Trials and Errors

by Mike Brooke

  I was flying one test exercise in the Lightning and the student coped very well with the very challenging flight profile, which was measuring roll-rates while flying supersonic at 20,000ft. Apart from a reminder for him to climb immediately, without using reheat, at the end of the run and turn back towards Boscombe he did very well. As we taxied in I noticed a condensation trail hanging in the south-western sky. I pointed it out to him.

  ‘We made that eighteen minutes ago,’ I said. He was amazed. Actually, so was I!

  Sometimes, as with the ground crew air experience trips, we were asked to fly visitors who had convinced senior management that their reason for flying with us was acceptable. The fact that I was always keen to drop anything to fly the Hunter or the Lightning meant that I used to get quite a few of these. One day a Royal Navy Surgeon Commander, who was also a pilot, arrived with the appropriate piece of paper clutched in his hand that indicated that he was medically fit to fly in a fast jet. The Lightning was free and, for once, serviceable, and so was I.

  ‘Brookie!’ went out the call. I appeared from my office to the glad tidings that, should I have the time, would I care to take the good naval officer for a trip in the Lightning. The mouths of gift horses came to mind.

  ‘Yes, I’d be delighted. Follow me, sir,’ I replied.

  I took my visitor to the safety equipment section where the good Tony Gee, still there after all these years, kitted him out. I then gave him a briefing on the ejection seat and the usual banter about the fact that, if the worst should happen, I would shout ‘Eject, eject,’ and if he didn’t go quickly enough a third call would be an echo. Then we walked out to our silver steed and I supervised him strapping into the right-hand seat.

  As it happened there was a howling wind from the north-east so we were using runway 05, which meant an extended journey to the end of the runway. But it wasn’t too long before I was calling ATC for clearance to depart, climb overhead the airfield and depart to the south-west. I received approval coupled with the news that the wind was now blowing at a steady 25 knots, with gusts to 30. As I lined up a naughty thought crossed my mind but refused to exit on the other side: I wonder how fast this jet will be going when we get to the other end of this 10,000ft long runway? If I could hold it down after lift-off, and get the nose wheel up successfully before we reached 240kt (where the air pressure would overcome the hydraulic pressure trying to retract it), it would be interesting to see. So I lined up on the centreline, moved the throttles to match the two engines at 85 per cent of maximum rpm, checked everything looked good, released the brakes, applied full power and off we went.

  ‘Wow,’ said my passenger.

  ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ was my riposte.

  At that point the afterburners lit and we really were off. Scalded rabbits came to mind. I managed to successfully retract all three undercarriage legs while holding the aircraft at about 20ft off the ground. Once that had happened I just aimed at the far end of the runway moving the stick forward as the speed increased to keep us at 20–30ft. As we passed over the arrestor barrier the speed was 365kt. There was only one thing to do with all that speed so I pulled up vertically, not too tightly until we were on our backs over the airfield at about 12,000ft. I then rolled out on the south-westerly heading and changed to Boscombe Down’s radar controller. The rest of the trip was the usual rapid climb to 40,000ft, a bit of handling up there, then a descent to 10,000ft for a loop and a roll or two, followed by flight at 650kt at 2,000ft before a return to Boscombe for a couple of circuits. I never came across anyone who did not enjoy their flights in the Lightning, or any of our aircraft – not that we did a lot of this sort of flying!

  Much of the flying we did was on similar exercises to those when I had attended the course in 1975. However, some of the aircraft were different. The Argosy had been replaced by the Andover military transport, but it wasn’t in the same class for size and weight, and our single-seat Hunter F6As were pensioned off at the end of my first year: 1981. During that year three sparkling, brand-new Hawk trainers arrived all decked out in the by now standard ‘Raspberry Ripple’ colour scheme with ‘Empire Test Pilots’ School’ emblazoned on each side of the fuselage. The three had consecutive military registration numbers: XX 341, 342 and 343. During the second half of the year they would be individually taken out of service for the fitment of all the special instrumentation that we required for the test exercises. That meant that we could use the other two for staff training, especially for Keith Crawford and myself, who had not flown the Hawk before. John Thorpe had been one of the first two RAF test pilots to fly the Hawk and had carried the original Preview. Jock Reid had also flown it and it was he that showed me round the Hawk’s flight envelope before I went off on my own.

