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THE BLACK SWAN
1977
We couldn’t help ourselves. Although we had only just arrived at RAAF Pearce, with our gear still unpacked we walked straight down to the flight line of Number 2 Flying Training School, known as 2 FTS, in the northern outskirts of Perth. On this training base weekend, the Macchi jets sat quiet under big white open-sided ‘car ports’ that fended off the Western Australian sun. The jets’ undersides were silver and the topsides of the wings, tails and fuselages were painted in panels of alternating white and orange. Prominent ‘tip tanks’ full of fuel were bolted to the wingtips, orange outside but the sides facing the pilots dull black, as were the tops of the noses ahead of the curved windscreens. The rounded noses were tipped with small panels of shining polished metal, with a little round ventilation hole at the very front. Emblazoned on each tail fin, behind vertical stripes of the standard RAAF red, white and blue ‘cockade’, was the badge of 2 FTS, a large white circle with a grey torch aflame, superimposed over that unmistakable symbol of the city of Perth: the black swan.
During the early sixties I had gazed out from the front windows of our house towards Willan’s Hill and the glowing west at sunset: it always seemed to hold promise of an exciting future. Now it was January 1977, and I was in that golden west. If I could just apply myself and not foul it up … I shared a car from Melbourne with three course-mates. I was still not licenced to drive, but the two other boys were happy to let me have a go at times, not that there was much steering to do on the interminable straight stretches of road that ran tangential to the abrupt limestone cliffs of the Great Australian Bight. Near the long journey’s end, our car coasted down the hills east of Perth toward the city, clean and shimmering in heat haze, with the sparkling Indian Ocean beyond. Then we turned north to Pearce, which sat on flat terrain to the west of the line of hills. We were in a new world after grey Victoria: tawny brown grass, small eucalypts and sandy soil. We passed low scrub and dull green pine plantations with the hills always prominent to the east. The land baked in dry heat. We came to the village of Bullsbrook which was outside Pearce’s main gate on the Great Northern Highway. It included a few ancient wooden air force houses, a few of which were still being used as married quarters for base personnel.
The students’ accommodation comprised relatively modern brick buildings of three storeys, constructed during the Vietnam War to fulfil the requirement for large numbers of air force and navy pilots. Now half lay empty with the Cold War still rumbling on but Vietnam’s ‘hot’ war over. A modern brick Mess building catered for the students of, as at Point Cook, the three pilots’ courses that were resident.
The Western Australian base was dedicated to just one task: the advanced training of air force and navy pilots; namely, to transform them from cadets and midshipmen who could just barely operate a basic training aircraft, to budding operational military jet aviators proficient in advanced aerobatics, high- and low-altitude navigation, advanced instrument flying, and formation flight. Students graduating from 2 FTS were considered suitable to transition to fighters, bombers, transports and helicopters. The instructors were still ‘Sir’ in the air, on the ground and in the bar, but there was some inkling that they would deal with us on more equal terms, and that there seemed a reasonable chance that many of us here would make the grade. Most instructors were content to be at Pearce: it was a stable posting with little time away that enabled them to bring up young families in generally good accommodation in a clean, warm city. Many enjoyed hurtling around in jet trainers with students who had survived the weeding out process at 1 FTS. Night flying was only one or two nights a week, and nearly every weekend was free.
The Macchi’s pilots sat in tandem on ejection seats under a long, boat-shaped canopy. The canopy was hinged at one side like a coffin lid. Except for instrument training flights the instructor sat in the rear, and his words over the intercom were the prime method of instruction; there could be no thumping the student on the arm or helmet here! The cockpit was air-conditioned, however the Macchi was of an Italian design, built for European conditions, and we would find that at low altitudes, the system was next to useless in the hot Western Australian skies.
Behind the cockpits was a fuel tank and behind that, the Rolls Royce Viper jet engine. The Viper sucked air through a small intake in the root of each wing, and compressed it into combustion chambers where it was mixed with fuel and ignited. The hot expanding gas then blasted out through a turbine and out a long jet pipe that comprised the interior of the rear fuselage. The turbine drove a shaft, which in turn powered the compressor, electrical generator and fuel, hydraulic and oil pumps.
An orange ‘spine’ on top of the white upper fuselage gracefully faired-in the canopy and ran down the fuselage’s length before curving up to join with the vertical tail fin. Raked tailplanes with square rear corners and sharp trailing edges sat at the base of the fin, with the jet’s exhaust below.
The Macchi’s wings were slab-like, their leading edges very slightly swept back, but the ‘trailing edges’ were straight, at right angles to the fuselage. The Macchi was not supersonic, but in a high-speed dive it could approach eighty percent of the speed of sound, where some ‘local’ airflows over parts of the aircraft would become supersonic, causing changes in handling and some vibration. Special flights in the training syllabus would be dedicated to exploring this regime. Those large wing-tip tanks, like elongated teardrops, provided extra fuel for the ravenous little jet engine. For us, the landing gear on the Macchi was special, because it was retractable; the consequences of forgetting this fact before landing was never far from most students’ thoughts.
There would be comprehensive ground training before we would be allowed to fly a Macchi, but the classrooms were modern and airy, reflecting the fresh feel of the base. The syllabus included the expected aircraft operation, jet engine theory, aerodynamics, air traffic control procedures, but there were extra dimensions: high-speed flight, the effects of high altitude on the human body and importantly, the understanding and use of the Macchi’s ejection seat.
We had worn parachutes in the CT-4. They were lugged out to the aircraft and strapped onto our backs prior to clambering into the cockpit. The aircraft’s canopy could be jettisoned should the machine become out of control or unable to be force-landed, and then a pilot would heave himself out of the cockpit and dive over the trailing edge of the wing, to manually pull the parachute’s ripcord and float to earth. However, in a jet, which could be conceivably doing 360 knots – or 660 km/hr – at over ten kilometres above the earth, bailing out in the air blast in a similar fashion would be a risky proposition. Force-landing even a small jet like the Macchi into a field would be almost suicidal, its approach speed and momentum would rip it apart on impact. A Macchi’s crew needed a safe and rapid means of escape from an aircraft that was, unless near an airfield, not capable of being force-landed safely. Especially at low altitudes, a fire or sudden control problem could be catastrophic and, likewise, a manual bail out would not be an option. At high altitude windblast, cold and the sudden lack of oxygen could render a pilot unconscious before he got to pull any ripcord. At any case, the high-speed airflow could tear his opening parachute to shreds. Therefore, the Macchi was fitted with the Martin Baker Mark 4 ejection seat.
The ejection seat can be likened to both an aircraft in its own right, and a loaded gun. Today most seats are rocket-propelled, however, this relic from the sixties used explosive charges to blast the seat up ‘rails’ and out into the airstream. A metal pan formed the base of the seat, which contained an inflatable dinghy and small survival pack beneath a thin, hard cushion, and this was what the pilot sat on. It had to be hard, because under the vertical acceleration of an ejection, any soft cushion could increase the potential for spinal injuries. A ‘gun’ attached to the seat structure fired it and its occupant upwards to clear the aircraft’s tail surfaces, which at high speed, could slice a pilot in half if he hit them.
The pilot’s back rested against another hard cushion behind which, level with his upper torso and head, was an inverted horseshoe-shaped brown canvas package crossed with a vee of white straps. This contained the main parachute. Two separate shoulder harnesses, straps of brown and blue, emerged from the centre of the horseshoe: one set for the seat, and the other to hold the parachute to his back. Another set of double harnesses formed the ‘lap straps’, of the seat and leg straps which looped around his upper thighs to support him under an opened parachute. A heavy round knob was the central point to which the complicated harness assembly was attached. Turning and giving it a sharp slap with the palm of the hand enabled the pilot to detach himself from aircraft harness and parachute.
