Fareastdriver

I’ll put this post in to keep it running until Danny catches his breath as he asked me for some more stories from China.

Tanggu, China, end of 1996. I am running a single aircraft operation supporting an exploration rig operated by an American company in Bo Hai Bay. That is the circular bit of water between China and Korea. I am using a British registered AS332L and I have a Chinese FO and three British engineers. Our helipad is in the middle of the Navy section of Tanggu dockyard. Also on site is a sister company Chinese Harbin Z-9 (licence built Aerospatial Dauphin) servicing a Chinese operated rig. They have six pilots, a raft of engineers plus the heliport supporting staff.

Tanguu is the port where Very Large Colliers transport coal from China to feed Japanese industry. The railway does not go to the docks themselves as the Imperial Canal gets in the way so on the roads between the railway and docks there is a constant stream of lorries transporting coal. Occasionally one would see a convoy of Peoples Liberation Army’s truck on the streets doing the same thing, identifiable by their colour and also the white background number plates that denote a military vehicle.

They are doing this for money. The Army were wet leasing their trucks to balance the military budget. All over China high end apartment complexes and blocks have 24 hour security guards; these are also PLA soldiers hired out. Once a month I would lean over my balcony rail and watch a PLA drill sergeant put them though their monthly drill session. So it was with our transport. We had the use of a Hyundai Sonata plus driver which belonged to the Chinese Navy; again with the white number plates.

Normally I would be driven to work wearing casual shirt and slacks with my anorak over the top. One day I was going to meet a company rep so I put on my UK uniform, black with the four gold rings on the sleeves. When we arrived at the dockyard gate the rating that opened saw me and held the gate open and saluted me as I went past. That afternoon no only did the gateman give me a salute so did two other outside the guardroom door.

The next day I felt that it would be a shame just to be an anorak again so I put my uniform on. This time they turned out the guard! I then flew my trip and on my return my engineers mentioned that there had been some Navy people talking to the heliport staff. I was pretty sure it was about me so I wondered what the penalties were in China for impersonatning a naval officer. I needn’t have worried. When I was driven out there were no salutes; no turning out of the guard; just a surly slamming of the gates behind us. I

Fareastdriver

Typhoon93

I think that is true. I can remember reading somewhere that he could pull a lot more than others. I feel sorry for his aircraft though.

When I brought my Vampire back with +8 on the clock it went in for an overstress check. On the Vampire there were struts called jury struts that bridged between the main spar and fuselage. Should the wings bend too much these would indicate it. Mine were all right, that is why I was a pilot for so long.

After I had graduated the FTS was replaced by the multi engine FTS using the Vickers Varsity. Solo qualified pilots would have a junior course student as a co-pilot. One day in the bar one of these junior pilots let slip the news that he had been in a Varsity that had been barrel rolled by a senior student.
Investigations immediately started and the aircraft and date was established. An inspection of the aircraft revealed rippling along the top surface of both wings. Despite this the aircraft had been serviced and flown for nearly a month.

There were no such things as jury struts on Varsities, why? so it had to be towed to the breakers. CRM was unknown then so the co-pilot got off Scot free, I don't know what happened to the captain.

Fareastdriver

Hands up all those who have been on a Chinese Air Base……………No, I thought not.

There was a requirement by an oil company to survey a exploration rig. It was located the other side of Bo Hai and we could not carry enough fuel to go there and back with the necessary diversion fuel. We could have flown to the rig and then carried on to Dalian but it would have taken a long time. Our sister company organisers came up with Shanghaiguan, a Chinese Air Force base on the northern coast.

Shanghaiguan is where ‘The Dragon Drinks From the Sea’, or where the Great Wall ends on the coast. When the peasants revolted and in 1644 overran Beijing the Ming Emperor Chongzen committed suicide by hanging himself. His general Wu Sangui open the gates at Shanghaiguan and let in the Manchu army. Emperor Shunzhi of the Manchu then became the first Emperor of the Q’ing Dynasty, the last dynasty of China.

We launched up the coast to the base. They had an ILS but my FO explained that it was only switched on in bad weather. We landed, taxied past rows of Nanchang Q-5s and were then marshalled onto a spot.

I will not go too deep describing what I saw for three reasons:
1. I was their guest and it would be inappropriate to disclose anything that may have been confidential.
2. At the turn of the century there was a massive overhaul of the PLA’s T&Cs to recruit and retain the calibre of personnel required for an increasingly technical and sophisticated service.
3. I have a long term multi-entry Chinese visa and I want to keep it.

We had a small crowd around us and one of them had gone to college with my FO. This meant that he, and the other pilots, spoke English as well as he did. The fuel bowser was old, our company had scrapped the same type, 6 cyl side valve motor, a couple of years before, but it was immaculate and they did a water check of the fuel before me. I had all the pilots in the cockpit, Flight Directors, GPS, twin channel autopilot and weather radar was unknown to them. I did not ask to have a look at a Q-5. I knew that they would have to refuse and I wanted to save them the embarrassment of doing so. We then went to their mess for some refreshment.

The station surroundings were plain enough. As normal, with my previous experience of Chinese bases, no hangers. Some aircraft appeared to be used continually with others parked with full wing and fuselage covers.

The officer’s mess was a bit Spartan. It seemed to consist of little more than an ante room and a dining hall, the accommodation being huts out at the back. As usual with any conversation with Chinese the question would come round to how much I was paid so I told them. The ripple of jaws hitting the floor was something to behold. It was established that the equivalent of a Fg. Off. was paid about 350 yuan a month. As a comparison I paid my housekeeper 200 yuan to come it five mornings a week. 350 yuan at that time was just over £23. However, poorly paid or not all of them were saying how proud they were to be in the Air Force and serve the people.

We said our goodbyes and departed. Immediately after takeoff I flew over the coastal fortress which was the end of the Wall. The wall itself had been quarried, leaving a continuous earthen mound and in the distance you could see the ruined towers climbing up the hills.

The rig was a disaster. Chinese owned and operated it had had zero maintenance since they had bought it. None of the fire extinguishers or the refuelling kit worked and down below the plastic floor coverings in the corridors had worn through to the steel decking. I was quite glad when they had finished and we flew back to Tanggu.

A week or so after that we came to the end of the contract. I used what remained of my cash float to hire a couple of taxis and take my engineers to see the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. After a night out at Beijing Hard Rock we returned and the next day started preparing to fly the aircraft right across China back to Shenzhen.

Fareastdriver

Whilst we were living it up in Beijing First Officer Wang, with a senior pilot from China Ocean Helicopter Corp, our sister company, was in Tanjian airport planning our return. The plot was that we would fly to Zhangxiaoji to refuel, continue on to Shanghai, refuel again and then carry on to Wenzhou were COHC had another operation. There we would night stop. The next morning, Wang would remain and First Officer Jing would fly with me to Shenzhen.

It was January, 6th Jan 1997 to be precise and Northern China was in the middle of winter. The temperature overnight would drop to minus 15 and in the morning it would rocket up to about plus 2. My engineers were coming with me so after the goodbyes we punched orft daun sauf.

There is no such thing as general air traffic in China. A minimum of twelve hours notice is required and one always flies airways under IFR. We climbed just south of Tianjin and we joined the airway at our allocated height of 2,500 metres, approx, 8,200 ft, which was the minimum flight level going south. The temperature at that height was about -5 but as the Siberian High was established there was no cloud up to that level. The scenery was miserable; miles and miles of paddy as far as one could see, all in orderly rectangular pattern.

