybe in the single seaters, you never selected airbrakes out with the gear and flap down otherwise the airflow over the back end effectively ceased and the thing just went down. If I remember correctly, this problem was made worse by the close proximity of the airbrake and the flap levers, both in the same place and both acting in the same way.

Sadly, even in the latter days of the early 60's at Strubby, the Meatbox caught out the experts, my QFI Flt Sgt Jock Black and his student were killed on an assymetric sortie and the CFS agent, Flt Lt Doe I think, died shortly afterwards when an engine failed just after T/O at Rissie. Everyone had their individual assymetric crit speed dependant on their leg strength and size.

Lightningmate

Any mark of Meteor would give you a severe "leg-tremble" if you put full chat on the live engine and allowed the speed to come below 125Kts, but I guess the T7 was worst, or the earlier 3s and 4s which all had the kind of egg shaped fin and rudder.

Most multis will run out of rudder authority in the severe assymetric case below Vmca. In the Meteor you also ran out of strength in your leg muscles. You could just about cope in a 7 with both pilots pushing like the clappers. Didn't stop you losing control though!

2TWU

As Beagle said, I reckon those crash stats were probably very true. The great majority occurred from 50 to 55. There were also a lot more of us. 15 Meteor NF Squadrons alone each with around twenty crews. There just wasn't enough appreciated about the old girl's vices in those days, especially in training. Once guys got on the squadron and got a few more hours under their belts - things improved a lot
As for Phantom dives - they happened if you got low and slow on one engine and forgot to put your airbrakes in. When you put the gear down, one leg came down first and the beast would yaw if you weren't ready for it. In yawing, one inner wing would be blanketed by the forward fuselage, and with brakes out as well, lift would disappear rather rapidly from that wing and you rolled right over. Bit close to the ground and goodnight.
Witness the last accident with the Vintage pair - I gather that was a Phantom dive problem.

As for the baddie at Driffield, I was holding there for a month in Jan 52 before going to ITS (Initia Training School) prior to FTS in Rhodesia, and the accident happened before I got there. Two solo students being led by an instructor let down over the sea before turning round and coming backto Driffield under the clag.
Unfortunately, they flew straight into the cliff. Can't remember whether the QFI pulled up in time - twas over 50 years ago!

I think Beagle may have got the area a bit mixed up. Around 55, the Day Fighter Leaders School (DFLS) had a formation up -returning to West Raynham - got a feeling they were Hunters but I could be wrong. Anyway, typical of those days, you had to wring as much as possible out of the sortie, so overhead with enough fuel for a couple of circuits!! I think about 6 bailed out one after the other!

Incidentally, you mentioned Canberra training losses. The loss of aircraft practicing assymetric was pretty horrendous - why? Because we always actually shut the engine down and not just back to idle. More realistic they said!! It was like that until the late 60s when we lost our first two Hercs through assymetric practice and somebody saw the light!

Ah me, all this reminiscing. Where are you Flatus Veteranus now that I need you. My cup runneth over! I never did find out if Cess Crook actually set fire to the leave train!!

Bof - no, the infamous DFLS Hunter accident was much later. I was told that ac from Merryfield took off one night and did some night flying; on their return the aerodrome was out in fog. So off they set for Weston Zoyland, only to find that it was even worse. Back to Merryfield and it was still out - so, find somewhere dark and step over the side......

I was told (by a chap standing behind me in the queue at Lloyds Bank at RAFC in 1969 who saw the word 'Ilminster' in my cheque book - nearest town to Merryfield) that he'd been in the tower that night. Someone phoned in to say that an aeroplane had crashed behind his house. "Thank you sir, we know about that" had been the reply - until they realised that the caller was miles from the first prang. Then the phone went again....and again.....

I was lucky enough to get a few back seat rides in Meteor T7 WA669 'Clementine' at Brawdy in the 70s. "If we lose one on take-off, below xxx knots I'll throttle back the other and crash straight ahead, hopefully on the RW" went the brief, "above xxx knots I'll say 'LEFT' or 'RIGHT'. Push as hard as you can with that leg whilst I curse, swear, jettison the ventral and attempt to keep the old girl flying. It will go very quiet until we're away from the ground, then I'll fly a very careful asymmetric circuit and landing after which we'll leg it to the pub and get pi$$ed!" it concluded.