Ejections, we found in the lectures, were basically of two kinds: the ‘pre-meditated’ ejection occurred in relatively slow time, perhaps after an engine failure at high altitude, the aircraft gliding, plenty of time to gather ones thoughts, adopt the correct posture (back erect against the rear cushion, head and legs back, elbows in) and to operate the ‘face blind’ handles. These handles, actually two yellow and black striped rubber loops, protruded forward from the top of the seat over the pilot’s helmet. After pulling a prominent T-shaped handle on the instrument panel to jettison the canopy, a vigorous tug downwards with both hands on the loops pulled an attached canvas ‘face blind’ over the pilot’s helmet and face, forcing his head back into the correct posture and providing a modicum of protection from the windblast to come. The last part of the movement would fire the explosives in the gun, propelling the seat up the rails and out of the aircraft.
However, loss of control, fire or engine failure at low altitude was another matter. With only a second or two to react in an ‘un-premeditated’ ejection, the pilot needed a quicker means to fire the seat: this was done with the ‘seat pan’ handle that could be pulled in a split second. This was a metal stirrup, again black- and yellow-striped, accessible in a hollow between the pilot’s thigh supports, not far from his hand that would still be gripping the Macchi’s control column. When used, there would be no protective face blind or optimum posture, but he would be almost instantly clear of an out-of-control aircraft, probably injured but at least alive. And the canopy? Two ‘canopy breakers’ protruded up like ears at the top of the seat. These would splinter the canopy and save valuable seconds in not having to blow it off beforehand; the pilot would just blast up through shattered Plexiglas, his helmet, its lowered face visor and his oxygen mask protecting him.
As the activated seat moved up the rails, straps called ‘bowyangs’, that were clipped around the pilot’s calves when strapping in to the Macchi, tightened and pulled his lower legs back against the base of the seat. These kept his kneecaps clear of the metal rim of the windscreen. They also stopped the pilot’s legs flailing in the blast of air.
Now the pilot, still strapped to his ejection seat, was out of the aircraft. What now? We learned that as the seat was fired up the rails, mechanical linkages on various devices, ‘armed’ them to do their work. First, slowing and stabilising the seat was vital; too fast and the parachute would tear to shreds as it opened, the pilot plummeting to his death. Also, spinning and tumbling end over end could injure the pilot or foul the parachute. So a small ‘drogue gun’ would fire, extracting a small ‘drogue’ parachute to slow and stabilise the seat, readying it for the automatic deployment of the main ‘chute’. With the pilot torn from the aircraft’s oxygen system, a small bottle attached to the seat forced oxygen at high pressure into his mask. At high altitude, opening the main parachute could be catastrophic; the higher speed of fall in the thin air could shred it, or if it did open, the pilot could freeze to death, swinging under a slowly descending parachute kilometres above the earth, the temperature as low as minus sixty degrees Celsius. So from high altitude, the pilot still in his seat, stabilised by the drogue, would fall to a reasonable and comfortable level for opening of the main parachute, around 10,000 feet – about 3,000 metres – above sea level. To achieve this, a ‘barostat’ device caused the small drogue parachute to yank the main ‘chute out from its pack.
After suffering an aircraft emergency and the violence of an ejection, the wind blast and the fall, the pilot then had to withstand the reverse shock of the parachute opening. Correctly fastening those thigh loops (clear of the ‘family jewels’) when strapping into the Macchi was desirable! The seat would drop away from under the pilot. who then be swinging beneath the parachute, shocked and sore, but marvelling at being alive and that all this had happened automatically, courtesy of a pure mechanical device, intricate and meticulously designed and maintained, no electronic or manual input required, most of its operation completed in the blink of an eye. As a child, I had read the story of the invention of the ejection seat. The inventors had used Meccano to work out some of the mechanics of the device!
The Martin Baker seat was rarely known to malfunction; however in the unlikely event of the parachute not opening automatically the pilot could pull up on the ‘guillotine’, another yellow and black metal handle under his left arm, to release the seat straps then he could push away the seat. Tumbling through the sky, he would pull a D-ring (rip cord) handle to deploy the main ‘chute’. The seat’s emergency oxygen supply could also be activated manually, even while still in the aircraft should its main supply fail, by pulling a small green knob.
Over water, the pilot released the dinghy and survival pack, now loosely dangling in the straps under his bottom, which fell to the end of a lanyard, its impact with the surface a useful cue for the pilot himself to get ready to plunge in himself and immediately release his parachute to avoid entanglement and drowning. He could then inflate his Mae West life jacket, pull in and inflate his little dinghy, and activate an emergency survival radio, fitted in a pocket of his life jacket. The survival pack contained water, flares, signalling mirror and a dye marker. All this equipment in one seat! And so many explosives to fire the seat itself and actuate its peripheral devices!
Because of these explosives, the ejection seat was always treated with the utmost respect. Seven safety pins with little red labelled discs were fitted to the various devices on the seat when unoccupied. These prevented the ‘sears’ from being pulled from the miniature guns and firing them, which would be catastrophic during maintenance, pre-flight inspection, strap-in or taxi, after an accidental snagging or movement of a handle or cable. I tried to think of the ejection seat as a small but dangerous ‘aircraft’ in its own right, with its own documentation, procedures, maintenance regime and specially qualified personnel to tend it. The cartridges had ‘bang by’ dates, after which they had to be changed … parachutes had to be periodically inspected and repacked …
Strapping into a Macchi was a lengthy and exacting business, and especially difficult alone; so airmen, ‘strappers’, were delegated to assist the pilot to strap in and then hand him four of the safety pins that were difficult for him to reach. The pilot placed these pins in a little rack on the Macchi’s side panel, each in its own hole. The other pins, those which locked the face blind, seat pan and guillotine handles, were left to the pilot to remove and place in the rack just prior to take off, the total of seven checked and now the seat ready to function. Conversely, after landing, one of the pilot’s first actions was to ‘safety’ the seat by inserting the three critical pins into the handles; the others would be fitted to their respective points on the seat by the ground crew.
Modern rocket-powered ejection seats are extremely capable. They can extract the pilot from his cockpit and propel him up to a safe height for parachute deployment, even with the aircraft on the ground and stationary. However, the sixties-vintage Martin Baker Mark 4 was a ‘zero-ninety’ seat. This meant that the lower limit of its ‘envelope’ for safe operation was ground level (and vitally, not descending, if near the ground), and the aircraft would have to be doing at least ninety knots – or 167 km/hr – in order for the seat to work properly and the parachute to open in time. If the Macchi was descending (having a ‘downward vector’) near the ground, the chances of a successful ejection would be significantly reduced. So apart from learning the seat’s mechanics and procedures, knowing its limitations was vital, as were the procedures for setting the aircraft up for a successful ejection, landing in the parachute on ground or water, and then survival and location. All this was taught and examined on, as was the myriad of other subjects associated with advanced jet training.
As at 1 FTS and still somewhat of a loner, I studied diligently and passed the initial exams. Soon the time came for the fitting of ‘safety equipment’, which comprised a helmet, oxygen mask, Mae West and that trademark of the military jet pilot, the ‘anti-g’ suit. The oxygen mask was a vital life support device. The little CT-4, as with most light piston engined aircraft, was never operated above 10,000 feet – or 3,000 metres – which is the maximum height at which pilots can safely function without masks in the increasingly thinning air of altitude. However, the Macchi was capable of operating well over 30,000’, nine kilometres above the earth. Its cockpit was pressurised by air from the engine’s compressor, inflated like a metal tank, in routine operations to equal the environment on an 8,000‘, a 2,400 metre-high mountain. However, any malfunction of the pressurisation system, loss of the canopy, damage to the aircraft, an ejection, or smoke or fumes in the cockpit made it vital that the pilots had a clean and plentiful supply of oxygen. The gas was delivered from tanks in the aircraft through hoses to their rubber masks, tightly clipped to their faces. The masks incorporated microphones that enabled the pilots to communicate with each other over the Macchi’s intercom, and with air traffic control and other aircraft over the radio.
We had been given a good grounding in the effects of low oxygen and low pressure on the human body at Point Cook. Not only was Point Cook’s School of Aviation Medicine the custodian of the infamous Vertigon, the bane of those of us who were persistently airsick, it also housed a decompression chamber.