After a couple hours or so the cloudbase dropped and we started to run into streaks of status. The reaction of the centre windscreen, unheated, was instantaneous and it immediately fogged out with ice. This was followed by the mirror supports and the door hinges building up wedges of the stuff. Poor old Wang was having kittens. He, with his fellow students, had been listening with horror to their Chinese Navy instructor reeling off the horrors and the certain death that icing would bring to helicopters. Which I thought was strange, as they were taught on Russian designed helicopters that were built for blundering through the tundra. I wasn’t worried, this was peanuts compared to the North Sea and the aircraft, still in North Sea fit, had all the gizmos; ice detectors, mirrors to check the intake chip baskets, etc etc. To make him feel better I splashed some water onto my flying glove, stuck it out of my window where the water immediately froze. I then brought it in and flicked my fingers to show how easily the ice came off. Relieved he came back from the cockpit roof and carried on with his navigating and I surreptitiously shoved my hand between my backside and the seat cushion to try to get some feeling back in my fingers.

We then had our clearance to descend towards Zhangxiouji. This was a small military airfield in the middle of absolutely nowhere. As we taxied in Wang was discussing something with ATC and merely said there was a problem. As we shut down everybody was staring at us with open mouths. We had flown with a COHC callsign and the last thing they had expected was a British registered aircraft with a Western captain. The ‘problem’ was fairly serious. Wang had filed, and it had been accepted for the days flying, but Zhangxiouji had not received the onward flight plan.

I left my engineers to sort out the refuel and I stood, ankle deep in air traffic’s dog-ends in the tower. Wang was on the blower trying to sort something out and I had a look around. Apart from the ATC staff there seemed little evidence of any military activity. At the end of the building there were two rows of H-5 (il26) bombers in an advanced state of disrepair and behind them were a clutch of Shenyang J-5s (Mig 17) in a similar condition. It indicated that it may have been a training base once upon a time but they had moved on. On the near horizon was what I took to be the local town. Bleak, grey, with few buildings above two floors. I thought that if we had to night stop here we would be lucky to find 0.5 star hotel, if at all.

Wang struck lucky! Shanghai would not accept us because of the twelve hour rule but Changzhou would. We might not be able to get any further but at least it was civilised. Without further ado, because there were no catering facilities and we were dying of starvation, we got airborne.

Changzhou was a mixed military and civil airport. Something I found out as I taxied past a row of H-5 (Tu-16) bombers. The aircraft were immaculate, as was the ground equipment; even the wheel nuts had been painted. I turned on to the hardstanding and there was one of the prettiest terminal buildings I had ever seen. It was built like a Chinese pavilion with flying ridges and in front was a moat with bridges to the gates. We decided to have lunch whilst the going was good and after a ridiculously cheap repast in a beautiful restaurant we went up to the tower to see what the state of play was.

Shanghai wasn’t playing ball and because they controlled the airway halfway to Xiamin we could not cross that either to get to Wenzhou. We spent the afternoon trying various combinations to get to Wenzhou but they were all blocked by the 12 hour rule. At about five I decided that we were going to have to night stop and just after the engineers had gone out to put the blade socks on we got a call from ATC saying we were clear to go.

Shanghai had just got our original flight plan from Tianjin. We couldn’t go to Shanghai, we didn’t need to, but they did give us clearance to fly IFR through their Area. By the time we had ascertained that Wenzhou would be open at our ETA it was dark when we took off and this time with the mountains the minimum level was 3,000 metres, just over 9,800 ft. There was a long discussion with Shanghai control. He thought a 332 was an Airbus and he was trying to push us up to 7,000 metres. When he was corrected he could not believe that a helicopter was flying at that height, IFR and at night.

I thought about it to myself as well. In the RAF the maximum height without oxygen was 10,000 ft and on the QNH we were above that. Also we weren’t supposed to fly above 4,000 ft at night.

We were having to change our squawk quite often, more for identification than any other reason. Our track was taking us across the westerly routes from Shanghai and pointing directly at Taiwan. Apart from that it was uneventful until we were handed over to Wenzhou.

They wouldn’t answer. Wang then got on to the HF and started talking to the company ops in Shenzhen. They phoned the operation in Wenzhou and they confirmed that the airfield was all lit up. I pressed on and joined the procedure for the ILS and to my relief the ILS kicked in. At about five miles the runway lights started appearing from the gloom and still with no contact with the airfield I landed and turned off to the company hardstanding. After a few minutes all the airfield lights went out. I subsequently found out that all the air traffickers had gone home leaving a minion to turn out the lights after we had landed.

Two of the COHC engineers had British licences so they would look after the aircraft whilst I and my engineers checked into the airport hotel. It was farewell to Wang as he would stay in the company hotel down the road. It was too late for the hotel restaurant so we went to the ‘Garages’ by the airport entrance.

The Garages were a row of open fronted shop units now used as chop houses. The menu was simple. There was a table with all the raw materials they had laid out and you went from one to the other pointing out what you wanted cooking. Simple wooden tables and chairs were the furnishings and outside the single door at the back was the midden. That was where you treated the rats to a warm shower. The last time I had been there about a year previously we were entertained by a mother rat chasing her brood across the floor and carrying them back to her nest under the freezer. The food was, as before, brilliant and we retired for the night.

I have already posted, possibly on this thread, the next day’s flight down to Shenzhen. I can’t find it, off hand, but if anybody know where it is it would save me having to compose it again.

Fareastdriver

I have found the post from about a year ago. It was an abbreviated version so this time you are going to suffer the whole hog.

I had flown from Wenzhou to Shenzhen before. Down the airway to Xiamin for lunch and onwards via Shantou, where we would leave the airways and proceed directly to out heliport. The Chinese engineers had done the after flight and had valeted the aircraft. I had decided that wearing my best uniform with all the gold rings would create the best impression at airports so I travelled in that. Jing and I, my engineers plus a Chinese engineer who was returning to Shenzhen then took off in this gleaming jewel of an aircraft.

The airways south of Wenzhou are quite severe as you are passing Taiwan. Defections were always the risk; an Air China captain had taken his 737 there about the same time and it was absolutely imperative to fly along the centre line. Any deviation to the east would raise a warning and any further divergence would make you the centre of attraction of the PLAAF. The Chinese airliners, at that time not equipped with satnav, would ensure that they were flying along the western side of the airways always secure in the knowledge that their male air stewards were armed.

There is a ridge of mountains down the East coast of China cut by rivers draining the hinterland. The flat areas were put over to paddy but once the ground started rising the ripples of terracing would show. The airway did not go direct to Xiamin owing to proximity of Taiwan and also the Nationalist held island just offshore so you passed abeam, turned towards the airfield and entered the procedure.

Xiamin used to be known by Europeans as Amoy. It is where Hakka is spoken and where the Chinese in Singapore hail from. It was one the first four Special economic Zones it had prospered to an outstanding degree. Now it is regarded as one of the best cities to live in China. The airport was magnificent, even more so now, and after confirming our onward flight plan we retired for lunch.

Because we were carrying a Chinese engineer it was now an official CHOC flight. This meant that Jing had a big wad of cash to cover expenses en-route, especially lunch. Comments like, ‘that’s no good, it’s not expensive enough’ were banded about. We didn’t go overboard but I did enjoy my lobster. After lunch we gathered together and went to the aircraft. We called up Xiamin Ground for start clearance; it was refused, there is a delay.

We tried again in ten minutes with the same answer. Not having a ground power unit plugged in Jing and I left everybody in the aircraft and went up seven flights to the air traffic control room. It was explained to us that the PLAAF had called a no notice exercise and all the airspace over Shantou below 5,000 meters was closed.