Thanks Beagle. the beauty of prune is there's always some b*gg*r around who can say 'No not quite like that'. I'll put it down to fading brain cells and anno domini. Do you remember the 54 Sqn aerobatic team from Odiham - Nov 3rd, 1955. I was flying a Meteor 8 back up to Leconfield on the PAI course.

There I was minding my own business, when I heard Dewdrop One and Two calling Mayday, no fuel, engine gone, pulling up, bailing out - just like that - dead nonchalant, hotly followed by Three. Four(Kurt Curtis) just made it into Tangers. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse I heard the photographic Meteor NF14 followed by a photographic Vamp T11(Pat Swaffer I believe) - doing the same thing!! They'd got caugt out by weather at Odiham after a photo session.

I carried on shakily to Lec and had to write out a 5ft report on what I'd heard. 5 aircraft gone in about 10 mins, 7 guys bailed out and no one hurt - ground or air. God we used to lose aeroplanes in those days, and it rarely featured more than a couple of paragraphs in the press. Back to the armchair!

Fascinating insight into those days - thanks, Bof!

I was in shorts back then, but I distinctly remember seeing the crashed aircraft compound at RAF Weston Zoyland absolutely stuffed with bits of pranged training aircraft. A chap I once knew told me that when he was a Meatbox QFI in Yorkshire, one student crashed into his own room in the Officers' Mess killing himself and destroying all his possessions. At least it saved the Effects Officer from having to do much, they all said!

Mind you, we probably lost more aeroplanes in any one month back then than we have serviceable for use on any one day these days......

I was a QFI on 208AFS at Merryfield 1953 till the AFS closed and I was off to Valley, and to commence with we had Meteor7s for dual and Vampire 1s for solo. Students were not allowed solo in the Meteor but the old Vampire 1s (202 gallons) used to go in at an alarming rate and we lost on average, a student every three weeks, and there was a full time funeral party. The situation got so bad that the vicar of the church in Ilton, the adjoining village, would not allow any more RAF funerals in his boneyard as it was filling up, so the Service bought a plot of land in the village to use as a cemetery. We then were re-equiped with Vampire T.11s and Vampire 5s and 9s. and the accident rate dropped straight away.
Much as I liked the Meteor 7 it could bite, I remember my crit. speed was 123kts but that was a real leg trembler, the other thing you learnt quickly in the back seat was to keep your fist under the flap and u/c levers as they were side by side and identical and you blocked the one that you did not want selected.
One other thought was that as the 7 was not pressurised and stomachs and their contents do tend to expand at altitude, the odours floating back from the front seat were somewhat ripe especially from a student on his first try at what was described as a high level formation exercise (don't laugh that was at 35000').

Happy days

The accident mentioned above happened at Middleton St George now Teesside Intl Airport, OM is now the George Hotel and is alleged to be haunted by the pilot - apparently.

The Good Old Days ???
 

Bof,
1. You exagerate "it rarely featured more than a couple of paragraphs in the press."
The local press may be, often didn't even make the nationals.

2. "They'd got caught out by weather" Met was still a bit crude.

Losses at 2ANS, Thorney Island (probably considered a low risk operation) in 12 months '57/'58 2 Varsitys, 1 Valetta and several Vampires. The Vampires were not flying accidents, they were parked too close together and one self ignited and destroyed 2 or 3 of its neighbours!

Cor 35 thou. I always wanted a ride in a Meteor. Afore mentioned NF10s struggled to get to +30.

Aircrew intake at that time was probably about 1000 a year.

Edit
Final Paragraph deleted as Art Field has posted his correct quote below.
Thanks Art.

The CO at Kirton when I went through was a Gwoop Captin Lerwell (thats how he said it) and his passing out address went something like "whether you be pilots, navigators or air lectrictwonic officers, 50% of you will be dead within the year and another 20% will be maimed for life, good luck chaps". As far as I know most of us (99 course) survived well beyond the forecast.

