Christmas Irritant List - Addendum

Classic FM and their unrelenting saccharine sentimental jollity.

Christmas Irritant List - 2017

Another year to my accumulative calendar and I found fewer people really irritate me; perhaps growing older is making me tolerant?  I certainly notice that older correspondents from Northumberland wouldn’t say boo to a goose, even at Christmas, so perhaps I too shall mellow with time?  Not making the cut for technical non-compliance, Anna Soubry and her parliamentary cohort have move beyond the pale and, therefore, mere irritation.  Otherwise, awful Anna would have won outright which now leaves the bejewelled Lewis Hamilton the runaway winner! Lower in the list, it has been hard to separate the whole Channel 4 News team, so they will have to share the award for a second year.

Lewis Hamilton

Dominic Grieve

Nicky Morgan

Jon Snow and the entire C4 News Team except

Kristain Guru Murthy, (who remains in a class of his own)

Matthew Parris

Sam Allardyce

Jose Mourinho

Stephen Fry

Benedict Cumberbatch

Emma Thompson

Emma Watson

Claudia Winkleman

Sue Perkins

Any BBC reporter who ties his scarf “like that”

Anna Soubry

I am most grateful to Amber Rudd for reminding me to choose my language carefully when talking about Anna Soubry. 

A few weeks ago, I had included the saintly Anna in my draft Christmas Irritant List.  However, that was before she moved beyond the pale.

So, I have, indeed, reflected carefully and concluded that she has graduated from the preposterous blustering windbag, who was so much an object of amusement, to a self-righteous harridan whose views, sincerely held or otherwise, have no place in a party committed to enacting the result of the EU referendum.

I hope these words are carefully chosen enough?

Operation HYDRAULIC - 5

The Operation schedule, mercifully, afforded our crew a day off in Gan before the next leg.  The airfield of Gan in the Maldive Islands was located on the southern edge, about 6 o’clock, of the atoll and was surrounded by the associated technical, administrative, and domestic accommodation.  The sumptuous sandy beach was seldom more than a few paces away and beautiful coral reefs a short swim from the shore.  There was air-conditioned accommodation for aircrew at Gan but, whilst it had originally been constructed to keep V Force crews (at that time, of course, guardians of the National independent nuclear deterrent) in top condition in transit, it had been taken over by VC10 crews who considered it their rightful domicile, given the hardship they endured on their world-wide operations.  And so it was fan cooled huts for us but, unlike Masirah, the tropical climate was much less humid and very pleasant, indeed.

The whole Gan operation was supported by hundreds of locally employed civilians who sailed to and from the airfield daily from outlying parts of the atoll.

There were no women on the permanent staff and those in transit, on the scheduled VC10, were much admired by the locals who usually found something they needed to be doing in the area reserved for transit passengers whenever the schedule passed through.  We passed the time, blissfully, on the beach, swimming, and diving.  Some of our number made the boat trip to Hithadoo, about 10 o’clock on the circumference of the atoll, some receiving severe sunburn injuries for their trouble.  When we retreated from the sun it was to the bar where alcoholic beverages were, again, incredibly cheap.  Indeed, a measure of gin was free; the upturned gin bottle and optic was covered with black tape so that the contents of the bottle were invisible – the person who bought the last shot paid for the whole bottle.  Whilst alcohol was cheap, the NAAFI monopoly ensured that staples such as Roses Lime Juice were expensive.
 

After lunch, we returned to the beach for a short while.  Tim Fear, a fellow pilot, had been harvesting sea urchins from the reef, perhaps as a souvenir.  A couple that were too small or otherwise unsuitable he had left, half concealed, in the sand.  A perfect trap for the unwary and I recall spending the rest of the afternoon in the medical centre whilst one of the locally employed orderlies painstakingly removed the sea urchin spikes from my foot.

In the evening, there was a film show in the open-air cinema.  The local population of fruit bats used the illumination for flying practice, continually dive-bombing the flickering screen.