It wasn’t new. I had been stuck offshore for hours because my return airspace had been shut off by some exercise or other. However, they had always finished at 17.00 hrs because it was time for dinner. On that basis I expected to leave at that time so I went back with some more of Jing’s money and dispatched then to the terminal restaurant.

It was tactful to stay in the tower and the staff took the opportunity to practise their conversational and procedural English on me. There were quite a lot of them. They were controlling arrivals, departures plus the airways traffic from Wehzou to Shantou. They seemed to work in staggered thirty minutes shifts, retiring to the back of the room for a chat and a drink. Occasionally there would be a rapid changeover of seats when an aircraft came on frequency requiring an English speaking controller. Like all offices, workplaces and sometimes cockpits in China at the time visibility was fairly restricted in cigarette smoke.

We kept badgering away trying to get a clearance but the PLA were having none of it. It was now getting late and the spectre of yet another possible night stop was appearing. Our gallant band had returned optimistically to the aircraft and we went down to appraise then of the situation. The Chinese engineer was more concerned as he was returning to Shenzhen because his father was ill. There was a long conversation between him and Jing ending with Jing handing him a wad of money.

I thought nothing more of it and we went back up to the tower. It was now past 18.00 hrs and still no sign of the airspace being opened. In fact ATC were sure that it was going to be closed all night. I was just about to call it a day when our Chinese engineer came in with a slab of Coke and a carton of Marlborough. Jing took them off him and started handing them around the room. Five minutes later the one I assumed was SATCO came in with an enroute chart with a track pencilled in direct from Xiamin to a Shenzhen approach procedure entry point. This was apparently a ‘special route’ that had been cleared for us to use. Jing worked out the times, we put in the flight plan and twenty minutes later we launched into the night.

I have no idea what the scenery was like. It was dark and there were not a lot of lights. The dinners that COHC had treated the staff of Shenzhen ATC paid off. We undertook two or three scheduled arrivals followed by an ILS to the runway with a go around to 200 metres, then visual to the heliport.

Fortunately the heliport was situated between the Shenzhen to Guangzhou expressway and the Shenzhen Nantou eight lane connecting road. It made the unlit runway easier to find, assisted by Epsom who had a big illuminated sign on the roof their factory near the eastern end of the runway. The aircraft landing lights picked up the rest and we taxied in as the night shift came out of the hangar. It had been assumed that we were night stopping at Xiamin so everybody had gone home.

The offices were open and a look at the accommodation roster indicated that I was allocated 6-4 Hai Fei, an apartment we rented. The engineers had found our driver and we all bundled in to return to Shekou. We normally lived two to an apartment so I expected my sharer to be there. He wasn’t, so I couldn’t get in. I knocked up next door and a Chinese family answered. I explained with sign language as best as I could that I did not have a key and would they look after my bags whilst I found it. They seem to agree I and I left them there confident that I hadn’t asked them to help themselves to the contents.

We always had a standbye pilot so I went to his apartment and he didn’t have the keys but he did know I had the place to myself. There were only a couple of people left who would have the keys so I had to find them. There were not a lot of places to go to at that time of night in Shekou apart from the ‘dark side’. There then followed the spectacle of an airline pilot in full regalia going from girly bar to girly bar looking for somebody who had his keys and I had lots of offers.

I found my chief pilot in one of the lower temperature establishments and he had a set of keys for me. Back to the apartment building, next door gave me my kit back and I had finally arrived.

First Officer, now Captain Wang is the Chief Pilot at the Shanghai Search and Rescue Operation. First Officer, now Captain Jing is a Senior Pilot and Training Captain at Shenzhen.

Both of them are worth their weight in gold.

Fareastdriver

As I mentioned in a previous post I witnessed the transformation of Chinese aviation from an organisation that Hong Kong CAA advised us not to fly on to one of the worlds leaders in air safety. They have done this by studying and incorporating western standards of operation and, as in my case, using western personnel to supervise and train to that standard.

My experience on fixed wing was limited as a passenger. I have already mentioned the Shanghai Wuhan flight. On another with a Yak 42 I opened the overheads to put my bag in and you could see the frames and stringers. When I exited the door at my destination I looked along the fuselage and you could see the lumps sticking out where hard cases had been thrown in. On one occasion departing Luzhou before the terminal was built the hardstanding was by the end of the runway. The cabin attendant had given her passenger brief and was proceeding up the aisle checking seat belts when the captain opened the taps for takeoff whilst he was in the turn for line up so she ended up on my lap. I thought the safest thing for her was for me to hold on to her. She struggled for a second but came to my way of thinking, (partially) and stayed there until we were established in the climb. Nowadays that couldn’t happened as on my travels around China this year the service has been excellent. Sometimes the passengers aren’t the best behaved in the world but for millions such an experience is still new.

So it was with our pilots. When I first arrived the Chinese pilots were experienced ex military pilots. My operation was effectively run by a British company (Bristow) to North Sea standards because the oil companies were mainly American and they demanded that assurance. (There’s gotta be white eyes up front) There soon reached a stage where the better English speaking pilots were entitled to command the aircraft and at that time they were all British registered. The company then brought them to the UK where they went though the entire procedure to obtain CAA ALTP(H)s. This would be hard going for anybody but especially so for someone to whom English is not their first language. This was accepted by the relevant oil companies with good grace and then the Chinese company bought their own aircraft. They were the same type, but different instruments, because at the time all Chinese aircraft had dials in metres and kilometres. To maintain flexibility that meant the British pilots had to get endorsements by the Chinese CAA (CAAC). This lasted for over a decade until CAAC decided to go with the rest of world and insist on a Chinese licence after six months. Fortunately the examinations were in English.

The ex-military first officers without a working knowledge of English were not so fortunate and they continued as second dicky. It also meant that you had to have an interpreter on board. At that time all ATC was in Chinese so you asked the interpreter to ask your co-pilot for a clearance. There would then be a prolonged conversation with air traffic and eventually you may get the clearance you requested. I had one of the captains with me and we were discussing an island that had an old military block and a helipad, long disused. He said the when he was in the Navy he used to fly there. It was established that whilst he was in the Navy he achieved about 1,000 hrs over fifteen years, and most of that is what he called training. In the PLA a pilot is under training until he gets command and that includes years as a co-pilot.

We had a new batch of first officers in 1995. They were trainee Navy pilots just past their graduation stage. We needed them because of the requirement to speak English, now becoming a CAAC requirement. With them I was fireproof because I was in my late fifties and age is still one of the major triggers for respect in China. I had trained with Chinese of the RMAF way back when and I had also spent three years in Singapore so I was familiar with the Chinese way of thinking and doing things. There is also the problem of Face. They are not happy when they are told they are doing something wrong without realising it. I found that the best way of correcting them when we were proceeding to certain disaster was to suggest a course of action in such a way that they would think it was their idea. I could let it go quite a long way because at that time I had over 10,000 hrs offshore and 7,000 hrs on that particular type.

They were, however, taught to fly by numbers and what we had to instil into them was co-operation and initiative. When they were released to the Chinese captains they soon found out the difference between the captains who had British licences and North Sea experience compared with the old dogs. However they were retiring and eventually we were left with just the Bristow trained ones.