  The Hawk was yet another good-looking aeroplane from the old Hawker aircraft stable. Of course, being built from the start as a trainer didn’t give it that warplane edge that the Hunter always had. Its R-R Ardour turbofan engine didn’t have the raw power of the Hunter’s Avon but it was much more economical on fuel. The way that the rear seat was raised above the front gave the instructor almost as good a view forward as the student; a huge improvement over its predecessor the Folland Gnat.

  The cockpits were much more modern too and very comfortable. The Hawk had a totally independent internal starting system via a small jet engine in the spine, above the engine, the APU. There was also a ram-air turbine in the spine, just ahead of the tailfin. This would pop out into the airflow and would whiz round to provide hydraulic power to the flight controls in the event of an engine or hydraulic system failure.

  Flying the Hawk was an enjoyable experience every time. It handled well, with very few vices and for me with a very short back length, it was virtually the first aircraft I had flown in which I didn’t have the seat at its fully raised position. In fact I had a lot of trouble at first in keeping the aircraft level because I just couldn’t believe how high the horizon was above the nose!

  During the summer of 1981 John and Jock worked on the spinning exercise for the Hawk. There were two problems to be solved: in the more advanced spins that we and the students would be doing it was relatively easy to put the engine into what was called a locked-in surge condition. That meant that it would not produce thrust when you needed it and would overheat as well. Most undesirable. The other was that BAe, who designed and built the Hawk, had banned deliberate inverted spinning for structural reasons. The former problem was overcome by transmitting the engine temperature to the ground pilot’s station and the latter by retaining the two-seat Hunters for inverted spinning.

  Our students of 1982 and 1983 missed out on the excitement of flying the single-seat Hunter but they all praised the virtues of the Hawk, which we used throughout the syllabus. But there were occasional ‘gotchas’. For instance it was possible to synchronise the compass 180° off the correct heading (a fault later removed by a modification to the gyro systems). I was flying with a very experienced and capable pilot one day when he did that very thing after a session of aerobatics. He had earlier tuned the TACAN navigation system to the beacon at Yeovilton, which was about 40 miles west of Boscombe Down. When he was told to turn east by the Boscombe Down radar controller he complied, but he was actually heading west. After a few moments the controller asked him for our range – that is, how far we were from Boscombe Down. He looked at the TACAN and told the man ‘15 miles’.

  ‘Tester 52, I don’t have you on my radar at 15 miles,’ was the reply.

  ‘12 miles now,’ said my companion. Meanwhile I sat there very quietly wondering how long it would be before he noticed that the sun was ahead of us and not behind us and remembered that the TACAN was not tuned to Boscombe.

  ‘Tester 52, Squawk Ident,’ said the controller. That gave an extra boost to our particular blip on his radar screen.

  ‘Ah, there you are! Your range is 30 miles and you appear to be heading west,’ said our radar-equipped guardian. Cue huge think bubble over the bonedome of th
e front-seat occupant! I told him what had gone wrong, he reset his compass and turned around then, very quietly, went home.

  One day a Royal Australian Air Force flying instructor came our way. He had approval from both his and our ivory towers to fly a sortie in the Hawk. The Australians were at the time considering the Hawk as a replacement for their aging Italian Aermacchi MB-326 trainers. I got the job of flying with him.

  ‘I’d prefer to fly in the back seat,’ he told me, ‘then I’ll get an instructor’s viewpoint.’

  That actually made life a bit easier as I could get the jet started for him and then let him do the rest. We briefed for a mixed flight profile with a climb to high altitude, a couple of spins, some aerobatics at around 10,000ft and then a descent into the south-western low flying areas for about fifteen minutes at 250ft. After that I would show him and let him have a go at a few visual circuits, with touch-and-go landings.

  The trip went as briefed and if he enthused about the view from the back seat once he must have done it a dozen times. He liked the handling very much and actually made a good fist of flying and landing the Hawk. But it turned out that the thing that seemed to most make an impact on him came as we taxied back in. We had flown for one hour and fifteen minutes on a very varied flight profile, which had already impressed him, but then I pointed out how much fuel we still had left.