Bof, I'm pretty sure the Phantom Dive could happen with both engines running as well. When I was checked out on the CFS Meteor many years ago I was told that when sitting in the back seat, always keep your hand firmly on the airbrake lever to prevent any inadvetant selection even on a normal cct. Although I cannot be certain as I was overseas at the time, I was under the impression the Vintage Pair Meatbox was on both engines when it went in--could well be wrong though.

My best Meteor story concerns Church Fenton in the Auxilliary days. One day the Wg Cdr (when they did command Wings) got the whole lot, approx 35 aircraft airborne and took them all up to high level above 8/8ths clag. After a while there were some anxious faces looking at fuel gauges, the Wg Cdr simply rolled inverted and disappeared with the R/T "Well, I know where I am, you lot sort yourselves out"

If I remember rightly the Meteors mainwheels lowered one at a time causing significant yawing right and then left downwind (might have been the other way round), if airbrakes were out as well then lift just disappeared and you dropped like a stone even if both Derwents were running. Remember this was 1940/50's technology and engine acceleration times were pretty poor.

Lord (Norman) Tebbit flew Meteors, and I found the following quote:
-------------------
He trained as a jet pilot with the RAF and lived for the 'sheer animal thrill' of flying at high speed. One day during take-off in a Meteor something went wrong and he found himself trapped in his cockpit, his oxygen mask full of blood, and the plane, which was full of fuel, on fire. He assumed he was going to die but, instead of panicking he considered his options, and eventually found a way to break the glass and scramble free before passing out.
-------------------

Sounds interesting. In an earlier interview which I read some years ago, he said that after that incident, with a jammed canopy, he felt that he was playing with the Casino's money.

Mention has been made of the possibility of confusing the Meteor flap and airbrake levers, it is hard to see how this would has occured.

The flap lever was at the top left on the main front panel and worked in the conventional sense of up and down.

The airbrakes were on the left cockpit wall adjacent to the throttles well away from the flap lever, and operated on a slide with a fore and aft action, slide back to open and forward to close.

That aside, the stories of the horrendous assymetric foot loads are not exaggerated in the least.
At AFS I pushed the sole clean away from the heel on one pair of flying boots with the pressure on the instep.

On the flying accidents during this period I believe there is a book detailing all accidents in the 1950's which would confirm the numbers, but I have not seen a copy.

Art Field

Your piece about the CO's speech at Kirton made me laugh (although I know I shouldn't). It's sounds like a scene straight out of Monty Python. I can picture the assembled squad ready to pass off, then this officer making a speech about the fatality rate, and spoken with a speech impediment, and everyone looking around at each other !! Q Monty Python music.

Meteor Accidents
 

Beagle is right; at Merryfield in 1954, at least three Meteors went in on the same night, I seem to recall that they had diverted from Weston Zoyland and were caught out by the same fog that had caused the diversion in the first place. I seem also to recall that one crew survived.
2TWU, right again, and the three scars were indeed visible in the cliff-face as folk flew in to Leconfield.
Bof, the multi-prang you mention was at West Raynham on 8 February 1956, when we 'lost six Hunters in eight minutes' (the title by the way, of an article in Air Clues dated March 1982). 'Yellow 4' who was Dick Tumilty from 28 Sqn RAF Sek Kong, was the only fatality.
Ces Crook certainly hi-jacked the train, but I am not sure he set fire to it. Did you know that he is still around in New Zealand? I have a local contact if anyone is interested. :)

Ces Crook certainly hi-jacked the train, but I am not sure he set fire to it.

:eek:
Please, do tell!

the hunter incident
 

i read that article in air clues. apparently at the time only fighter command used the colour code so the formation wasnt get up to date on the weather, after that the colour code was brought in raf wide. on the subject of the meteor just how many marks had ejection seats?

I have just read a great book about the RAF in the 50s called Fighter Jocks and the Meteor then seemed a dream to fly but the preffered A/C seems to have been the Vampire??

shack and John Purdey - thanks so much for your confirmation of Merryfield matters!

Having grown up about 1/2 mile from the place - and having lived nearby for the following 25 or so years, I often wondered whether the stories I'd been told were true. I can remember (just) certain parts of Merryfield's history - Princess Anne's visit, the airshows of the mid-50s, the Sabres being modified by Westlands, the Royal Navy era when the squadrons moved to Merryfield whilst VLN was being prepared for the new Sea Vixen.....