As time went by I arrived at sixty and retired from the operation. I flew contract in Aberdeen and whilst I was there some of our new co-pilots came for the British licences and NS experience. In 2004 I went back for a social visit and discovered that CAAC would respect a British licence up to the age of sixty five. Coincidentally one of the Bristow pilots had had a argument in a bar, clocked the bar owner and decided that the healthiest thing to do was to leave the country. They were now one pilot short. About a week later I was back in Hong Kong renewing my medical and then I was back on line.

Six months later I was sixty five, my public transport qualification ceased so the same problem came up again. We had an Australian training captain who suggested I go to Australia and get an OZ licence because they last for life. We checked with CAAC and they stated that they would respect an Australian licence so on this I went to Perth After lots of ducking and weaving I got an Australian licence, came back to China and got a Chinese endorsement. Having an OZ licence meant that when it was slack in China I could fly for Bristow (Aus) and that I did. Having extensive military experience I could fly for them in the Solomon Islands on their RAMSI contract. I could also fly for them on the oil support in Karratha.

Over the time from 1998-2006 I was flying contract for Bristow. When I was flying a in China over sixty five I was not allowed to fly a British registered aircraft so I was restricted to the now majority Chinese aircraft. This gave rise to the situation that I was being paid by a major British helicopter company but I was not permitted to fly their aircraft. The situation changed in 2006 when the CAAC demanded that all pilots should get a Chinese licence. This I did and shortly after that Bristow pulled out of China.

There were four of us working in China at the time and COHC offered us contracts we could not refuse to continue with them. I flew with them as commander for a further eighteen months and my last flight on 9th Nov 2008 was three weeks short of the 48th anniversary of my first solo on the 29th Nov 1960 at High Ercall, a place Danny knows of.

The foreign pilots fell off and retired as time went by, the last leaving in March this year. I have been back to see them, the last time this year. They now have three times the work ands three times the aircraft than before. Their new pilots are now trained at the Bristow College in the United States, the Chinese military need their now very highly trained expensive personnel for themselves.

Fareastdriver

There is another thread going on about flying training in the sixties but if the Mods let me I will put it in Danny's empire to keep it going.

I was working for the Bulawayo Chronicle when I saw an advert in the Salisbury Herald for Royal Air Force pilots. I had always wanted to join but I left school in England just as Duncan Sandys had chopped it up. My father had just left the Royal Air Force and had gone to live in Rhodesia so I decided to follow them. I wrote off and then I hitchhiked up to Salisbury for the interview with the RAF Air Attaché. I was turned down as a pilot because of something called ocular divergence with my eyes but I was offered a navigator position. My father, a long time Air Force pilot advised me that if one was to be killed in an aeroplane then one just may as well be flying it. On this I wrote to them and said that I would try and get my eyes sorted and try again.

This I did. I used a card that was supposed to stop my eyes crossing an after a month I was OK. I then told Salisbury and I went up for another interview.

I signed the dotted line for a Direct Commission Scheme 'B' in April 1960 out there and was then flown to Nairobi courtesy of a Central African Airways Dakota. Soon after take off there was a mad rush as the cabin attendant carried luggage from the back of the aircraft to the front. On arrival at Nairobi I was met and then driven to Eastleigh and put up in the transit block for three days. Finally I was put aboard a British Commonwealth?? Britannia and flown to Gatwick.

Eastleigh had given me a railway warrant to Cirencester and eventually I arrived at South Cerney. I presented myself to the guardroom to be informed that everybody was away on Easter Grant seeing that it was Good Friday. They did not have transit accommodation for officer cadets so eventually I was given a railway warrant back to London where I would shack up with my grandparents.

I arrived at about 10.p.m. and I couldn't knock them up. Being in their eighties they had switched off their deaf aids when they went to bed. Another two mile hike and fortunately my aunt was up and I stayed there.

Tuesday came and back to Cirencester but this time there was a bus waiting for us at the station, a 32-seat flat-fronted Bedford one, which was only ever made for the British armed forces. I got in with the rest and as we negotiated the narrow streets of Cirencester I had a look at what were to be my companions for the next few months. Seventeen and a half was the minimum age, this allowed six months to enable them to get their basic training in before they reached the legal age to be killed. Most of them seemed to be about that age apart from a couple of older men who were NCOs who had been selected for commissioning. Some of them knew each other from the Aptitude and Selection Centre at Biggin Hill and they were comparing notes on who had passed and who had failed. I was lucky. When I joined the Air Force in Salisbury I was assessed by the Rhodesian Air Force and they didn’t go into crossing crocodile infested rivers with two oil drums and four planks. All I did apart from the basic intelligence test was to go through a book of instrument panel pictures and write down what the aircraft was doing. My father had given me loads of flying experience in my youth; I could synchronise four Hercules on a Halifax before I could ride a bike, so this was fairly straightforward. One youth was quieter than the rest. Apparently his elder brother had focussed his whole life on being a pilot in the air force. When his brother applied he had applied too just for the hell of it. His mad-keen brother failed and he had passed.

We left the town itself and I recognised the road to South Cerney. The same snowdrop was at the guardroom window; he was probably welded to the floor. The bus swept passed Station Headquarters and stopped outside No 1 Barrack Block. A sign outside solved one mystery, I was on No 154 Course. The door opened and everybody started to file into the building. This was different! When I did my Rhodesian national service we had to line up and get shouted at for at least five minutes before we could go inside anywhere. The two NCOs and I were last in. The barrack block was standard 1937 Expansion period. Two floors with one large barrack room either side with the washroom and toilets on the landing halfway up the stairs. This allowed half a floor, which was plenty, underneath for the central heating boilers. The ground floor room on the left was used as the admin centre. Sitting behind two desks were a couple of flight lieutenants and prowling behind them was a squadron leader with whom I took an instant dislike. It took about two minutes to establish that we were being called in alphabetical order so I had a long wait.

More to follow if anybody is interested.

Fareastdriver

Surprisingly there were still four others waiting when I was called. The flight lieutenant who called me was an Australian or New Zealander, as I could tell by his accent. This did not surprise me. A lot of my childhood had been in married quarters so I knew the RAF had a very high proportion of foreign and Commonwealth aircrew. My file was thinner than the others were, there was no blow by blow accounts of how dodged crocodiles in mine. It just had a brief summary from the RRhAF and my army discharge paper.
He went through them twice. “What education have you got?”
“Six O levels,” I answered, which was true. I had taken my O levels in two different terms and I had the certificates for the first three but the others had never caught up with me, so I could only prove that I had three.
“What was your Rhodesian service like?”
“Six months basic training plus four reserve call-ups; one of them was the Nyasaland Emergency.”
He looked at me closely. “Was your father in the Air Force at Heany?”

This was the initial time that I went to Rhodesia in 1950. The Empire Air Training Scheme was in full swing then and a large proportion of pilots were trained in Rhodesia and Canada to relieve the overcrowding in the UK. My father had been posted out there and we went with him. The days of the old Union Castle liners taking two weeks to sail from Southampton have now, sadly, passed but as a result of that three years later when my father subsequently retired in 1957 he went out there again. I followed him shortly after, which is why I ended up doing my Rhodesian national service.
“Yes,” I said, “4 FTS.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I must be getting old, I remember you as a little kid.”
He looked down again. “I don’t have to tell you that you will still be liable for British National Service if you fail this course because you coming from the Commonwealth you will not. Being Rhodesian Army you won’t be crying for your mummy either. Follow the signs to stores and draw you kit, there is a corporal there who will tell you what you need.”