  ‘Wow! That’s real bonzer!’ he enthused. ‘When I get back I’ll tell the folks to get their order in real quick!’

  Another new aircraft on the Fleet was the Andover. I had flown it occasionally as a co-pilot at Farnborough, but only for about twenty-five flying hours. Here I had to become a captain and instructor. Thankfully the air engineers that were previously employed as operators and ‘minders’ on the Argosy had been retained for the Andover. There were three of them – the jovial Brian Jones (‘BJ’), the worldly-wise ‘Mr Fixit’ Ed Jacotine and the urbane and cool Brian Hemming. These guys and their collective expertise and knowledge kept us amateur ‘truckies’ out of trouble on many occasions.

  Once one got used to handling the R-R Dart turboprops the Andover was a fun aeroplane to fly and operate. It challenged the fighter pilots among our students and had enough quirky characteristics to keep them on their toes. We used it mainly for the asymmetric power and take-off and landing exercises, although it did feature in some of the others. It was also the ‘school bus’ for our various visits around the UK and Europe.

  One of the things that did require some practice before we demonstrated it to the students was the short take-off and landing. The Andover was equipped with a system to boost its engine power for short periods of time. So this was used for the short or heavyweight take-offs. It was an injection of a mixture of water and methanol into the engines – known as water-meth. Vic Lockwood, who joined us in 1982, called it ‘reheat for truckies’! The system was armed before the take-off run was started and as the power reached its maximum the system was activated and you really could feel the surge in power. When combined with the correct flap setting a very short take-off run was achievable. In fact, it was easy to be caught out. However, once airborne the aircraft was flying at a speed below its safety speed if an engine should fail, so you had to have your wits about you. With all my years flying the Canberra I was used to that!

  For the short landings we used the grass strip alongside the main runway. This was a novelty for almost everyone. Hurling a 15 tonne aeroplane at green ground and not tarmac was a bit alien. And then to get the shortest possible run the throttles had to be closed and the reverse pitch lever pulled up and back as soon as possible after what was often a shambolic arrival. Then all you had to do was keep the thing going straight and apply as much brake as you dared. It was easy to get it wrong! But the old Andover had seen it all before and put up with our brutal treatment very well. A really odd thing about all Andovers was their smell. As soon as you boarded via the passenger door at the back there was always a strong scent of horses; it was just like walking into a flying horsebox!

  At the end of each year we tutors were allocated a team of two or three to lead for their final exercise: the Preview. I covered the Phantom once and the Buccaneer twice; the second of these was not done in the November cold and East Anglian gloom of RAF Honington but the sparkling skies of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. That was some compensation for me not picking up the Tornado team! The Preview was quite a workload for the students but we had to mark their vast tomes in just a few days, and evenings!

  My final recollection returns to the Lightning – always a source of great stories! I was flying with one of the RAF students, Martin Pitt, and we were recovering to Boscombe with, as usual, not a lot of fuel. At about 3 miles from touchdown we received a rather urgent sounding radio message telling us not to land as the runway was blocked.

  ‘How long will it be blocked for?’ I asked.

  ‘Tester 52, don’t yet know,’ came the not very helpful reply.

  I looked at the fuel gauges, something you do often in the Lightning, and saw that we were down to our minimum to carry out a diversion to Lyneham.

  ‘Boscombe, Tester 52, I’m afraid I can’t hang around to find out – diverting to Lyneham.’ I put out an emergency call to ensure that we got priority handling. Meanwhile Martin, who was a big aeroplane man, was sitting there wondering what was coming next. I reached down and opened the cross-feed fuel cock, which would allow one engine to feed from both fuel tanks, and then asked him to shut down the number one engine. We then flew towards Lyneham at 250kt at 2,000ft. In the end we landed safely with absolute minimum fuel. I had got Martin to relight the number one engine, but leave it idling, because its hydraulic pump provided the shove to push out the brake parachute, which I wanted to have available on Lyneham’s 7,000ft runway.