At Point Cook, a ‘chamber run’ had been included in the aviation medicine syllabus that was part of the pilot’s course. We sat on bench seats along each side of the interior of a heavy metal cylinder, which was padded on the inside. Its thick walls, were pierced by a few small round windows of thick glass, through which an occasional face would peer in from the room outside. A heavy door had been slammed closed at the end and secured by multiple latches. Each of us wore our flight suits with our ubiquitous shiny green Nomex jackets, and a cloth ‘Snoopy’ style helmet with an attached oxygen mask, which fed us pure oxygen. We communicated with microphones in the mask and headphones in the Snoopy hats connected to an intercom system. We had already spent half an hour breathing this pure oxygen to purge our bloodstreams of nitrogen, which in a sudden low-pressure environment, could bubble in our joints and cause the painful symptoms of what divers call ‘the bends’. An RAAF doctor was inside the chamber with us. He sat at a control panel, also wearing the same equipment.
The decompression chamber created the same environment for its occupants as at high altitude. Our atmosphere thins as one climbs up, which creates several problems, including lack of oxygen, lack of air pressure, and cold temperatures that would freeze a human. The chamber replicated high altitudes by having the air sucked out of it by pumps. Controlling these pumps and various valves could ‘climb’ and ‘descend’ the chamber at various rates as required by the doctors and technicians for research, testing and training.
‘Right, the first thing we will do is a decompression.’ The doctor’s voice came through my helmet. ‘You will feel an outrush of pressure, there will be mist and it will suddenly get cold. Ensure your masks are correctly fitted. Three, two, one …’
Whooosh! Air rushed out of the chamber, as it would from a pressurised aircraft after a malfunction or breach of the pressure cabin. My ears popped and air rushed out of my lungs, which was a strange feeling. At the same instant, white mist filled the chamber as moisture in the air condensed with the sudden pressure drop. The mist dissipated, and then we were breathing oxygen, the regulators on the hoses feeding it to our masks at the correct pressure. The doctor’s commentary through our headphones was punctuated by an alternate wheeze and suck of the valves in his mask as he breathed, all picked up by the mask’s microphone. This was to become a constant sound in our ears from the instructors in the Macchi and would eventually be filtered out by our brains while we flew.
‘Now, we will gradually climb to high altitude,’ the doctor said. ‘Remember what I told you about pressure breathing technique. If you have to let out a good fart, don’t worry about your mates, they’ll be doing the same thing.’
It is one thing for a human to have pure oxygen available at high altitudes. However, above some thirty thousand feet, nine thousand metres up, the extremely low pressure causes a further problem: there is just not enough pressure to force even pure oxygen through the walls of our lungs’ alveoli, the multiple tiny air sacs that allow oxygen to transfer to our bloodstream. So, above these altitudes we have to ‘pressure-breathe’. While the chamber was ‘climbed’, the regulators automatically forced oxygen into our masks at higher and higher pressure, to force the vital gas into our lungs and thence to our bloodstreams. At the same time, air trapped in our bodies’ cavities started to expand. Uncomfortably, our guts became bloated; abdomens bulged noticeably. The air pressure in my mask increased and breathing out became an effort. Just relaxing my diaphragm forced pressurised oxygen to forcibly inflate my lungs and opposite to the normal breathing reflex, an effort had to be made to exhale. It became hard work as the chamber climbed and climbed. Hold … a burst of oxygen in … two, three, force the air out … two three … hold … and so it went on for a few minutes at the equivalent of thirty eight thousand feet, eleven and a half kilometres above the earth. It took almost all of my concentration just to breathe (and live). Talking was difficult, and after a few gasped comments by the doctor, the chamber was brought down to twenty five thousand feet, about eight kilometres, which was far more comfortable. In fact, some climbers in the Himalaya, after careful acclimatisation, can survive without oxygen at this altitude. However, an un-acclimatised young trainee pilot was about to learn a lesson.
‘OK, remember the symptoms of hypoxia, which means low blood oxygen levels. You will, in turn, take off your mask and, as briefed, start counting aloud up in multiples of threes until you feel that you are hypoxic, then put your mask on.’
One by one, we did as ordered. Some of us were occasionally smirking or laughing outright into our masks when the victim showed the symptoms. One lad got stuck on one number: ‘twenty-four … twenty-four … twenty-four …’ The symptoms of hypoxia are insidious and dramatic. All panted in the thin air, many developed a bluish tinge in their lips and fingernails, some started giggling or slurring their speech, but they would eventually clip their masks back in place. All they needed was a few breaths of oxygen and they were back to their normal selves. Some realised themselves that they were hypoxic, others were told by the doctor to put the mask back on. Then it was my turn. I was ‘Number Eight’.
‘Eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-four …’ I counted, gasping a little from the thin air. But this didn’t seem too hard! I kept counting up – I was doing well.
But then I heard the doctor interrupt, ‘Number Eight, put your mask on.’
No problem. With my oxygen mask on, the exercise was over.
‘So, Number Eight, what do you think? What were your hypoxia symptoms?’
‘I was gasping a little, but otherwise no problem, Sir. I counted OK and then put my mask on.’
‘It wasn’t you who put your mask on,’ the doctor said. ‘You lost consciousness and I did it for you.’
I had not responded to the first call to put my mask on. The doctor gruffly told me that there were several commands, and that I had started to slump over on the bench seat of the chamber, the doctor clasping the mask to my face. I remember nothing of it to this day. Hypoxia is an insidious killer. There have been instances of military and civilian ‘ghost aircraft’ winging along on automatic pilot, the occupants unconscious or dead at the controls, with the aircraft doomed to run out of fuel or begin a pre-programmed descent to crash.
A notorious and distressing accident of hypoxia involved a Helios Airlines Boeing with 121 people on board in 2005. A combination of mechanical failure and crew error led to the airliner depressurising slowly after it left Cyprus for Athens, its captain and first officer unconscious or dead. As I had done, they failed to recognise the symptoms of hypoxia. Greek Air Force jets intercepted and flew formation on the Boeing. Helpless, the fighter pilots could see a flight steward moving about in the airliner’s flight deck, alternatively attempting to revive his pilots and to control the aircraft. But the Boeing followed its pre-programmed course to Athens airport and then entered a preset holding pattern. It wandered zombie-like for a while until it ran out of fuel and spiralled down to impact a hillside. There were no survivors.
The ‘Anti-g suit’, normally referred to as just the ‘g-suit’, is an important piece of equipment to a military jet pilot. Propeller-driven aircraft like the CT-4 do not have sufficient performance to ‘sustain’ g; it eases off rapidly when the aircraft slows, unable to overcome the increased aerodynamic drag that g causes. However, military jets can ‘pull’ more g and pull it for longer. The Macchi could pull 4 g in tight manoeuvres and sustain it for minutes. It could produce a crushing 6 g for short periods. Prolonged g drains the blood away from the brain and eyes. Initially, this causes tunnel vision and breathing becomes difficult. For a while, the pilot can still hear and work his muscles, but as g increases in amount or time, complete G-induced Loss Of Consciousness (G-LOC) occurs. This is normally self-restoring because, provided that the aircraft is at sufficiently high altitude, the pilot’s hand applying back-pressure on the control column that maintains the g will relax and the aircraft’s natural stability will ease off the g. But, at low altitudes, or in aerial combat, G-LOC can lead to death. Therefore, we wore g-suits.
The g-suit was essentially a pair of inflatable pants! I laughed when I heard a British jet pilot refer to his ‘turning trousers’. Another pilot called the g-suit his ‘speed jeans’. Worn over the flight suit and with holes cut out at the knees and crotch, each g-suit was laced up by the safety equipment specialists to fit the individual pilot tightly around the legs, lower abdomen and lower back. Metal zips were tugged up the tight abdominal band and the side of each leg to don the suit. One of the many considerations when strapping into the Macchi was to plug in the g-suit. A hose dangled from the side of the suit, which was snapped into a fitting in the aircraft. When the pilot began pulling g, a valve in the aircraft forced compressed air bled from the jet engine into the g-suit, its bladders squeezing the pilot’s calves, thighs and lower abdomen. This forced the blood back up toward the upper body, and therefore delayed the onset of tunnel vision or G-LOC. We were also taught to tense our legs and diaphragms, and to audibly groan, pant and strain against the pressure of the g-suit during manoeuvres – ‘hmmmnngg, hmmmnngg’ – to force blood back up to where it should be. It was physical work while manipulating an aircraft, fighting the g and pushing back against the suit, keeping one’s vision and mind clear for as long as possible. One instructor described the technique as ‘speaking Japanese while straining on the toilet at the same time’. Now, with all this safety and survival equipment learned and fitted, it was time to fly the Macchi.