By this time, we had begun to socialise with the 74 Squadron chaps.  That evening, after the film we were sitting chatting when one of the pilots asked, “so, where are we going tomorrow?”  I recall replying that they were going to Tengah (their destination) in Singapore but that we would be landing at Butterworth, in the north of the Malaysian peninsula, opposite the Island of Penang.  Mulling over my answer, the Lightning pilot reached into one of his flying suit map pockets and produced a small piece of paper.  Unfolding the paper revealed that it was the centre-fold of the Readers Digest on which was the printed a map of “The World.”  Locating southern India and Singapore was relatively straightforward and the precision of the “fix” seemed to satisfy the pilots curiosity.  In retrospect, of course, this merely reinforced the Lightning’s dependence upon the tanker for navigation – so long as the Lightnings could keep in contact with the tankers and take fuel when required, they would reach Singapore.  In the middle of the ocean, all he would have to worry about would be his next refuelling contact so why concern himself with extraneous geography?

Actually, some search and rescue plans had been made and Shackleton maritime aircraft were to patrol the route whilst the fighter waves passed over.  The Victor was equipped with a multi-seat dinghy for sea survival.  This would have been launched, following a (successful) ditching.  Nobody seriously expected a ditching, never mind a successful one.  Each crew member, additionally, was strapped to a single-seat dinghy pack which would have accompanied the crew out of the aircraft and could be inflated on hitting the water after the parachute descent.  The pilots’ dinghies formed part of their ejection seat-pack.  Rear crew, also sat on their dinghies but, in their case, they were faced with added evacuation complication of finding their way to the aircraft door, opening it, and baling out manually.  Other things being equal, an individual could probably survive for a couple of days in a single-seat dinghy before running out of water and suffering dehydration.  With the floor and canopy inflated and a sea anchor deployed he survivor could occupy himself readying various location aids whilst waiting for rescue.  First, we had a short-range radio locator beacon called SARAH.  This was stowed in the bright yellow “Mae West” life jacket.  There was no point in setting this off straight away since the battery had only a limited life.  On the other hand, forgetting to switch it on later, perhaps due to mental confusion, could be fatal.  There were some flares to attract attention, a heliograph to play with, and a sachet of green dye, fluorescein, to stain the water and further advertise one’s presence.  To pass the time, some fishing hooks and a line were provided together with a helpful pamphlet titled “Sea Survival.”  There would have been a little water, in sachets, but in tropical climes that would not have lasted long.  Rainfall could be collected from the canopy, if it rained, but there was no other way of replenishing fresh water.  Food didn’t matter.  Of course, the Shackleton was not equipped to pluck us from the sea.  However, vitally, it could find and mark the position and drop further supplies to aid survival until surface rescue.  The supplies were arranged in what was known as “Lindholme Gear.”  Lindholme Gear comprised five containers joined together by floating rope.  The containers contained food and water, long-range radio equipment, location aids, medical supplies, and a more salubrious dinghy.  The gear would be dropped adjacent to the survivor and here my memory fails me!  With my sea anchor deployed, would the gear drift on to us or was I required to pull in my sea anchor and drift on to the gear?  I’m sure I would have known the correct answer at the time!

Weather would be another crucial factor on this final leg.  In those pre-computer and weather satellite days weather forecasting still relied very heavily on actual observations.  Unfortunately, in the Indian Ocean, relevant observations were few and far between so Canberra aircraft from Singapore surveyed the route for us in advance.  At that time of year, the Intertropical Front (or Intertropical Convergence Zone) would have been well to the North.  But this did not mean it would be plain sailing to the South.  Tropical thunderstorms could spring up anywhere, their towering anvils reaching high into the forties or even fifty thousand feet.  There was no way one could overfly them, particularly if it was necessary to flight refuel at the same time.  The huge downdrafts from isolated storms could trigger adjacent storms and before one knew it the whole sky was filthy, dark, icy, and turbulent and lit up with sheets and flashes of lightning.  Such weather was best avoided and the Victor could help itself a little.  The H2S radar could be used to plot the centres of storms and from this a pathway to avoid the worst of the weather followed.  There was a limit to the extent of deviation to avoid the weather since, as usual, fuel was critical.