It was a very efficient system in stores. I was one of the last, but there was no queue. There was a long desk with half-a-dozen airmen behind.
“Shirt size?”
“Fifteen and a half.”
Crump, two woolly airman shirts and two officers pattern shirts with separate collars.
“Shoe size?”
“Eight.”
Thud, one pair of boots and one pair of airman shoes. The ones handing out underclothes and socks used the called sizes as a guide and thumped them down beside them. A pile of standard items, tie, towels and a button stick. One thrust a beret towards me, I tried it on and it fitted. The other hand produced a cloth officer badge and a white felt disk. “You’ll have to sew that on”.
I went into the next room. That was where the contract tailor was. He ran a tape round my chest and down my leg.
“Thirty six long.”
Out came an officer pattern No1 uniform and a standard blue serge battledress. I took off my jacket and trousers and put on the No 1. The jacket was fine but the trousers were deliberately too long anyway. Three steps onto a platform and the tailor marked off the bottom of the legs. I tried on the No2 battledress. They were made to size so it fitted all around but By Christ it itched. Serge was the material used for all working clothes for all three services and it was chronic stuff. Rough on the inside and outside it used to rub red marks into your thighs, never kept it’s shape and when it got wet it would stretch and take days to dry. A greatcoat was handed out; it fitted over the battledress. A white webbing belt. I looked at the brasses, they were brand new.
“Have you got one with old brasses on?” I didn’t want to spend a week buffing new brasses down.
“Yes, you’re lucky.” He passed over another one. I flicked it inside out and looked at the end hooks. They had been cleaned all right but whoever had had it before hadn’t polished the holes. Never mind it could be worse. A white canvas band was handed to me. I looked at it puzzled.
“That’s to go around your SD hat when you get it.”
I was then informed my No1 uniform would be ready in a week and I was to take my kit back to the block.

Our room was on the ground floor opposite that previous meeting place. There was no allocation of beds and of the few that were left I found one half-way down the right. The sheets and blankets were already folded on it and beside it were a chest of drawers and a two-foot wide wardrobe. This was luxury. In my army block a bed and a narrow locker was all that you got. Any other kit was stored in another room. I dropped my case on the bed and looked around to try and see what the score was. No.153 Course lived upstairs and a handful of them who knew some of the new arrivals were chatting as they unpacked their possessions. It became apparent that everything you had went into your own furniture. Not only that but once you had made your bed it stayed made until you changed the sheet, there was no folding it into a bedpack in the morning. I unloaded everything I had and shoved the case under the bed. I looked at the floor. Gratefully I saw that it hadn’t been bulled in living memory.

to be continued............

Fareastdriver

The sound of activity at the door. In walked the two flight lieutenants, the squadron leader and behind them was the station commander. I, the two NCOs and the members of No153 course stood to attention. There followed a hesitant shambling to their feet as the others followed suit. The CO had an artificial leg and used a stick to get around. Four rows of ribbons on his tunic showed why.
“Welcome to RAF South Cerney,” he boomed. “I am Group Captain Fennel and I run this station. Just a word to introduce myself and wish you all the best of luck in your careers.”

With that he turned and departed, a man of few words. The Squadron Leader took over. He then gave a run down on what the rules were, when we were moving to the new cadet’s mess and the necessity of wearing a hat when we went into Cirencester. I was amazed, we were working a five and a half-day week and apart from this week we could go into town in the evening. That Friday the service tailors from London would come down and we would be given £10 to buy a proper SD cap, shoes and brown leather gloves. All officers had to be saluted and as The Central Flying School’s helicopter unit was also on the station that included them as well. This applied to me anyway as an officer cadet because I was a substantive AC2 but I had seen a few uniforms put away with pilot officer’s rings on them so those with instant University Air Squadron commissions weren’t going to get away with it either. The Squadron Leader continued that we were to be ready, in uniform, for the indoctrination period at 0830 hrs. It was now teatime so we all walked in a big crowd to the airmen’s mess where the corporal’s dining room was reserved for cadets. This was very different; I had always been marched around to meals. The food was standard RAF fare, chips with everything.

The evening was spent tidying up my service kit, I had brought some Brasso with me so I polished up the brasses on the belt, and as it had a plastic finish it did not need blancoing. I thought about boning the pimply finish on the shoes smooth but that was unnecessary, as they were not going to be used for posh parades. Some of my companions were trembling in anticipation, this being what they had dreamed about for years. The visitors from upstairs seemed to indicate that it was a pretty soft life. There was not a lot of running about, the drill was pretty straightforward and most of the time seemed to be spent on making sure that everybody’s brain worked in sympathy with their educational qualifications.

I had been used to sleeping in a barrack block so the odd disturbances during the night didn’t stir me at all. Lashings of bacon, eggs and chips started the day off though some were a bit late as they were still learning how to put a uniform on. At 0829.59 precisely a flight sergeant walked in.

“Good morning gentlemen,” he barked. “Will you form three ranks outside?” This was the first time a seargeant had ever called me a gentleman, usually quite the opposite. We formed up outside. He called out the name of the elder of the NCOs followed by his fellow and me.
“Flight Sergeant Morris, you will march this lot about whenever they move. The other two will be the right markers until they get some idea of what’s going on.”
We took up our positions. The flight was brought to attention and as I did so I brought my knee up to the horizontal as I had been taught in the army.
Flight Sergeant Thomas glared down at me.
“We don’t do that in the RAF.”
Just my luck, I had just set a precedent for my entire Air Force training. I was always the first to be bullocked on every course I went on.

South Cerney had the standard three curved hangar layout with CFS using the western one. It was one of the few airfields remaining with no runways, just a perimeter track around the outside, which is why it was ideal for helicopters. We marched, in a fashion, to the centre hangar where our course classroom was. We filed in and were introduced to the instructors on the course, most of them were Education Branch and their job was to bring us up to speed on the three Rs. Further documentation followed. Photographs were taken for 1250s, (ID card), next of kin etc.etc. We then went into the hangar for a session of drill to try and get some sort of rhythm to our marching. I soon learned to march the air force way; it was a damn sight more relaxing than the army was. Then an old fashioned tea break with the NAAFI wagon.

The rest of the week passed much in this way with two drill sessions a day between the academics. Not all the course were going to be pilots, half were going to be navigators or air electronics officers so sometimes they were split off to mess about with wriggly amps and suchlike. We pilots then had lessons on aerodynamics and it is amazing how people who had set their heart on hurling about the sky for so long had such an appalling ignorance about what keeps an aeroplane in the air. Friday lunchtime came and we all lined up to collect our money to buy our hats, gloves and shoes.

The tailors had already unloaded their vans into the admin room in the barrack block. Gieves, Moss Bros. and R. E. City were the three firms. Hawkes was an Army and Navy specialist. Shoeboxes identified the Poulsen shoe man and surrounded by piles of hatboxes was the Bates rep. These were the hats that everybody wanted. Oversize crowns enabled them to be wrapped in a wet towel so that the material flopped over the headband almost to the ears, very much like a Luftwaffe cap except the cloth was softer. They were a pound more expensive than the tailor’s versions so by the time I had my Bates hat, Moss Bros. gloves and Poulsen shoes I had disposed of twelve pounds. The tailors were of course, trying to sign everybody up for budget accounts so they would be trapped with them for the rest of their service life but I had been warned by my father to avoid this. Some of the cadets were getting measured up for No.1 uniforms at their own expense, an action I considered very optimistic because if you failed the course you became an instant airman and officers uniforms are no use then. Three went the whole hog and ordered them with red linings, then a Fighter Command prerogative. Within five years two of them were buried with what was left of the remains of their owners.