I had never been so intimately connected with an aircraft. The ejection seat and parachute straps were done up tight across my torso and hips. The leg restraint ‘bowyangs’ were tight around my calves. The g-suit’s hose was plugged in on my left. A lanyard attaching the dinghy pack to my parachute harness was attached to my right. Helmet on and plugged in to the intercom and radio. A large ribbed rubber hose stretched from my oxygen mask to the aircraft’s supply, the mask tightly clamped against my face. The emergency oxygen hose was attached as well. This was the familiarisation flight, and I was flying with another navy pilot, the ‘SNO’ (Senior Naval Officer) at Pearce.
We were on the runway and he advanced the jet’s throttle to take-off power. Early jets had the peculiarity of taking a period of time to accelerate and the Macchi was no exception. The whine of the engine behind us increased to a subdued roar. Plumes of mist from the air conditioning cascaded from various vents around the cockpit and canopy. The jet rolled slowly at first but as the engine’s compressor and turbine RPM built, the Viper swallowed more air and its increased thrust accelerated us faster, with a noticeable push in the back. At 100 knots – or 180 km/hr – the SNO lifted off the nose wheel with a positive movement back on the control column. The Macchi reared up on its landing gear, still accelerating but on the ground, and then the runway fell away. He held the jet at a shallow angle, still accelerating while the wheels were retracted, and then up came the nose and we were climbing, the scrubby eucalypts below falling away fast. Wow! No vibration of a propeller or throbbing piston engine, just the hum of the little Viper engine behind us, and a ‘husshhh’ of air over the canopy punctuated by the suck-blow of our breathing through the masks over the intercom, which was normally set to ‘hot mike’ – always on – for ‘dual’ flights. The black faces of the wing-tip fuel tanks loomed either side like wingmen. On came the bank angle to turn toward the training area, and, oh, the rate of climb! It seemed no time at all when we were at fifteen thousand feet, four and a half kilometres above the earth. In a repeat of the Point Cook ‘famil’ flight, the instructor started manoeuvring And now, the g! The g-suit inflated and I felt uncanny squeezing on my legs and abdomen. I could hear the SNO in the front seat grunting through the intercom, and with vision starting to fade, it prompted me to strain against the g myself, which seemed to last forever thanks to the jet’s performance and available thrust. Now, a loop: four g came on, the suit squeezing tighter, and the nose arced up into the dazzling West Australian sky, but far slower than the CT-4 because jet loops are huge. At last, the g came off while we floated over the top of the loop, the earth even further below, then the sandy fields and blotches of eucalypt and pine forest slowly started to loom and then the g again, the suit obediently constricting and becoming familiar already.
‘Handing over,’ the instructor called, and I had control. So much better than the CT-4! With no propeller causing whorls of air around the tail surfaces, power changes in the jet did not affect rudder or trim settings: the Macchi just went where it was pointed. The control stick felt solid but responsive, promising precise and accurate control of the jet’s flight path. The SNO allowed me to manoeuvre it for a while, then took over for the return to base. Unlike at Point Cook, all returns for visual flying for both instructors and students flew through an initial point, some eight kilometres, five miles from the runway, the aircraft doing 250 knots – or 460 km/hr – until level with the landing point, at circuit altitude. Then, there would come a hard turn onto downwind called the ‘pitch’, with the jet’s throttle snapped closed and the speed brake deployed by the pilot to slow down for landing.
The Macchi’s design was so clean that a hinged panel was forced out from its belly by a hydraulic ram: an air or ‘speed’ brake, to rapidly slow the jet. We passed through the initial point, bouncing through heat-induced turbulence but strapped solid in our seats, and when abeam the runway the instructor yanked the wings into a hard bank, simultaneously smartly closing the throttle lever and flicking a little switch on top of it that extended the speed brake. Whiirrr – thunk! The brake deployed and we were thrown forward against our straps with the deceleration, simultaneously g pushing us into our seats in the hard turn until we were on ‘downwind’. Speed now below 150 knots – or 280 km/hr – and there was another schloop-thunk as the speed brake came in: the instructor throttled up the engine but now at this much lower speed the Macchi was a different machine, its nose uptilted higher into the sky to maintain height and, as I would find out, its controls noticeably sloppier.
The landing gear was put down with a rumble and vibration and further deceleration as the extending legs and covering doors fought the airstream, then ‘thunk-thunk-thunk’ as the three landing gear legs locked into position. In no time at all, we were on final approach, the engine behind now warbling near idle. With the large wing flaps deployed, the nose pitched down and all the instructor had to do was to point the jet at the white runway numbers on the threshold, the near end of the runway, controlling speed with movements of the throttle until at last the concrete loomed, and he ‘flared’ the little jet for landing. A squeak-squeak as the main tyres touched the runway but the nose stayed high in the air, the pilot ‘holding off’ the nose wheel, the attitude of the Macchi now creating aerodynamic drag and helping it slow. Then the nose came down to rest on its wheel and while taxiing in I realised how hot I was under all that equipment, the huge canopy and that cloudless summer sky.
Marshalled by the ground crew, we parked under the car port, and after double checking that I had correctly inserted the ejection seat pins, we lifted the canopy, which then locked vertically on its hinge like an open coffin lid, and my first military jet flight was over. What a machine! It had seemed to go just where I pointed it in almost vibration-free flight, the rudder pedals just footrests, the physical control of the aircraft so much easier than that of the CT-4. However, I already knew that the headwork required to operate the Macchi, as opposed to just controlling it would be significantly more important.
The first ‘phase’ of the course at 2 FTS was essentially a ‘conversion’ onto the Macchi in order to achieve an equivalent point in competency for successful testing at its end in manoeuvres and standards to that of the end of the Point Cook training. We would have to ‘come up to speed’ with the various circuit types, basic aerobatics, navigation and instrument flying. There was also a lot of night flying. I applied myself diligently, the ‘visual’ flying and aerobatics mediocre but in what seemed to me at least, a much more straightforward aeroplane to control, and a basic handling test at the end of this phase went reasonably well. ‘Medium level’ navigation was not too threatening, because the huge dry lakes of south west Western Australia were visible for miles, making the task fairly easy.
Importantly, my diligence and, dare I say, my unusual enjoyment at the time, of instrument flying became a saving grace, which made up for the razor’s edge of low-to-mediocre standard in the other areas. Night flying also went well: it is a combination of instrument flying and looking out for other aircraft (easy to see with their lights and flashing beacons), and keeping track of the lights of Pearce’s runway to make sense of where I was. Even in the accommodation blocks, the roar of the jets was magnified at night. The Viper engines crackled on take-off into the cool, velvet night sky, fading into a dull, slowly reverberating roar until the next aircraft in the sequence, its beacons flashing, launched into the blackness.
My first instructor, ‘Nobby’, was an outgoing and even personable RAAF flight lieutenant, but after successfully completing the battery of ground exams and flight tests in visual and instrument flying, it was time to move on to the next phase. And, a new instructor.
