How to Write-Off an Entire Air Force - 2

My tour at CFS continued, enjoyably, until the following summer at which point I received posting to exchange duties with the United States Air Force instructing on T-38 aircraft somewhere in Oklahoma.  I had just about completed packing my boxes and was contemplating a round of farewells when I received a telephone call from a chap in “P” staff at Command HQ.  Unfortunately, my dream posting to America was cancelled, he said, and he would have to find somewhere else for me to go.  Apparently, the chap I was due to replace was a bachelor who had enjoyed the social life of the foreign station.  Rather too well, apparently, because our hosts the Americans had insisted that they did not want another bachelor.  Naturally, by the standards of the times, I accepted the bad luck as just one of those things that happen, unpacked my boxes, and awaited further developments.  I did not have to wait long because, within a couple of weeks, another chap from Command phoned me up to ask if I should like to go to Hong Kong as a Loan Service Officer with the Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force. I remember asking whether I had to be married but he assured me that marital status was not an issue here.  However, “could I fly helicopters,” he asked.  I told him that I had never flown a helicopter to he immediately arranged for a quick-fire course of instruction at Ternhill, “just in case you need to fly rotary wing in Hong Kong.” So off I went to Ternhill for a couple of weeks and thoroughly enjoyed myself on the Sioux, Whirlwind and Gazelle.  It was terrific fun and very challenging flying!

This time, there were no changes and I landed at Kai Tak by the Fragrant Harbour from the scheduled VC10 on 22 July 1974.  My reception party allowed me a few minutes to dump my case in the Officers' Mess before heading off to Tsim Sha Tsui for a welcoming initiation at the “Bottoms Up Club” on Hankow Road – the one featured in the James Bond Film, The Man With the Golden Gun.  I remember little of the subsequent evening in the land of Suzie Wong until I awoke in my room shivering from cold from the air conditioning.  I turned the air conditioning off but failed to draw around the mosquito net which was equivalent to issuing an open invitation to every insect and creepy-crawly to join me.  The following day I found my bottom sheet heavily stained with the crushed remains of several giant cockroaches which had elected to join me for the night.  I don’t think I ever got used to the heat but I certainly learned, quickly, how to cope with it.  “Just watch the locals,” a colleague said, pointing out a chap with a folded newspaper on his head threading his way unhurriedly along the pavement taking advantage of every patch of shade available.

At the time, The Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force operated a fleet of 3 x Alouette helicopters, a Britten-Norman Islander twin engine light transport and utility aircraft and a pair of Beech Musketeer basic training aircraft.  My responsibility, as a Loan Service Officer, was for the fixed wing element operations and training – no helicopters, as my colleague, the Loan Service helicopter instructor, informed me!  But it was a mixed fleet.

The following April it was decided that there would be a flypast to celebrate the arrival of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on a 4-day State Visit.  The Royal couple were due to cross the harbour from Kowloon to Hong Kong and the idea was that the ferry passage would be overflown by a formation of aircraft from the Royal Air Force, the Army, and the Auxiliary Air Force.  At the time, the RAF operated a Squadron, No 28, of Wessex helicopters whilst the Army had a number of Sioux helicopters in No 656 Squadron Army Air Corps. The RAF, as the senior air element was in charge of the operation and they decided on a 3-element formation comprising 28 Sqn with 7 x Wessex in the lead, followed by 656 with 7 x Sioux with the Auxies in the rear with a mixed formation of four comprising the Islander leading, an Alouette on each wing and a single Musketeer in the “box.”  It was called “Eagle Formation” and the Auxie bit was “Red Section.”

We began practicing on 29 April 1975 but before we set off the hazy memory of that wet morning musing at Little Rissington. It wasn’t clear, in the Auxiliary Air Force rules, who had the authority to legally sanction flying but I sensed, as the professional Loan Service Officer, the auxiliaries were looking to me for advice. I remember pointing out that it was their Air Force and I thought they should be in charge, which they accepted thus allowing me the possible defence, if things went wrong, that I was only obeying orders. Except, was this just my retrospective interpretation?

We flew as a formation of 4 on 5 occasions, practicing manoeuvring to the limits of the designated speed band to the extent that I was confident we could perform our part of the operation perfectly. I assumed that the other 2 elements in the formation would have been as diligent in their preparation.

May 2^nd was designated for a full-scale practice of “Eagle Formation.” Except it wasn’t quite “full scale,” for, whilst the RAF and the Auxies assembled in the required numbers and pleasingly arranged patterns, the AAC had some difficulties with serviceability and could only produce 2 of their required complement. Never mind they said, over the telephone (for there was no face-to-face briefing as I recall), we will space our two aircraft as representing the front and rear of our section and fill in the gaps on the day. Incredibly, this was accepted and the 3 sections met up over the New Territories near 2 islands known as “The Brothers” accordingly. We did not, as I recall fly the actual flypast track since this would have caused too much disruption to routine air traffic – Kai Tak was incredibly busy, even in those days. I think we ran in as a formation as far as Green Island, the usual entry point for the harbour.  Everything went well and the respective sections dispersed.  The actual flypast was scheduled for 4^th May 1975.

This picture was taken as Red Section recovered to Kai Tak:

Hong Kong Island is in the background, Kowloon lying under the wing, the main Kai Tak runway, 13/31 beneath the aircraft and Green Island can just be made out to the right of Hong Kong Island.  (The Islander flaps are at half to give a higher manouvre margin above the stall and ensure a better engine response for the chosen speed).