Saturday morning came and on Saturdays there was a parade and a barrack block inspection. The block wasn’t too bad, there was a rumour that we would be confined to camp if it was manky but the three NCOs and I managed to get them to clean the right places and being the junior course we were responsible for the washroom. My old sergeant major would have failed it at one hundred yards! The precaution of getting old brasses for my belt paid off as all the others with new ones toiled ceaselessly to bring up any sort of shine. We all paraded and were inspected. The usual comments about haircuts and whose uniform are you wearing then we all went inside for the block inspection and my experience of knowing the right places to clean saved us as he ran his fingers along clean pelmets and so on. So that was that, we were free until 0900hrs Monday morning.

Fareastdriver

When I was describing my return from Tianjin to Shenzhen I mentioned that we night stopped at a company operation at Wenzhou. I had been there about a year before when it was a joint Bristow/COHC operation.

Wenzhou is a oddity in Eastern China. In is effectively cut off topographically from the rest of China. There are various dialects in different parts of China but the majority are understandable except for Wenzhouese which is a total mystery to anybody that does not come from there. The area was heavily influenced by Jesuit missionaries and they have left their mark in the genes of the population. Before I went there I was told that it was famous for the beauty of its women and daily I would see some absolute stunners.

Because of its isolation it missed the rampages of the Cultural Revolution. This was noticeable by the number of active churches; seven spires or towers could be seen from the ATC cupola. Less than a mile from the airport entrance there was a newly completed two storey high church awaiting consecration. The agriculture was different. There was none of the groups of black houses and miles of paddy of the rest of China. The area was split into smallholdings and the family crypt, long disappeared anywhere else, still resided at the corner of a field.

I arrived there just before Christmas 1995. On arrival we found that the outgoing Pilot in Charge who had departed to return to the UK for Xmas had disabled the international dialling facility on the company telephone. This meant that we would be unable to phone home on Christmas Day. (He was ex-Army) However we phoned Shenzhen and we arranged with others to pass the Wenzhou telephone number to our UK relatives.

The operation was at the very beginning of oil exploration off Wenzhou and the rig involved was Chinese owned but run by expats. As with most overseas operations where western food and delicacies were unobtainable there was a standard arrangement with the offshore installations. We kept them supplied with blue movies and they kept us supplied with goodies. The high point of this arrangement was that they called for an admin run Christmas morning and waiting for us was a fully prepared Xmas dinner for everybody on the operation for us to take back.

There was a request for a photographic flight on the 8th January. It was to be flown for Wenzhou TV and was to cover the opening of Wenzhou railway station. I was going to fly it for three reasons.

I. I had flown photographic sorties extensively in Northern Ireland, both optical and IR. I had flown and done the aerial filming for the documentary ’Belize The Forgotten Frontier,’ and had been the airborne camera for the BBC at the Jubilee Air Show, plus others.
II. It seemed like it was going to be a good jolly.
III. I was in charge.

We arranged to meet the camera crew in the morning to go over the afternoon’s recording for the evening news. The director and the operator both had excellent English so it was a case of where and when. There was going to be a cavalcade of all the city bigwigs from the city hall to the railway station. Then with a crescendo of massed bands and probably three tons of fireworks the station would be declared open. They crew not have any long range lens with them so to get decent shots of the procession it would be necessary to be fairly low. This meant that I had to go to ATC.

The entire airport had had a bit of a get together on New Years Eve so we had chatted to the air traffic staff. What we were doing was totally new for them so we offered to take them with us on an offshore flight so that they understood what was going on. This would make it easier for us if we had what they would consider a strange flight request. They took up this offer and we had flown three of them by this time. On this basis they owed me a favour.

As I have mentioned before AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL IS PARAMOUNT in China. This can be used for your own advantage as there is no such thing as General VFR or minimum heights. You fly where and how high you are told. I explained to them that I was flying an important photographic flight for the local TV Company that was highlighting the advances of Wenzhou city. To present this in the best possible way I would need to fly at low level to achieve the best shots. They asked me how low. Twenty metres? OK.

There was no question of anybody complaining about low flying helicopters in China. In Northern Ireland a favourite joke was that if anyone complained about a low flying helicopter the next morning the SAS would turn up and roll the house looking for a reason why they didn’t want low flying helicopters around. In China at that time it wouldn’t be a joke.

The station was due to be opened at 15.00 hrs. We were going to use B7953, a Chinese registered aircraft as it was a local celebration. To get their best shots the camera crew were going to need the full co-operation of the pilots. This was ensured the Chinese way be taking me and my FO out to lunch; and an excellent lunch it was.

I knew where the road to the station was. The entrance had the usual hoardings with stacks of flags and pictures of cheering people. We took off at 14.30 and ten minutes later we were there. I needed to recce the left hand side of the road as the camera was pointing out of the starboard door. This was to check for TV aerials, power lines etc. The road was new and each side was thick with children and adults all frantically waving to us as we passed them at about one hundred yards and fifty feet. After two kilometres the railway station came into sight, bedecked with flags and banners and as I passed over it something struck me as wrong.

There wasn’t a railway.

Where’s the railway? I asked and the director said that it hadn’t arrived yet. They still had to complete about twenty kilometres of tunnelling through the hills. The station was going to be opened today because that was on the schedule. The railway can wait.

I backtracked on the other side of the road and I noticed that the new road was about a metre higher than the old road. This could seen by everybody standing on the old pavements and looking along the road surface. There was a reason for this. When the old houses were demolished the area they occupied would be one metre below the road. This was ideal for services as they could be laid on level ground. First (ground) floors on modern houses and apartments are one metre above the ground so by digging the site by another metre you had three metres from footings to floor. This would take no time at all and then the pile drivers would move in. The previous inhabitants had a choice between getting a new apartment closer to town or waiting until the apartments in their local area were completed. It meant that buildings could go up at an incredible speed and goes some way to explaining why Chinese cities seem to be redeveloped overnight.

We orbited the entrance to the road and there was no sign of the cavalcade. After twenty minutes I was getting fed up.. There seemed to be nobody in charge at this end so I flew up to the station. By the side of the road there were a couple of police 4X4s next to a dried paddy. I landed on and asked the director to ask the police where everybody was. This he did and came back with the information that the whole show had been delayed an hour. He then suggested that we fly to Wenzhou and get some library pictures. We got airborne and I spoke to air traffic and not wishing to push my luck too far I asked for clearance to operate over Wenzhou at fifty metres and this was granted.

I had only been to Wenzhou city once before and I hadn’t seen much of it. Most of the buildings were fifty to a hundred years old apart from massive swathes were being cut through to them to form the new boulevards that were going to be the new shopping malls. The producer was delighted. He had never thought that he was going to get aerial pictures of the city showing the old and the new.

My FO was keeping his eyes open for any activity on the road out of town and he saw the cavalcade on its way. We caught up with it as they turned into the railway station road and took long shots of the whole procession from 100/20 metres. When they reached the station I turned away and returned to the airfield. There was no point in staying and drowning out the speeches. On return the TV people thanked us for our efforts and that was it. They had bought us lunch, got the cooperation; job done.

We never saw them again.

Fareastdriver

I spent the weekend in London and I arrived back at about six p.m. Sunday evening. The place was like a morgue. Everybody was sitting around looking miserable. It transpired that on the Saturday morning whilst we were having our block inspection 153 course had received the results of their Intermediate Test. The consequences of this were that three had been sent home awaiting instructions to report to RAF Cardington for their basic airman training to complete their national service. One, a navigator who had demonstrated his total inability to read maps and charts, but was OK in everything else, had been offered an alternative career in the Engineering Branch so he was off to RAF Halton. Two of them who were going to become airmen were the hail and hearty ones telling everybody how easy it was.
The party was over.