There was an amazing airshow in 1958 - probably the last ever held. Everything from a Spitfire to a very low-level Vulcan, plus a Bleriot monoplane, Bristol Fighter.....

I went back down to Somerset at the end of last year to attend 'Farmer' John Steele's funeral in nearby Isle Abbotts. He'd been a 'trapper' in the 50s and had inspired me to join the mob in 1968.....but I had to go and say hello to Merryfield and was delighted to find that the aerodrome looks smarter now then ever - but no real permanent facilities except for the control tower. The Officer's Mess area had been bought by my late father and his ex-FAA business partner in the 70s. We kept 3000 pigs there (some of the old Ilton folk reckoned that improved the tone of the place....), then sold the site - and it's now a housing estate.

Other tales - of 'Flush' Kendall, 'Kipper' Smith, Pete Cornish...the vectored thrust Meteor trials (I explored the tunnels years later)...the 'bomb dump' where Army reserve units would set up their AA guns during summer camps...stories about how the RAF QFIs would race off to 'The Volunteer' in Seavington St Michael or 'The Shrubbery' in Ilminster for a few ales whenever the weather was too poor to fly...after the Borneo campaign when a whole squadron of Pioneers and Twin Pins stopped over to refuel....a Lancaster flying down from Kinloss to drop off a salmon for the OM dining-in night....a Canberra landing in the Suez crisis so that the pilot could nip off to Alec Scott's garage to fill up an off-the-ration jerrycan of petrol....

I learned to ride a bike there, learned to drive a car there, learned to fly model aeroplanes there, learned to fly a glider there.....and learned a few other things with a girlfriend in the overgrown bomb dump there. A wonderful aerodrome - long may it remain so.

...and getting back to the thread topic, I can also remember seeing most of a Meteor NF stuck in the overrun of RW09 - except for the radar nose which had cleared the road and was on the far side! Cdr Tim Kearsley RN was there wondring how on earth they were going to shift it!!

An aged pilot told me he survived training on Meteors including numerous extremely dangerous practice single engined landings. Posted to an operational squadron he asked tentatively after a couple of weeks whether he ought not to do some practice SE landings to stay current. He was told, "Christ no! They are bloody lethal. We always do a power-off glide approach - that way it doesn't matter if the engine fails."

Beagle, what a wonderful way to spend the formative years into your teens. To be soaked in all that great aviation lore from the 50s and early 60s around the Merryfield area - you ccouldn't have really done anything else but join the mob! Great stuff.

Dear old Meatbox, what a delight to fly. I was fortunate enough to be on the last AFTS course to train on the beast at RAF Strubby in the mid-sixties. At the end of the course we delivered the aircraft to Kemble where a number of them were mothballed, and the rest scrapped.

The asymmetric flying was definitely a feat of some physical strength. We seemed to practice on one engine almost as often as on two although by then we were not allowed to shut an engine down or fly on one for practice below 4000 ft. We did still practice engine failure on take off and certainly in the T7 it was very important to remember to throttle back the live engine to ensure retention of control. This would then continue into a not quite so knee-trembling single-engine climb at 200 kts - IMC you had to fly wings level when not intending to turn but VMC you were allowed up to 5 or 10 degrees of bank towards the live engine to relieve the foot load. The most demanding exercise was to do a sinlge engine overshoot on the port engine - you had to use the hand pump to raise the gear and flaps because the hydraulic pump was on the starboard engine. Needless to say if you had to overshoot on the port engine your QFI would insist on the use of the hand pump even though the starboard engine was only throttled back!

The phantom dive could occur with one or both engines going and was indeed a result of having airbrakes out when gear was lowered. Originally, I believe, the airbrakes came out to almost 90 degrees which caused real problems, the effect was reduced by reducing the airbrake travel to only about 45 degrees but this still did not completely solve the problem.

As far as I could tell, the single-seat Meteors after the Mk4 all had bang seats, that is: F8, PR(?)9, FR10, whereas the 2 seaters were not so equipped - I know the T7 was without MB escape assistance.

Apart from the flying, my fondest memory of the Meteor was to hear one with 'big breathers' coming in for a run and break on the blue note - a sound only surpassed by the Hunter.