  We landed safely and taxied to the Visiting Aircraft Flight’s hard standing. Then came the very embarrassing bit. First they had to find a set of stepladders tall enough to allow us to get out and down to the ground safely. We then went to VAF to ask for some fuel and, eventually, a huge bowser turned up and one of the ground crew came to fetch me from the crew room.

  ‘The bowser driver wants to know how he refuels your jet, sir,’ he said.

  Good question, I thought. I’ve no idea!

  Anyway, I strolled out as nonchalantly as I could while trying to remember whether I’d ever seen the guys at Boscombe refuelling the Lightning. A vague memory of it being under the wing came to mind, but which side I could not recall. As I came up my embarrassment was saved by the man having found the refuelling panel all on his own.

  ‘’Ere we are, sir,’ he said cheerily as he applied his screwdriver to open the panel’s little door. Inside were the hole into which he would push his hose and a few switches and lights. I looked in and saw that they were clearly marked so put them to ON. With the usual thump the fuel started going in under pressure. I left the scene as nonchalantly as I’d arrived. Just as I arrived at the door of the crew room there was a loud shout from behind me. I turned around and saw that the Lightning was behaving like a horse with a weak bladder, a stream of fuel was pouring out of the ventral tank underneath the fuselage. Thankfully the tanker driver had turned everything off as soon as he had spotted the overflow, disconnected the hose and we put all the switches back to where they had started from and closed the panel door.

  ‘How much has gone in?’ I enquired. When he told me I knew that would be enough to get home with. But I’d no idea why we had made such a mess all over the pan. At which point a big red fire engine turned up and started hosing all the fuel away. Meanwhile I had climbed up to the cockpit and turned the battery switch on to find out how much fuel there was in the main tanks; they were both full. I returned to the VAF and called station operations to book our departure.

  ‘Can you arrange for me to climb directly after take-off to flight level 360 (36,000ft) with a hand-off to London Military Radar, please.’

  ‘OK, sir, we’ll ask for that and the controller will confirm
it when you taxi out,’ came the helpful reply.

  Sure enough we were cleared to do that so Martin got another practice at the reheat climb. As we pierced the altocumulus cloud layer at about 15,000ft, lying on our backs doing nine-tenths of the speed of sound, I couldn’t help thinking how much I was going to miss all of this when I was moved on to whatever would come next!

  32 AMERICAN VISITS – USAFTPS

  There were two categories of visits to and from ETPS. The first were the staff visits made to the two American test pilots’ schools at Edwards AFB, in the high desert of California, and at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, on the shore of Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. They also made reciprocal visits to Boscombe Down. The others were the visits that the staff and students made to aerospace industrial and R&D sites. The latter visits, as they were in my day as a student test pilot, were part of the syllabus. However, there had been a great improvement in that there was also a European Tour, which took in aerospace companies and test and evaluation sites in Italy, France and Germany.

  In January 1981, when I had been on the staff only a few days, I joined the party that was setting off westbound across the Atlantic. On this occasion we were only going to visit the USAF Test Pilot School (USAFTPS) at Edwards AFB so when we boarded the Friday VC10 out of Brize Norton bound for Washington Dulles International Airport it was going to be the first leg of a long journey. We spent the night in Bachelor Officer Quarters at Andrews AFB, near Washington DC, from where we were to pick up our transcontinental flight the next day. This turned out to be an Air National Guard Boeing 737, which was fitted out as a navigational trainer. It was sitting on the concrete awaiting us parked not far from the huge Boeing 747 ‘Air Force One’, resplendent in its blue and white livery and liberally applied stars and stripes.

  I managed to get a window seat and I spent much of the following six hours watching the USA passing by 6 miles below. It was fascinating to see the different types of landscape, but I wished that I had brought a map to follow our progress. After what seemed an age I spotted a dark, sinuous line ahead. As we got nearer I realised that it must be the mighty Mississippi River. There was a large conurbation to the left and as I peered intently I could pick out a silver arch and its darker shadow. That must be St Louis, I thought. The Gateway Arch, which commemorates the pioneers of the westward expansion of the USA, is over 600ft high and its silver finish made it clearly visible, even from 36,000ft.