Monday morning we paraded out side and waiting to meet us was an incredibly fit looking corporal. The two NCOs and I inwardly groaned because we knew it was a Physical Training Branch corporal.
“Good morning gentlemen, will you temporarily dismiss and reform in your gym kit.” We broke, changed and five minutes later we were out again slightly shivering in the cold morning air. I hope this isn’t going to be too hard, I thought, otherwise I am going to throw up my breakfast. No marching this time, we trotted down to the gymnasium and once inside were introduced to the latest weapon of mass destruction, circuit training.

Around the floor and along the walls was spread every conceivable form of old fashion wooden exercise architecture very much in the form of a show-jumping ring. The PTI demonstrated all the things we had to do going through, going through the whole gambit of press-ups, chin-ups, crutches and vaulting plus a few more equally crippling sequences. We were going to have it easy to start off with. We would go around in turn and go through the entire sequence only having to do five of the nastier ones.
“Next week,” he gloated, “you will go in sequence so as the first finishes his five press-ups the next one follows, and if anybody is caught up by the person behind he starts all over again.”

I was still fit, our monthly weekend sessions in the Rhodesian reserves had made sure of that but the NCOs were older and a bit softer. The direct entry cadets made it pretty obvious that the severest test of strength on their part was swinging a cricket bat and our ex University Acting Pilot Officers were a disaster, three years of soft university life showed us that. I didn’t push it too hard, I could still feel yesterday’s beer sloshing inside me but I worked up a bit of a sweat. Not so the others, some were having trouble gripping the bar, let alone trying to do a chin up. One hour later a host of panting, wheezing, scarlet-faced people wearily trotted shambolicly back to the block.

We went into our accommodation, picked up our towels and dived into the shower room. On went the taps and a cascade of freezing water descended on us. We frantically turned the hot taps to try to correct it but that was when we found that the coal-fired boiler was shut down on Monday mornings for decoking. The scarlet had turned to blue by now so we dried ourselves down and got back into uniform. A chorus of nose blowing was interrupted by WO Thomas walking in.
“We now know how fit you are, by the time we have finished with you you won’t believe what you will be able to do.”

We marched to the classrooms straight into the tea break and then continued with the daily routine. I was having my own troubles. Logical English writing I could understand and do. I had worked for a bank in Rhodesia and they had encouraged me to sit the Institute of Bankers exams and I had obtained a credit in English so I knew the score. What I couldn’t grasp was the layout of service letters and when to use Formal Official, Semi Official and the stupid endings like ‘I remain Sir, your obedient servant’. I took an instant dislike to administration, something which effected my career for the next eighteen years and still effects me in later life with things like tax returns etc. My protests that I had joined the air force to belt around in aeroplanes and not spend time scribbling in an office fell on deaf ears and after three weeks I was formally warned that I was going to have to improve if I was to continue training.

My saviour was another student. We had sorted out our problems that had started on the train. He had a gift for military writing and not only that he could explain how to do it with a collection of phrases that covered just about everything. What he could not grasp were aerodynamics, which is where I came in because it was an open book for me. The result is that we used to spend an hour together in the evenings and sort each other out. My standard improved so much that when we had to write an example of some letter or other the instructor would watch me intently to make sure I wasn’t copying somebody else’s work. In two weeks Jenkins and I would be off review for our respective subjects. He was more grateful than I was; the spectre of National Service was waiting for him.

My progress was interrupted the next week. We were having a session of softball on the sports field. I was awaiting my turn and was taking to somebody when my lights went out. I spent some minutes unconscious and when I woke up I was surrounded by worried cadets and they had already called up the ambulance. What had happened was that the batsman had missed the ball and let go of the bat which had then found the back of my head. I was still groggy when I arrived at sick quarters and the SMO immediately had me shifted off to RAF Hospital Wroughton for a check up. When I arrived I was wheeled in to have my bonce Xrayed. There was nothing serious but they decided that I should stay in for observation until I could see straight and recover from a God Almighty headache.

To be continued

Fareastdriver

I was going to be in dock for some time. I was severely concussed by the softball bat and they were worried whether my brain was going to deteriorate any further. I was put in the officer’s ward and I had three companions. I cannot remember what they suffered from but only one had any conversation and I couldn’t see a lot wrong with him. There was no communication from South Cerney or anybody on my course, not even an apology, so I was existing in what I was standing up in when I was walloped. Fortunately, being of a suspicious mind I had kept my wallet in the shorts so at least I had some money. All the rest was provided by the hospital.

My eyesight was the problem. I was having diocular divergence again and I wasn’t telling them that I had had it before. Amazingly, they brought out similar bits of cardboard to those that I had in Bulawayo and knowing how to use them I was showing an immediate improvement. This conned them into thinking that it was only temporary so after a fortnight I had a medical and once again I was A1G1Z1. The nursing sisters were having a party that weekend so the hospital very kindly allowed me to stay for the weekend and discharged me on the Monday.

Not having any kit to wear I was taken back to South Cerney in a car. Complete with dressing gown I was dropped outside the barrack block. When I went in I saw that all the beds had been stripped. Not too worried I got dressed and marched along to our classrooms; they were empty. I continued to the admin office and there holding the fort was the admin sergeant. He informed me that everybody had gone off to the Welsh hills to run around in the mud and things like that. He didn’t know what to do with me so I was sent of to SHQ to find the Station Adjutant. I was given two choices; stick around for the rest of the week finding something to do or take what he called ‘sick leave’ somewhere. My answer was fairly immediate and I was soon gripping a railway warrant and packing.

A couple of weeks later there was a buzz that National Service was being closed up for ever. There was a rumour that should one fail the course there was no requirement to complete the two years. Then it was confirmed. Suspension from the course either voluntary or otherwise would carry no liability for National Service. Within a week three had left followed by two or three others in the subsequent weeks. I could see their point. Being aircrew, especially a pilot, for five years would be preferable to being a squaddie in the jungle for two years so when the option to avoid both came up they took it.

I and a couple of others did not make the course for various reasons, my enforced absence was one of mine. One went out on his ear and the other was recoursed with me. We two had been friends ever since,. I was his best man and we last saw each other this year.

Fareastdriver

When we had first arrived at Cerney the form was that we would spend eight weeks in the block and then, having proved we could use a knife and fork, move into the Officers’ Mess. The plot had now changed owing to the refurbishment of a group of buildings that were to be known as the Cadets’/No.2 Officers’ Mess. Four weeks in the block then four weeks there and then into No.! Officers’ Mess. All of my fellow students, apart from my fellow recoursee, departed to the said Mess leaving we two to await the new course. For a weekend, if we had been there, we would have had the whole building to ourselves. What it did mean was the only one of the barrack block rooms would be used in the future so we stayed put downstairs. On the Monday we introduced ourselves to our new directing staff. The boss was a lot better than the old one and for both of us we regained our confidence.

The new course arrived on a bus and then it looked as if we two had been recoursed to make up the numbers. There were less than a dozen of them. We sat through the preamble with them and in the evening it came apparent that several recruits that they were expecting had pulled out, undoubtedly because of the end of National Service. The next morning the barrack room was rearranged to suit the occupancy so we had stacks of room each.