:D :D :D :D

I am too young (not a phrase I often use these days!) to have had the privilege of flying the Meatbox, but am of an age which ensures that most of my basic QFIs had flown her.
I'm sure I recall from an early "Instruments" lecture at Syerston that unforeseen acceleration error on the AH (and the ears!) was responsible for some IMC overshoot crashes in the Meteor.
Logic was thus: greater available acceleration induced a "pitch up" error in the semi circular canals, and a "roll right" error on the AH. Net result after "correcting" was a hole on the left hand side of the runway. Driffield I think was mentioned as the Station in question ... the story may be BS but it made us all remember that vital piece of information ... the direction of rotation of the AH gyro!!
Any truth in this line?

It seemed that loosing jets was a common practice in days of yore!
This apparently is a true story.
There are a few meteor ejection stories at:
www.ejectorseats.co.uk

Date: Late 1950's

Place: RAF Odiham, England.



Javelin taxiing out for take-off.

One hunter on take-off, one on finals, one on down-wind for finals.

Javelin engine fire (not unusual) but unseen by crew.

Air Traffic Controller (novice, in panic) calls 'you are on fire' or words to that effect.

Three Hunter pilots eject un-necessarily and Javelin crew taxi on oblivious until it becomes obvious, too late, that the panic applies to them, then luckily scrabble out unhurt, unfortunately the RAF are four aircraft down.

Meteors etc
 

Ah, Beagle; I was at John Steele's funeral service too. A great character. Teeteringhead, you are right; the AH had mechanical air valves at the side, set in the same circular mode - clockwise I think - so that forward acceleration on take-off would cause one to open and the other to stay shut, giving an erroneous indication. We lost several good men because of that. John. :)

JP - in which case we may have met. His younger daughter was my late father's god-daughter and we lived in the same village (Isle Abbotts) for many years.

I also recall being taught about the 'pendulous vanes' in that steam driven AH when I was a UAS student. At the same UAS of which JS had been CFI about 12 years earlier.....

Talking of bang-outs various - and those mentioned thus far are so nostalgic and incredible that they would be dismissed as mythical folklore by today's generation (some of whom I like) - I recall a few years ago at Valley (c. 71-76) when Gnats were spearing in all over the place, along with the odd Hunter or two. Around 13 fatalies in total; some instructors, some studes. I recall the Gnat prangs being largely attributed to its strangely constructed FCS, whilst those of the Hunter were more varied - with a high foreign content (streuth- can I really say that in 2002).
Sad for the studes, but we lost too many good instructors in what was a time of flight safety-first ----------------

How are you Langoid, Philips, Patt, Hitch (ex-Dragons) and many others ?

Sorry - I meant Langroid ----- he of lilting voice, tales of yesteryear, and clip-you-round the ear when he'd had a couple --

How about the annual I/R in the Box - remember we had to do a run at .7M at 30,000 on limited panel. Metal polish over the inside of the hood so you couldn't see out and a circular plate with a suction cup over the A/H

Am I right in thinking that the T7 crash at the Coventry airshow in 1988 was put down to phantom dive?

There was a suggestion at the time of engine failure, but I understood the official conclusion blamed a tight turn with gear down.

Thank you all very much for your fascinating recollections of "The Bad Old Days"!

amazing story, certainly makes you think....

Great shots on Nostalgia (or whatever somewhere around SKY 580) channel of squadron take-offs of Meteors. Looks like there are 20+ in the air.

Going back to the original post I have no reason to doubt those numbers.

Actually they struck me as low because I can remember a conversation with an RAE Farnborough test pilot about 1954/5 when he remarked that the RAF had at last reached 365 Cat 5s in one year. All types and world wide of course.

My father learned to fly in the RAF about 1950. Posted to a Meteor OCU at a time when "They were crashing left and right". Apparently many ejecties lost their legs and bled to death/died of shock.

They finally discovered that chaps over a certain height had a hip to knee measurement that precluded the knees passing behind the canopy bow.

They measured everyone and those to tall were posted to Vampires where, due to a lack of said expulsive device, no similar problem existed.