I had been considered safe enough for solo flight in the Macchi, the first flight alone in the jet being a circuit at a ‘satellite’ runway called Gin Gin, set in a rectangle cut from low olive green scrub to the north of Pearce. Keyed up, I taxied out, my helmet’s earphones quiet as there was no need for intercom, so there was no continuous schloop-puff of two pilots breathing through rubber masks; just the occasional radio traffic. Onto the runway, push the throttle forward; the familiar muffled roar from behind, checking engine RPM and exhaust gas temperature within the memorised limits, condensation mist spewing from the vents around the canopy and that push in the back … rotate the nose to the lift off attitude, now climbing at 120 knots – or 220 km/hr – forty-five degrees of bank onto downwind, speed now about 140 knots with the nose cocked up above the horizon to maintain height, the controls at their accustomed ‘sloppiness’ at this low speed. Check spacing … Gin Gin’s runway centreline tracking between the ‘roundel’ on the wing and the black face of the tip tank … now for the downwind checks, ‘Speed below 150, speed brake in, landing gear down, three wheels, ‘flasher’ out, fuel quantity noted, threshold speed will be 105 …’ In no time, came the ‘base’ turn point: power back, select ‘take off’ flap, re-trim … judging the turn onto final approach then pointing at the looming ‘numbers’ on Gin Gin’s runway threshold, speed about 120, now to select ‘land flap’; this would bring the speed back to the sacred 105 knots – or 195 km/hr – at the runway, once again re-trimming to neutralise the force on the control column … the flare point … gently raise the nose, power off, hold the attitude, ‘squeak-squeak’ and the main wheels were on, hold the nose up for aerodynamic braking, but lower it gently before the nose wheel ‘falls’ onto the runway … there it was, now I was down. First jet solo!
In the meantime, a few more of 100 Pilot’s Course had failed; various combinations of ground school problems, insufficient preparation, and failure to mentally keep up with the jet had ended it all for them. But our remaining band was becoming tighter-knit. As numbers fell there was more opportunity for getting to know our course-mates a little better. Many of the ‘oddballs’ were gone, and the few of us in our late teens were inexorably growing up. Pearce was isolated to the north of Perth but most of the course had cars except me and one or two others, and on a Friday or Saturday night there was usually a ‘push’ into the huge pubs of Perth’s northern suburbs or occasionally into the city itself. During Easter leave, I found Victoria cold, old-feeling and grey with autumn after the brightness of Western Australia. I used Melbourne public transport to visit family, friends and girlfriend who was also on leave and staying with a distant relative; it felt incongruous as a trainee jet pilot using buses and trains to get about. Then the break was over, and this course that I would never forget was on again. How could I return east a failure now?
A few drinks on a Friday or Saturday – OK. But the work went on; I had no car anyway, and as a naïve nineteen-year-old with little stamina for weekend parties and late nights, I was sometimes almost alone in the accommodation block. This was a benefit, because there was little excuse not to keep on with the work except for the occasional letters to home and friends. How incongruous that is now in the age of email and mobile phones.
The second of the three ‘phases’ would introduce us to formation flying, ‘low level’ and ‘high level’ navigation, along with advanced aerobatics and high speed, high altitude flight. Instrument flying was becoming more advanced: not just controlling the Macchi but there was headwork to be done with procedures, orientation and instrument approaches. We were now just not expected to ‘fly’ the Macchi; we had to ‘operate’ it.
I found formation flying hard work. Thoroughly briefed then demonstrated by the instructors, there came a time when ‘Sir’ had to relinquish the controls to his student, just a few metres to the side and slightly aft of the leader’s tip tank, the new pilot looking for certain reference points on ‘lead’; there were three of them. To obtain the correct ‘three dimensional’ location relative to the lead aircraft, the ‘wingman’ had to line up the three points on the leader’s aircraft. No matter what the leader’s aircraft was doing, you ‘flew’ those points. This sounded reasonably simple in theory, but, in practice …
Yes, it was hot, physical work. In flight suit, Mae West, g-suit, trussed up under the inverted boat-like canopy in dazzling sunshine, the controls were never still: stick forward or back to maintain the vertical line, banking left and right to maintain the correct distance out, and then the throttle, up and down, ever adjusting, the moan of the engine rising and falling; power off to move back to the correct spot, then power on to stop the rate of movement, then power on again, not so much, to maintain position, then uh-oh, lead’s turning away from us, I have to ‘ride up’ on his extended wing as it rises, lots of power as now I’m falling behind … adjust … now I’m in the right spot, the beautiful shape of lead’s orange, white and silver Macchi back-dropped with the blue Indian Ocean kilometres below while we turn as one … but now he’s turning the other way, towards me. Off with the power as I am now on the ‘inside’ of the turn, I’ll race ahead if I’m not quick with that, trying to ride down with his wingtip as it banks, as if a rigid, invisible rod is joining us … the concentration is intense, nothing else matters except to line up those points. I now understood how entire display teams had crashed as a group, the wingmen still locked on to their leader in the final seconds of their lives. I bore the dazzle of the sun as, looking up into it on the ‘inside’ of the turn, lead turned into a silhouette, the instructor behind exhorting, ‘Come on, get back in there’.
Leadership. As the feeling of flying formation on another’s wing became a little more ‘instinctive’, though never really easy for me, being the leader of a formation threw up its own challenges. My course-mate would relinquish the ‘lead’ over the radio, now he who had been leading me was now trying to ‘hang in’ off my wing, and I was now thinking for two aircraft, keeping the turns gentle, at a constant ‘rate’ of bank so that the wingman could follow my tip tank, but there was more to it than merely being smooth. The wingman would not be looking at anywhere else in the sky, just focusing on those points on my aircraft. He would now be burning fuel at a greater rate than me with all his power changes. He could not look out for other aircraft; check that he was staying correctly in the training area; talk to air traffic control. Those were my responsibilities as leader, remembering that with a fellow ‘rookie’ off my wing, manoeuvrability would be reduced. Thinking ahead was essential. The wingman would then commence ‘station changes’ directed by his instructor in the back seat as I had done, sliding aft and across into ‘line astern’, sitting directly behind my Macchi, sitting slightly low to avoid the buffeting jet blast from my exhaust. Line astern was slightly easier to fly than ‘echelon’, so I could turn a little more tightly … ‘Need to manoeuvre? Put your mate into line astern’, the instructors would advise, the leader having the prerogative to ‘call’ the wingman into the various positions. Then ‘echelon’ on the other side, now I am giving him a few turns for practice, he’s settled down quite nicely, just bobbing up and down with the occasional ripple in the air, the helmeted, masked head in the front seat with its anonymous black visor fixated on my jet, the instructor in the back also staring, never relaxing.
It would now be time to lead the formation back to Pearce, judging my run in to the ‘initial’ point, so the turns would be gentle, calling the radio frequency changes, checking our fuel states and now, making sure he is in the correct ‘echelon’ position, as I will fly the standard ‘initial and pitch’, the run parallel to the runway at 1,000’, 300 metres, followed by hard individual breakaways onto ‘downwind’. The wingman must be placed on the other side to the direction of the pitch into the circuit. Runway now below, lined up nicely, checking for no other traffic in the circuit (I am responsible for two aircraft!), a little ‘waggle’ of my wings to indicate to the wingman, still totally focussed on my aircraft, that we are about to ‘pitch’ (he may not even know that we are abeam the runway), and then that hard bank and ‘pull’ onto downwind, throttle idle, speed brake out … now the wingman is on his own, my aircraft has abruptly whipped away to his right, he now maintains level, counts three ‘bananas’ or ‘elephants’ according to taste, and now he follows suit, pitching out to follow me in trail onto downwind. We are still a formation however, so I am responsible for clearance to land and the wingman takes ‘interval’ on me, just touching down as I vacate the runway. We taxi in to the carports as a ‘pair’. It is only after the canopy is opened and the cooling ‘tick tick’ of the engines’ metal is heard and harness buckles clink as we unstrap, that my course-mate and I realise how hot we are, our suits drenched with sweat. A joint debrief, the instructors picking and critiquing, notes taken, but thankfully the ‘ride’, while not brilliant, is a ‘pass’ and another flight in the syllabus is over.
The instrument flying became very involved. Instrument flying, that is in cloud or at night, was simulated in the CT-4 by a rudimentary visor worn over the helmet that gave its wearer enough of a field of view ahead to see the instrument panel, not much out of the windscreen, but there was always some peripheral vision. Several of our course were now having serious problems with their instrument flying, and suffered that cruel ‘X’ through the course photograph on the walls of the Operations Room and the various offices. On one occasion, through a distressing oversight one course-mate would spot the X through his face on a photograph before he was informed of his failure.