I had some spare time in the next couple of weeks because I was not wanted for things that I had done already. Central Flying School (Helicopters) occupied one of the hangers and they were quite cooperative if a cadet wanted a ride. To this end I found myself in the back of a Sycamore for an instructor’s instructional sortie. It was noisy, because you had an Alvis Leonides at apparently continuous full song just behind you. The two pilots were talking about some incomprehensible flying characteristics and then one of them turned around to warn me that they were going to stop the engine.

Either the bottom of the aircraft dropped out or the blades fell of but we suddenly started hurtling towards the ground. The two heros up front were quite blasé about it, it obviously happened all the time. They hadn’t stopped the engine because I could hear it quietly idling away behind me but it allowed us to hear the whoosh of the rotor blades as we went down. As we got lower there was a sudden farting sound behind me as the engine stopped! There was now silence as we plummeted towards the ground and then with certain disaster inevitable a pilot hauled the nose up, the blades flapped even faster, followed by a levelling and a massive sink towards the grass. At the last moment before impact the pilot hauled on a lever in the centre that arrested its descent and we rolled gently forward on the turf. There were then hands flashing around the cockpit and the sound of the starter motor and the engine bursting into life restored some form of normality. I hadn’t a clue of what was going on even when they explained that it was a practice Engine Off Landing. Not that I was worried. I had joined the Air Force to go camel hunting in a Hunter, not flutter around in helicopters.

A picture of a picture


This picture I got back after my mother died.

I went through the course as before with no trouble and then we came to the ‘Off to the Welsh hills’ bit. Surprise No.1. No hitch hiking to the campsite. It had been decided that servicemen hitching hiking as a matter of policy was verboten so we would be taken by coach. Not all the way; the last ten miles would be an escape & evasion exercise to make sure we got wet and muddy; then we would be in tents. There then came the decision as to who was going to run the camp. Guess who was the only one who had any experience in running around the sticks and living under canvas; so I was now Camp Commandant. All sympathy felt for me for getting lumbered with this job evaporated when it was disclosed that I would be going direct to the campsite with the truck to do the initial site planning. Missing the exercise didn’t worry me. I had done my bit running around in the dark chasing or being chased. The bewitching hour came, I sat in the truck, the rest in a bus and off to Brecon we went.

Fareastdriver

The worst thing I had in China during a thunderstorm was a large bird flying IMC in IFR controlled airspace. It hit the radar radome with a big bang, crushed the dome and jammed the scanner. My radar stopped working so I couldn't weave between the red bits on the radar and the red bits on the windscreen.

That's when I turned around and fled.

Fareastdriver

Big grimaces and sucking of teeth when the Puma HC1 came out. Just behind a fragile centre windscreen were the engine shut off levers. They were positioned precisely where if a large bird hit the Perspex at high speed and went through it would push them both back. There were lots of augments bandied about but in the end all was left alone. As far as I recall it never happened though I may be wrong.

The original Puma Mk1 also had open intakes. This meant that any objects that bounced off the windscreen went into the engines. Fortunately the Turmo 3C engine was of an agricultural design originally built to power railway trains. The first stage compressor, a 100mm. deep titanium chunk, would happily convert sparrows and suchlike into jet fuel.

Later models and also I believe the Puma Mk2 have the elongated shut off levers that are angled so that they cannot be operated by a stray bird. The engines intakes were eventually protected by particle separators, snow dams or chip baskets.

Fareastdriver

I was detached up to Kai Tak in 1969 from 110 Sqn, Seletar and the airfield, as such, was completely different. The new runway pushing out to Kowloon bay and the old east/west runway was part of the civil ramp with the outline of a 747 painted on it for planning purposes. At the top of Lion Rock north of the airfield was the radar unit and one of the controllers, having finished his shift on a claggy day, was getting into his car when a Japan Airlines 707 went through the car park.

On the western end of the New Territories was a miltary exercise area and one day the Royal Navy launched an assault from a carrier. Unfortunately they miscounted the headlands and deposited an entire Marine Commando in the Peoples Republic of China. Luckily the mistake was realised in good time and they were recovered before Hong Kong was invaded in retaliation.

I was there, in Shenzhen, during the handover in 1997. In fact the PLA helicopter units that moved into Sek Kong took off from my operating base. There were more than 50,000 PLA troops stationed along the Shenzhen coast to dissuade any Chinese nationals that may have thought that they had a right to go into Hong Kong. The situation did not materialise but they were ready for it.

At that period hotels were incredibly cheap because there were no tourists. They must have thought that the PLA were going to bayonet people in the streets. In fact, nothing changed apart from the fact the young ladies from Oz, NZ, and the UK weren't allowed to work in Hong Kong so we lost all of our best barmaids.

Fareastdriver

Your story about the engine oil pressure gauges reminds me of a characteristic the Puma HC1 helicopter sometimes had in the early days.

The engine fire detectors were a series of bi-metallic switches that would close when the engine bay temperature reached a certain level. Helicopters do not have the luxury of a constant flow of air though the engine bay so sometimes it gets very hot. In a downwind the situation can arise where the recirculating air can cause the temperature to rise sufficiently to illuminate the fire warning light even though there is not a fire and so it was with this aircraft.

I had a VIP on board; a staff officer of Air Rank who had come to see how we operated in Northern Ireland. He seemed incredibly keen as he had done all his weapon training and arrived looking like Rambo. It seemed a shame to put him on a milk run so I strapped him into my jump seat between we two pilots and we punched off down south to Armagh.

We were going to do a changeover shuttle between Bessbrook and Crossmaglen. The latter was right in the middle of the Republican area of Ulster and was a hotbed for the IRA. We took off from Bessbrook with a compliment of squaddies and I explained to him that we had a two hundred foot ceiling in this area because of SAM 7s and small arms. I also pointed out that we were weaving around the topography and forestry for the same reason. All this at 145 knots.

The Army post in Crossmaglen was in the police station on the north-eastern corner of the Shinty ground. The prevailing, south westerly wind was blowing and as it was unwise to approach over the town itself it meant a downwind approach and landing across the Shinty field. The Puma had no trouble with this so I flared off the speed and plonked it onto the landing pad. The crewman opened the doors and we started a high speed passenger changeover.

That’s when both fire lights came on.

The reaction of my co-pilot and myself was similar, a resigned grunt, but our Air Officer went ballistic. He was punched me on the shoulder and frantically pointing at the fire lights. I tried to reassure him but he was having nothing of it. He had obviously been in an environment where if the light isn’t put out in ten seconds you eject. Eventually I had to remind him that I was the captain, I knew what was going on with my aircraft and would he please shut up.

Or words to that effect.

It worked either because he understood my reasoning or he wasn’t expecting to be addressed that way by a Flight Lieutenant. I was fireproof; I had said ‘Sir’ twice.

The doors were then closed and the crewman cleared us to go. In the hover, half turn into wind and take off across the Shinty field. Halfway across the field both engine fire warning lights, as expected, faded out.

He was very good about it. He apologised for trying to tell me what to do and accepted wholeheartedly the correction that I had given him. I was quite happy. He had learned more about how we operated than any series of lectures of briefings could teach him.

jpinx

Patrick Orchard and I had a great time during the eighties with a pretty wide range of aircraft for a 2-man show. Unfortunately I lost most of my photos and only have a few, but I'd be very happy to hear from anyone with information or photos or 'what happened next'

John Pinkerton

jpinx

http://picpaste.com/ScanImage0040-QXt3iART.jpg

http://picpaste.com/G-AWLL-yBuhEfMo.jpg

ericferret

What was wrong with the links? They opened ok.
One photo was 206 G-AWLL and the second a photo of Sean Connery with a 206.