Of course this led to ernest discussion on just how you got out, with various theories expounded. The half roll and drop out seemed to harbour the fewest ways of hurting yourself...if you had that much control...and a few months later Dad had cause to fling one into the Bristol Channel late one night....to be plucked out of the water by Ark Royal next morning.

One method, which I gather was greeted somewhat derisively, was to lose the canopy and then 'jump' straight up, pass behind the engine and under the horizontal stab.

Dad recently celebrated his 70th birthday, 15 years after retiring from 25000 hours logged in many, many aircraft...DH82a, Percival Prentice, Harvard, Meteor, Vampire, Lincoln (ops Malaya 1 sqn RAAF 58/59), Canberra, C47, F27, DC4, DC6b, Lockheed Electra, B707 and B747...and that's not nearly an exhaustive list:eek:

Interesting old coot:D

He'll play dogfight computer games for hours but is ambivalent about flying in my Bonanza...guess he figures he's used up enough lives:D Now I know why:eek:

Chuck.

Meatbox Memories
 

I have been following this thread with great interest from France and struggling to concoct a contribution on a quirky (frog) keyboard. I was “creamed” to become a QFI (A2) at Middleton St George in ‘52/’53 and then did a tour on 208 (FR9/F8) from ‘54-’57. The “Meatbox” was my high-time type and I remember it with affection, whilst not pretending that it was a delight to fly compared with the Hunter. Nick Carter’s book “Meteor Eject” catches the flavour of the life and times very well, and we owe him for the immense amount of work he must have done to compile the rather grizzly “butcher’s bill” in his Annex. The accident rate was indeed appalling, eliciting some rather terse minutes from Churchill to the Air Minister of the day. In my time, OC Middleton was subpoenaed by the Darlington coroner to account for the growing RAF patch in the municipal cemetery (the staish stalled and sheltered behind the OSA). I believe, at its worst, we were having about one “fatal” a course . The reasons were, as usual, several.

First, there was a big expansion phase going on, and the pressure on the AFSs to get stus out to the OCUs was great. We flew our tails off whenever the weather was good, and more than we ought to have when it was bad. Weekends? Leave? “ Privileges, dear boy. You will have plenty of time for such luxuries when you get to your squadron.” The expansion phase also diluted the instructor force. The operational commands were unwilling to let their experienced jet pilots go to CFS, where the course was done on a strange contraption called the Prentice followed by the Harvard. Few instructors arriving at the AFSs had much jet time, and very few any multijet time. The job of turning them into competent Meteor QFIs was that of the unit Standards Flights. The asymmetric instruction I got at Driffield in the summer of ’51 was a farce (my instructor was clearly scared witless – probably by me!). It was not until I went to Middleton (after CFS) that I was properly taught. Flt Sgt (later Flt Lt) Ray Davis earned his A1 by developing the jet asymmetric sequence, which was still in use at the Vulcan OCU 20 years later.

The first thing to get across was that, however big a ****** you were, if you could hold the rudder hard against its limit stops, you could do no more. If you increased power or reduced IAS further, yaw/roll/spiral would happen very quickly. Ie, the aircraft had its own Crit Speed at full thrust on one engine – about 125kts at sl. One “big ******” at Middleton, just before I arrived, failed to hoist this simple fact aboard and tried a roller landing on one. On the runway, he applied full **** on one engine at about 90 Kt. and entered the officers’ mess through the ladies’ room wall. RIP. (He is alleged still to haunt the Hotel St George – at least the hosties will not stay in that wing !) I used to stand on the step while my stus strapped themselves in on their earlier sorties and make them adjust the rudder pedals so that, with their arse right back in the seat their knee was still slightly bent with full rudder on, then make them force their knee down so their leg was in a sort of geometric lock between the rudder and the seat back. We then used to try it in the air, with both of us on the rudder to maintain full lock, and the stu briefed to watch the “ball” like a hawk. The time between the first displacement of the ball and when the aircraft flipped was quite short. Then the student was set to find his own crit speed at full thrust, until he could no longer centre the ball, and this was usually between 130/135 kts. He was then made to explore the relationship between thrust setting, IAS and controllability. Despite greatly improved instructional techniques, there were always a few asymmetric accidents and many questioned the need to teach asymmetric at all in view of the reliability of the Derwents. Well, you know what CFS is like – if it can be done, you must teach how to do it. And there was also the range/endurance case. In the old centrifugal engines sfc reduced as rpm increased, so to loiter or squeeze for range at heights up to about 30,000 ft, it was SOP to shut down one engine and fly at increased rpm on the other. Relights were problematic on earlier marks, so a se landing was on the cards. A simple rule of thumb then prevailed ; maintain 140 kts min and 1/3 flap max until committal at 400 ft , then put it down – somewhere, anyhow.