In the Macchi, instrument flying sorties were flown with the instructor in the front seat and the student occupying the rear. The instructor had to be able to see straight ahead out of the aircraft for landing and importantly, the student in the rear could be fully enclosed by the instrument flying ‘hood’. It was, in fact, a tent. Not a skerrick of a view outside remained. The student’s world was dirty white canvas, the grey metal of the cockpit interior and the instrument panel. There could be no cheating. ‘Under the hood’ in the Macchi was serious instrument flying. Conflicting senses from one’s inner ear could not be resolved by a quick, sneaky peek out. Ninety per cent of the pilot’s attention was locked on to the Macchi’s big attitude indicator, the ‘A.I’, a mechanical gyro-stabilised world, with its numbered graduations that showed bank and pitch. And now there were more than rudimentary manoeuvres required; there were ‘unusual attitude’ recoveries, advanced instrument approaches and exercises and even take-offs conducted by the student blind ‘under the hood’, carefully referring to the equally large horizontal situation indicator (HSI), directly under the AI, which showed quite an accurate compass heading.
TACAN was a system widely used in the western military air forces. It was a ground radio ‘beacon’, usually located on a military base, that radiated coded signals that enabled a special system in the aircraft to calculate its ‘bearing’ (compass direction) and distance in nautical miles, from that beacon. This was displayed to Macchi pilots on the HSI, a ‘bar’ indicating the selected ‘radial’ (bearing) from the beacon, superimposed on the compass, and a little counter that showed the distance away. We were taught to fly TACAN approaches, ‘homing’ onto the beacon and descending to certain altitudes as directed by the special approach chart to a minimum altitude, at which the instructor would do one of two things: call ‘taking over’ and landing the aircraft, usually for a ‘touch and go’ and further approach, or he would say nothing. O.K., I’m not ‘visual’ with the runway … ‘Going round, Sir’, I would call: on with the power, locked onto the AI for that vital climb attitude (we are very close to the ground), gear (wheels) up, flaps up, full power makes the nose want to pitch up, so trim … fly the required ‘missed approach’ course on the compass, quick, start levelling off, we’re nearly at the stipulated altitude, re-trim, ‘Call Pearce Approach on Stud 3’ would come from the air traffic controller through my earphones, acknowledge … change frequency … call ‘Approach’ … then, more often as not, ‘OK, another approach’ from the instructor, perhaps another TACAN, a more rudimentary teardrop-shaped ‘NDB’ approach or a precision ‘GCA’ until the Macchi’s fuel would be getting low and it was time to land.
The Non Directional Beacon (NDB) was a primitive ‘homing’ device. The pilot tuned the beacon’s frequency and then a needle superimposed on a compass card on his instrument panel pointed to it; the needle often quivered and wandered as the NDB’s radio frequency, essentially the same as medium-wave public radio, was subject to various forms of interferences and inaccuracies. The NDB provided no distance information, however the pilot could tell if he was directly overhead the beacon. The instrument’s needle would swing and circle drunkenly as the aircraft passed through the ‘cone of confusion’ above the NDB antenna. It would then wobble and eventually stabilise to show the direction back to the aid. It was vital to recognise the ‘overhead’, then to position the Macchi correctly ‘outbound’ from the beacon on the correct course, commencing a descent to an intermediate altitude, then after minute or two, turn ‘inbound’ to intercept the correct bearing toward the beacon, descending to the published Minimum Descent Altitude, carefully maintaining height and bearing. Most NDB approaches, and some TACAN approaches, were teardrop shaped and the NDB approach enabled the pilot, homing to the simple and inexpensive Non Directional Beacon, to penetrate a cloud layer to fly directly in to land or to ‘circle’ a few hundred metres above the ground, to line up with the correct landing direction.
GCA stood for ‘Ground Controlled Approach’, and I relished these. All I had to do was follow instructions and fly accurately. A specially qualified military air traffic controller would peer at two extremely accurate radar screens that presented the Macchi’s ‘blip’ in both bearing and height down a three-degree ‘glide slope’ down to the runway’s threshold. Giving tiny corrections over the radio to the pilot, it was the classic ‘talk down’, a constant voice in the earphones: ‘Viper 36 turn left 185, commence rate of descent, coming onto centreline, heading 182, slightly increase that rate of descent, on glide path, heading 185, slightly reduce that rate of descent …’ The corrections became smaller and smaller as we flew down an imaginary ‘funnel’ to the runway, then, ‘Approaching decision height, look ahead and land visually’. If you had flown accurately the jet would end up some 200 feet, sixty metres, above the ground with the runway directly ahead. Once again, there would be either, ‘taking over’ from the instructor, or that silence, meaning ‘Make a missed approach’. A GCA was always a welcome relief from the other approaches with their mental gymnastics of bearings, radials and distances.
The navigation exercises were becoming more than just visually flying triangular routes at some 8,000 feet – or 2,400 metres – above Western Australia’s ‘wheat belt’, tracking from dry lake to town to dry lake then back to Pearce. There were high and low ‘navexes’ to be planned, flown and assessed, the high ones flown at high level, some 9,000 metres, up in airliner territory. There was no airliner’s autopilot for us, and accurate flying was more demanding in the thin air with less engine power while we homed to radio beacons dotted around the Western Australian countryside. There could later be a ‘visual’ segment to a huge dry lake, sometimes obscured by a cloud deck far below, so an accurate heading and airspeed had to be flown until the next position ‘fix’. The Macchi used slightly less fuel at high altitude, but the quantity gauge still had to be watched carefully and the feed from the tip tanks monitored, with the fuel amount remaining plotted carefully on a small paper graph. Then perhaps an instrument approach through the clouds back at Pearce: this time it’s ‘for real’ from the front cockpit, breaking out of the cloud to find Pearce’s runway, fortunately for me, generally where it was supposed to be, ahead in the windscreen. Various aspects of the course that were previously separated were coalescing into one picture: a navigation exercise becoming an instrument flying routine at the end; ‘operating’ the aircraft. Ability at this was, as ever, closely followed by the instructors, debriefed, and later written up in the ‘hate sheets’ (reports on the students).
In the same vein, formation flying was becoming more advanced, especially when leading one’s wingman back to base through cloud for an instrument approach as a ‘pair’, or as the wingman, absolutely focused on the leader’s jet with ragged grey wisps of cloud flitting by, feeling weird and contradictory sensations through my inner ear. Lose sight of him for an instant and it would be a rapid ‘break away’ from his last known position – two aircraft in close proximity in cloud is a hazardous situation.
‘Low level’ navexes were flown over the countryside just 200 feet, 60 metres, off the ground with a carefully prepared and folded large scale map in one gloved hand held up high, tick marks along the marked course indicating time markers, and a stopwatch running on the gun sight platform right there in the windscreen. It was hot at low level in the Macchi, the sweat ignored while I tried to stay ‘on track and on time’, craning for landmarks, but still marvelling at the speed, 240 knots, four nautical miles or seven kilometres per minute, while farms, cattle, dry lakes and scrub slid underneath, the Macchi bumping and wallowing and fishtailing in sharp-edged turbulence. Later the instructors would command ‘diversions’ where mental arithmetic had to be used to correct times and speeds, because the low level navexes terminated with a ‘target’ which was to be overflown exactly and at a nominated time. Phew! Made it this time, but the timing not great. Barely a ‘pass’.
My overall performance was still a poor average. Silly mistakes and poor aerobatics often prompted gruff and sarcastic responses from the instructors. I was not a great navigator – I fixated on inappropriate priorities and found it difficult to read features at low level over the vast west Australian wheat belt, with the tiny towns hard to spot and all looking the same. As at Point Cook, my saving grace was my instrument flying and good ground school results, but I barely scraped through each progress test flight. However, like the others, I was entrusted with more solo flights including navexes and night flights.
