Operation HYDRAULIC - 2

Our arrival at Akrotiri on 4^th June would have been early in the Cyprus day – there was a 2-hour time difference for a start but the principal reason was that we had set off from home base at Marham very early in the day.

The Victor was a wonderfully designed aircraft, well ahead of its time, but its four Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire engines, at only about 11,000 pounds of thrust each, rather let it down.  Not because of unreliability – the good old Sapphire just did not generate enough thrust to make the take off a kick up the backside experience.  Worse, the hotter it became outside, the less thrust was developed.  Even running the engine jet pipe momentarily, a little hotter than generally permitted did little to improve performance and, on certain days, as the outside temperature climbed, we had to reduce our fuel load in order to get off the ground safely.  Accordingly, all take-offs were usually planned for the coolest time of the day, just before dawn.

The criteria for getting off the ground safely were not as comprehensive as modern-day transport aircraft where critical take off speed calculations allow airlines to maximise their payload whilst still being able to cope with the loss of an engine at some stage during the take-off run.  In the Victor, the calculation was simple:  starting from rest and then accelerating under maximum thrust, how fast can I go before, if I need to abort my take-off and stop in emergency, I can still manage to bring the aircraft to a stop in the remaining runway without running off the end?  This is called the “stop speed.”  The other speed of great interest was the “rotation speed,” or the speed at which the aircraft can leave the ground and fly.  Somewhere, in the middle, was the "Go Speed," or the speed above which a succesfull take-off could be continued following the loss of an engine.  I really cannot remember how we calculated this, or even if we did.  The rotation speed depends upon the weight of the loaded aircraft – the higher the take-off weight, the higher the speed at which the aircraft can fly.  If you try to fly below the rotation speed you will stay on the ground, so you just have to grit your teeth and watch the airspeed indicator slowly creep upwards and hope that you reach the rotation speed before you run out of runway.  As I said, I am not sure of the extent to which we considered what would be the minimum speed from which we could successfully continue the take off after one of the engines had failed, these esoterics being the preserve of Transport Command and their, then, shiny VC10 aircraft.  I was to learn the dark arts of Scheduled Performance planning in later life – at the time, ignorance was decidedly bliss.  So where does the stop speed come in?  Well, for safety reasons, it would be potentially dangerous to continue accelerating towards rotation speed when you had already gone past the speed from which you could successfully stop in emergency.  In these circumstances, the take-off weight must be reduced until the two numbers balanced.  My memory is hazy but I think we could operate, to some extent and with the authorisation of "Group Headquarters" at Bawtry, in the “black hole” in which neither a continued take off nor successful stop could be accomplished.  We certainly needed to, given the ground temperatures we would encounter henceforward on the operation, but that was why we received “Flying Pay,” I suppose!

All this meant a departure from Akrotiri before the heat of the day – just about dawn, in fact, which meant a very early alarm call.

Meantime, Akrotiri was blessed with a beautiful and well-appointed Officers’ Mess but it would have been quite against the rules to have pitched up at the bar in a sweaty flying suit. 

Dress standards applied, particularly for visiting aircrew, which made packing a case for carriage in an aircraft that was not designed to carry cases, a bit of a trick sometimes.  Sleeping accommodation, for visitors in transit, was provided in many deceptively similar tin huts, helpfully labelled, for example, “Block 100,” or “Block 101,” which was visible by day but a little tricky to make out at night when stumbling back from the Mess itself. RAF Akrotiri and, within it, the Officers’ Mess bar, was situated at centre of RAF world-wide deployment.  Apart from being home to Near East Air Forces in the Mediterranean, it was also an essential staging post for Aden and the Gulf, Far East Air Forces in Gan, Colombo, Malaysia and Singapore, Hong Kong, Nepal, and other far-spread locations.  Alongside flying operations, a great deal of intelligence gathering went on.  It was the sort of place where you could pretty well guarantee to bump into the other half of the RAF that you had missed at the last Farnborough Air Show.  The bar itself was large and air-conditioned.  Although, later in my career, I was to find cheaper alcohol in the Azores, in Akrotiri you could buy a round of brandy-sours and still have plenty of change from half a crown.  I don’t remember seeing anything of our “customers,” the 74 Sqn aircrew and I assume that they were taken care of by their pals on the resident Lightning Squadron, No 29 (or was it No 56 by then)?

There was an abundance of recreational facilities in and around the Sovereign Base Area which were very well enjoyed by the locals.  So much so that the working day at Akrotiri finished at lunchtime, just in time for a siesta, sailing, and swimming.  Visitors got the impression that the local lotus-eaters resented their presence – their tiresome demands for fuel, provisions, transport, and logistics appeared to interfere with the station routine.  The station routine became known as the “Akrotiri Window.” All visitors to Akrotiri had to arrive and depart breakfast and lunch otherwise they would find the window firmly slammed in their faces.  This meant that anyone transiting through from UK would have to leave home base very early in order to arrive at Akrotiri and depart again, refuelled, before the window closed.

So, for the tanker crews, departure procedure on June 6^th would have begun very early because not all the aircraft would be continuing to the next staging airfield – some, designated “Whirlers” would accompany the main formation for an hour or so, giving away all their fuel before recovering back to Cyprus leaving the other tankers to continue with the Lightnings. Of course, the Whirlers would need to be back on the ground before the window closed!

Clanking white-painted 32-seater buses would have picked their way through the labyrinth of accommodation blocks collecting crews, their personal luggage, flying kit and flying bags, before taking everyone to flight planning (not so much as a cup of tea yet).  Flight planning completed, breakfast was provided in the transit feeding facility.  Fried eggs dripping in bright green olive oil, compo ration sausages and streaky bacon fat – the complete antidote to copious brandy-sour and Kokinelli, the local red wine extraordinaire (also useful for cleaning carburettors).

We were designated as one of the Whirlers today but there was no question of leaving our personal kit behind for a return later in the day because that may not happen – roles within a formation could change rapidly and those planned to make a quick return could find themselves going all the way, so you needed to have all your personal kit with you.  In fact, not on this operation but the following year, one pilot on 214 Squadron made it all the way to Singapore having originally been scheduled for a Marham Whirler.  He was still in his cold-weather immersion suit when he arrived in Singapore, by the way.

We got airborne as planned with luggage which, by this stage, would have included a soaking wet towel from the morning shower, transit accommodation being pretty basic.  Later we landed after a 3 hour and 20-minute sortie, out a bit and back.  We would hope to advance eastwards the following day.

To be continued