Defensive techniques for QFIs were legendary. At least in 1952 it was usual to finish up a dual sortie with a roller landing and simulated engine failure on TO. This was done by the QFI lifting the HP cock lever , alongside his seat, at about 150 kts. You can be sure that the QFI’s boot was just behind the appropriate rudder bar! The stu then went through the engine failure drills, which included “HP cock-OFF” and “Balance Cock – OPEN”. If the QFI had shut down the starboard engine, it happened once or twice that the stu tried to pull off the Port HP cock – or else he pulled it off instead of opening the Balance Cock which was alongside it. Either way, at least one T7 at Middleton finished up in the pasture, and it became SOP for the QFI to cover the Port HP cock when shutting down the Starboard, or vice versa. Then there were the airbrakes – not only very powerful but, in the T7 and F4 and earlier, when opened in conjunction with yaw as might be induced by unbalanced asymmetric or by the undercarriage cycling, caused a breakdown of airflow over the tail and the notorious “phantom dive”. Most Meatbox drivers drilled themselves instinctively to hit the airbrake lever with the heel of their palm when going for the undercarriage lever (particularly in formation breaks when eyes had to be out of the cockpit). When the stu was flying the QFI’s hand would rest on the airbrake lever when the time came to lower the gear. Even then one stu is reputed to have said to his instructor on se finals “Sir, the airbrake handle is stuck – I can’t open them” “Effing right laddie, its stuck because I’ve got my effing hand on it!” Whereupon the stu tried the canopy latch, which was above the airbrake lever. The instructor just managed to get his elbow on that in time!

Going through Nick Carter’s Annex, it seemed to me that the biggest cause of the 430-odd total Meatbox fatals was simple “loss of control”. Some of the later AFSs (eg Worksop) had F8s for solo flying, but Driffield and Middleton had F4s. In ’52 and ’53 these aircraft, and some of the earlier T7s, had suction driven AH and DI, a magnesyn compass, and a single 10-channel VHF box.. A student sent up through cloud to do some aerobatics and briefed to call for a QGH (controlled descent) at fuel state 80/80 (gals) would have to uncage his DI initially on the little emergency “whisky” compass, while the Magnesyn continued to gyrate for a few minutes. He would almost certainly reach the “overhead” and start his outbound descent with an AH still toppled. The descent attitude of the Meatbox was quite steep and the “limited panel” scan-pattern to maintain attitude and heading was demanding enough even for green-rated instructors I am sure that a number of the accidents ascribed to “control loss” happened because the stu “lost it” at that stage and spiralled in. There were no “bang seats” in the F4 or T7, of course. The F8 and later T7s had the G4F Gyrosyn compass and electrical AHs with wider gimbal limits and the rapid re-erection button. The more trepid stus, who found weather on climb-out that they were not confident of dealing with on the let-down, simply did not do the aerobatics, and who can blame them. They may not have won the course trophy, but they did not end up in Darlington cemetery. (One flight commander used to snoop on solo stus to see what they got up to!). The lack of a navaid, apart from ground D/F (manual until ’53 when CRD/F came in) and panic about fuel-consumption contributed to pressure on the stus, a number of whom simply ran themselves out of gas. In the F4 their best option was to put the aircraft down somewhere somehow; a bale-out without a bang-seat was not a serious option.

Apologies for my verbosity. I did not have time to write anything shorter! My memories are not as clear as they were, so there may be some errors in my recall of Meatbox systems and operating speeds and limits. The sources advised by Nick Carter could not supply Pilots Notes for other than the Meteor 3. Has anyone else any ideas on where I could get them for the T7 and F8/FR9?

PS The word turned into "******" by Dan's autocensor was defined in Dr Johnson's original English Dictionary as "a term of endearment used frequently between sailors". :)