Still nineteen, I was slowly maturing, and 100 Course had bonded further, whittled down to a little over twenty students from the original forty. I became accepted into the fold of the ‘drinking buddies’ as the study eased a little, and I was usually invited along for Friday night outings to the pubs and clubs. We had a course song, and roared lewd ditties and chants, most of them picked up from the beer-swilling instructors on Friday afternoons while we let off steam in the Students’ Mess and the noisy pubs:
‘Who’s the man with the big red nose?’
Hoo, ha, hoo ha ha
The more he drinks, the more he knows!
Hoo ha, hoo ha ha
Where are we from?
PEARCE!
And what do we eat?
FISH!
And how do we eat it?
RAW!
And when we win,
WE SHIT IT IN!
So up the old red rooster, and drink MORE PISS!’
The ‘Neptune Song’ was an ode to the old Lockheed Neptune maritime patrol aircraft, often bawled out during Friday afternoon hilarity in the Students’ Mess by instructors who were ex-maritime patrol pilots, sung loosely to the tune of ‘Bless ‘em All’:
‘Neptunes they don’t bother me,
Neptunes they don’t bother me.
Clapped-out abortions with holes in their wings,
Poofter co-pilots and engines that “ping”.
So if you’ve got a MiG on your tail,
Don’t let your Aussie blood boil.
Don’t hesitate, slam it right through the gate,
And cover the bastard in oil!’
They go up,
They go down.
The engines, they go round and round.
If you’ve got three burning, and only one turning, you’d best get your arse on the ground!’
After each song glasses were refilled from the jugs of frothing brown liquid. Not a big drinker, I did my best to fit in and joined the ribald songs with growing enthusiasm. Some of the fellows had local girlfriends who joined in the merriment. The course would run from January to September so there was almost a settled feeling at 2 FTS for many of us.
I managed time for driving lessons: a course-mate, Gerry, let me attach ‘L’ plates to his old Volkswagen and gave me some road experience. After a few lessons to polish up, I presented for a driving test in Perth, where a gentleman in a suit and tie introduced himself as the tester and asked me what I did. I told him I was a trainee navy pilot, qualified to fly a single engine jet solo, day and night, but I was not legal to drive a car. At last, I had a driver’s licence, but still no car.
There were two forms of motivation to remain focussed on the course and to keep putting the work in and not get distracted by girlfriends and social life. First were the sobering ‘scrubs’ that occurred late in the course. One farewell was particularly sad. Nicknamed Luigi from his Mediterranean appearance, his eyes filled as we farewelled him noisily in a bar at Perth Airport. Luigi had often been the life of the party. Gerry had gone and another student, worldly and older than most of us, had been caught carrying out solo aerobatics low over a girlfriend’s house, spotted by an instructor in another Macchi. Schmitty, also older but intelligent and dry of wit, had not adjusted well to military life and had also gone. He would return to the legal profession.
The more positive motivation was the ‘Postings Dining-in Nights’ and graduation parades, of which there were three each year. The air force’s Dining-in Night was equivalent to the navy’s Mess Dinner, but with variations. Full formal Mess Dress, solemn ritual and formality would likewise descend into happy chaos after the Loyal Toast, where the ‘crabs’ toasted the Queen standing up. At each course’s Postings Dining-in Night, the students’ fates would be read out one by one: ‘Smith, Thirty-Four Squadron’ (VIP transport), ‘Jones, Thirty-Eight’ (transports), with elated yells from those earmarked to fly fighters or F-111 bombers. Then, the navy postings: they would be to fly Skyhawks, Trackers, or helicopters. Next morning, more sober heads would realise that the course was not yet over, and any posting to an operational squadron would evaporate should the pilot’s training not be completed successfully. It would be back to work for the final phase and the final tests: formation, navigation, instrument flying and lastly, the ‘Wings’ test.
100 Course marched in support of two graduation parades, impressive affairs with families, friends and senior officers looking on. The air force cadets would become commissioned as pilot officers and depart on their postings to operational squadrons. The navy graduates, however, would remain as midshipmen and would cross the continent to Nowra for further training. I hoped fervently that I would be doing the same.
Phase Three, the final phase, was that coming together of the separate aspects of the advanced training syllabus, and the final test flights. For the Formation Test, my friend Phil was the candidate in the other aircraft. I ‘hung in’ on his wing as best I could, completed the ‘rejoins’ and station changes and then slipped back to a few hundred metres astern of his Macchi in a ‘tail chase’. I manoeuvred in an imaginary cone as Phil threw his aircraft around aggressively while I moved in or out of the cone’s edge to try and maintain a constant distance and to follow him.
High in the sky, Phil pulls over me in a huge loop. I follow him over and I pick up the orange and white of his Macchi, smaller now, arrowing down thousands of metres below us towards the dry lakes and scrub, two white helmets visible in the darkness of its cockpit … Then the g comes on as I cut to the inside to catch him … now he’s pulled up into dazzling blue, gravity takes over and his Macchi slows, so I had better get to the outside of the cone otherwise I will get too close …
A few minutes later, the tail chase was over. Now it was my turn to take the ‘lead’ with Phil flying on my wing, to repeat the entire exercise. In the debrief, my flying on Phil’s wing was considered satisfactory and despite comments on my mediocre leadership, Phil and I were told that we had both passed the test.
The Navigation Test was a struggle: a ‘high-low’ profile where I was to fly the first leg of a triangular course at high altitude, descend, and then complete the ‘mission’ at low level using the technique of stopwatch and large-scale map. A silly mistake at the first turning point almost did for me, but I managed to identify and correct it, which probably gave the testing officer an inkling that, with experience, I might eventually become a competent military pilot. After that the dreaded ‘FIHT’ loomed. A few candidates, especially those who were uncomfortable with instrument flying, would fail to make the grade, even at this point.
The Final Instrument Handling Test was, in some ways, more important than the ‘Wings’ test. Accurate instrument flying was a must for military pilots who were expected not just to fly, but to ‘fight’ their aircraft in all weather conditions, day and night. I worked and worked for it. I thought through every possible scenario: fuel shortage, diversion to an obscure alternate airport, instrument failures. All these things could be thrown at me, either actually flown or questioned as a scenario, and the Macchi’s high rate of fuel usage was always in the back of my mind.
The instructors were of various backgrounds and of various temperaments: from the serious fighter pilots, full of ego and elitism, to those from transport, bomber and helicopter backgrounds. One of them held a senior position and was known as ‘Five Balls’ by virtue of his deep, dry, gravelly voice. Unlike the rest of the instructors, Five Balls’ office was bare of any photographs or badges, with his green flying jacket equally unadorned with any unit patches or flags. I occasionally flew with him when my regular instructors were unavailable, and I experienced his unique instructional style.
Also unlike the other instructors, he sat through his students’ flights with his intercom system turned off. He would click down his button, say what he had to say, then it would be back to silence. The student would feel like it was a solo flight: no suck/blow of the instructor breathing through his mask, no grunting from him under the g-forces, no casual observations or very occasional banter. But almost always, Five Balls would ‘ghost’ the controls: you could feel his hands and feet through the ‘stick’ and rudder pedals when you were supposed to be in control of the aircraft. Perhaps he had had a few scares during his previous exchange duty with an Asian air force. A course-mate swore that when he was flying with Five Balls, he had completely removed his hands from the controls and the aircraft flew a perfect circuit, the student debriefed on minor points later.
While flying a circuit with Five Balls in the rear cockpit to a ‘touch and go’, and with full power on and climbing back up from Pearce’s runway, all I would hear through my earphones was, ‘Click ssshhh’ (the usual background hash of the intercom system), then the gravelly voice, ‘Surprise me, Mr Carr, and land on the bloody centreline next time … ssshhh click.’ Typical of Five Balls, as was his debrief. As with all his students he directed me to make him a strong black instant coffee, then, occasionally lifting his huge mug to his lips from the bare desk, he faced the window in his ever-present opaque black sunglasses, five o’clock shadow and short-cropped black hair, and made slow, laconic, dry statements in his bass voice: ‘The normal circuit was reasonable but your flapless ones tended to turn into a can of worms …’ and more in similar vein. His knowledge of the pubs around south-western Australia was encyclopaedic: he rattled off their names and details as we flashed over them on the low-level navexes. From his capacity for alcohol he was also known as ‘The Bionic Liver’, and regardless of how much beer he consumed his demeanour never changed. Legend had it among the students that he was never seen to eat.