It was a lovely morning when we left Gan but that changed quickly.  Just as we approached the most critical part of the leg (I think our diversion would have been Colombo, Ceylon, a long way to the North) the weather closed in.  I think there were 2 tankers and two pairs of Lightings in the formation.  Since transfer between the tankers was not contemplated, it was vital for the whole formation to remain in touch.  As the weather deteriorated, it was necessary for us, as the No 2 tanker, to maintain close formation on the leader (the charming, talented, and highly experienced Jock Carroll as I remember). Had refuelling not been required, we could have sat more comfortably in trail using the H2S to maintain station.  But this would have put us beyond visual range and we may never have found each other again, safely.  Similarly, the Lightning could have relaxed and maintained station using his AI Radar but, again, this would have involved a time-consuming approach to visual when the bracket approached so probably better to stay in close formation.  So there we were, for at least a couple of hours, bouncing along in close formation, Eddie grimly hanging on to Jock Carroll ahead, proceeding in the general direction of the Malay peninsula.

Here is the pilot of "Juliet" not going very far away!

 

Which left the small matter of refuelling to be accomplished.  I have previously explained the procedure and, for this oceanic leg, where diversion airfields would have been at extreme range, refuelling brackets would have been quite close together (another reason for not straying too far from the tanker).  So, in still air, the refuelling basket flies straight and true whilst in turbulence, it doesn’t. This means that it is vital to keep the approach to contact smooth and not to chase the bouncing basket.  This means that several approaches may be needed before a successful contact is achieved.  The danger of lunging at the last second is that contact might be made at an awkward angle with the probe splitting the spokes of the refuelling drogue.  A “spokes” contact was potentially very dangerous.  Here is a picture, 20 years later, of the same hazard being demonstrated, in text book fashion, by a Tornado pilot:

Apart from writing-off that refuelling point for the duration, bits of the damaged drogue could be ingested by the receiver’s engine causing, potentially, catastrophic damage.  Since there was no way of determining what collateral damage might have been done, procedure required the formation to divert, immediately, to the nearest suitable airfield.  On the other hand, even in contact, a thrashing hose could cause the receiver to lose contact or, worse, tear off the probe and render the refuelling system useless.  Such were some of the hazards we faced and such was the skill of the Lightning pilots and the performance of the Lightning which was capable of refuelling at the sort of altitudes we had required to avoid the worst of the weather, that we emerged into clear air later, roughly on course and with enough fuel to reach our respective destinations.  Phew!

To illustrate some of the above, here is a picture, behind the centre hose of a Victor K2 (of a later vintage) showing the the refuelling hose and basket.  The wing hoses, from the Mk 20B Pods, worked in the same way.  This is the sort of position from which an approach to contact would be commenced.  The spoked arrangement of the basket can be seen.  The rim is made of canvas and the small impregnated circles are actually small lights that would glow in the dark to assist refuelling at night.  The hose disappears back on to the drum via a serving carriage whose function was to wind the hose evenly on to the drum.  Movement of the serving carriage could be observed by the receiving pilot and was a very useful reference for judging fore and aft position and for sensing any movement in the same plane. Note also the 3 coloured lights positioned on the rear face of the Hose Drum Unit for controlling the refuelling operation.

 

We accompanied the Lightnings to within unrefuelled range of Singapore and then turned back to Butterworth where we landed, as they say “without further incident” after 4 hours and 10 minutes in the air.  It had seemed an awful lot longer!

Butterworth was the home of a detachment from the Royal Australian Air Force where they had been since “Confrontation.” Rick, our AEO and my roommate, had lots of friends there and knowing the ropes set about leading me astray, a plot in which I was a willing accomplice. The oriental wonder of the ferry trip across the straits to Penang and a haircut at “Vincents” are a couple of my abiding memories. Looking back at this picture of Georgetown I felt, as Graham Greene observed in Travels With My Aunt, “hopelessly abroad!”

It was the Station Summer Ball to which Rick had wangled an invitation so I must have gone to bed early.  My alarm the following morning was the vision, through the mosquito net, of an Officer peeling off a tropical Mess Dress and climbing, seamlessly, into a green flying suit.  And then we were off home, with mission accomplished.  Another dawn take off the following day and back to Gan.  My Log Book shows that we had 24 hours on the ground at Gan on the way back which would have been very pleasant but I would rather have spent it in Penang!

Three days later we arrived back at Marham in a remarkable run of serviceability in Victor K1A XH588.  At home on leave, the Morpeth Herald, the local paper, printed a small article about their local lad.  The stark statistics of the mission scarcely do justice to the excitement of the achievement but I am happy to have recorded some of the highlights, here, today.  I hope you have enjoyed reading my account?