My Phase One instructor, ‘Nobby’, had relinquished me to Flight Lieutenant Tony who was personable but exacting, of ‘maritime’ background like Nobby, with most of his operational experience gained on Lockheed Orion patrol aircraft. Tony had coached me through the second phase, patiently teaching the rudiments of formation, low and high level navigation, and advanced instrument flying. Perceived as a weak student, for the final phase of the pilot’s course I had been passed on to Flight Lieutenant ‘Johnno’.
Johnno was a solid, impressive chap, and colourful medal ribbons attested to his having flown helicopters in a combat environment as part of the RAAF’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Many of these veterans were given a ‘first choice’ of postings subsequent to their war service, and Johnno had gone on to fly Mirage fighters. Fighter pilots were sardonically referred to in the air force as ‘knuckleheads’ or ‘knucks’, single-minded pilots of supersonic jets, around which the whole service seemed to revolve. Many fighter pilots considered themselves of the elite and itched to get back to their operational squadrons. Johnno was an exception. He took a genuine interest in his students, and the taking over of a very young navy midshipman of marginal ability would have been regarded as a challenge for him.
‘That’s a pass.’ I still remember those words over the Macchi’s intercom today. I was still strapped in under the instrument flying ‘tent’. The testing officer was taxiing us in, having completed my Final Instrument Handling Test. They were the only words he spoke until I reported to his cubicle for debriefing. He was known by us as ‘The Cucumber’: a fighter pilot’s fighter pilot, cool and laconic behind dark glasses under blond hair. I emerged from his briefing room feeling that for once I had flown a reasonable test, the reward of hard work and thankfully, good instrument flying. Later, Johnno accosted me in a corridor. Beaming, he held up four fingers. ‘Mark, you got a ‘four’! Shit hot!’ The ‘Cuke’ had graded my performance as a ‘four’. ‘Fives’ were assigned only to students of exceptional ability. I had not let Johnno down and maybe, just maybe, I would graduate from 2 FTS.
We had been asked for our preferences for aircraft types early in Phase Three. The choices for the navy midshipmen were the Skyhawk fighters, Grumman Tracker anti-submarine aircraft, and helicopters. I expected to be assigned to helicopters. In our youth and inexperience, helicopters were perceived as slow and boring, a different form of aviation, noisy and vibrating. How wrong we were, as later I would have much to do with the helicopter crew and occasionally have the chance to take the controls of one. However, the weaker students were often sent to them, because the helicopter’s slower speed would give them more time to think and ‘stay ahead’ of the aircraft. I was convinced that helicopters would be my posting, assuming that I actually passed the course at Pearce. But I had always liked the look of the Grumman Tracker.
The Tracker was a blunt brute of an aircraft with, its two powerful piston engines. It bristled with sensors and had those huge side windows for the pilots to observe the earth and sea below. Like the Skyhawk, it would be flung off the carrier, HMAS Melbourne, by a catapult, to be caught back on board by its arresting hook engaging the ship’s wires. Unlike in the U.S. Navy that used two pilots, Australia’s Trackers were flown ‘single pilot’: the occupant of the right hand seat of the cockpit a specially trained observer called the Tactical Coordinator, or ‘TACCO’. But the Tracker didn’t have the speed of the jets and, with my own realistic appraisal of my flying ability, it could be an operational aircraft that I just might be able to handle. So on the appropriately named ‘dream sheet’, I had written Trackers as first choice. At the Postings Dining-in Night for 100 Course, instructors and students at the long tables, the port decanter circulating, the list was called out, which included: ‘… Midshipman Carr: VC 851 Squadron, Grumman Trackers.’ I was very happy with that.
Most of the remaining navy students had Skyhawks as first choice. However, a mediocre student who had reasonable instrument flying skills and who actually wanted to fly the Tracker was a rarity so by default, I was to train on the powerful Grumman. Ray, who was doing well on the course, ever cheerful and confident, was to fly the Skyhawk. The few remaining navy students on 100 Course would fly helicopters.
‘As for your “aero’s” …’ The wing commander then laughed at the aerobatic sequence I had demonstrated to him during our flight. We were debriefing, and I had flown a very marginal Wings Test with the Commanding Officer of 2 FTS. I had been ‘saved’ by circumstances; strong academics and good instrument flying, the political messiness of a failure at this stage of the course, and the fact that I was navy: I would not be the air force’s problem any more and it would be up to the navy to further train and assess me. I left his office emotionally drained, but now I would march with my course-mates on the Graduation Parade.
Later I was debriefed by the Senior Naval Officer, with whom I had experienced my first Macchi flight seemingly a lifetime ago. He pulled no punches, stating that the navy had reservations about my ability and officer qualities. He alluded to marginal performance in the air, immaturity (I would turn twenty the following day) and instances of sloppy uniform. I was still thin and angular, my uniforms never seemed to fit properly, and I still carried myself at a discernable angle from the poorly healed collarbone. The front tooth was still black from effects of the car crash. I had not done well in practical exercises during a leadership evaluation in bushland south of Perth. ‘We’re sending you to Trackers because you were the only one who asked for ‘em’, he said. ‘Your report states that you prepared for your flights well, but your performance was inconsistent. You lack common sense and have little potential for development as an officer.’ The report concluded with the words, ‘Midshipman Carr has a difficult task ahead.’
‘One Hundred Course! By the left! Quick … march!’ RAAF Pearce’s band struck up a stirring tune as we stepped off from the flight line area, heading toward the parade ground. While we marched with band playing, a lone Macchi plunged up and down ahead of us in a joyous display of low-level aerobatics, the whistle of its engine modulating up and down as it dived then swooped skywards again, now into a ‘hammerhead’ as it reached the top of its arc. It hung nose-high, between momentum and gravity in deep blue sky, its throttled-back engine warbling, then it fell backwards until its natural stability flipped it nose down. It wobbled then stabilised as its speed built up again, then another swoop and pull up into a roll … we had marched as support squads at two graduation parades previously, and now this one was ours.
We made a ceremonial march-past for the distinguished guests and the senior officers. My mother and my paternal grandmother were in the audience, my father unable to attend because there was the all-important race meeting at Mornington. He would join us on the following day for the Graduation Ball. My ‘wings’ were pinned on by the ‘Father of the Air Force’, Air Vice Marshal Sir Richard Williams. He had been among the first to train as a pilot at Point Cook in 1914. Frail but erect, he pinned the ‘wings’ to my uniform jacket with the help of his aide-de-camp. Then the prizes were announced: a surprise ‘dux’ to a course-mate that we had not expected, various other prizes then, ‘Most Improved Student: Midshipman Carr.’ A hissed ‘Well done, Carcus’ from Phil just behind, and it was forward to receive a silver tray, a tangible reward for unrelenting hard work, determination and luck. Then we made a second march-past and as the last of us passed in front of Sir Richard while he took the salute on the dais, there was a rumble in the sky from the west.
Five dots in the sky became Macchi jets headed directly toward the parade ground at low level. They were spread in ‘echelon’ formation. The building roar of the engines at full power was impressive. While I marched carefully, I could see out of the corner of my eye the formation split in a ‘bomb burst’ just in front of the audience at the parade ground; the wingmen simultaneously broke up and away at each side and the leader pulled vertically up until he was inverted, then into a half roll. Then, the individual jets streaked off to rejoin in formation out in the area, to later belt low over the base in echelon then fan up and away, one by one, for landing. After the bomb burst Sir Richard was chauffeured away, and the parade was over.
Eighteen students of the forty who had started on our course so long ago at Point Cook now wore ‘wings’. Those of the air force were heavy pewter affairs, and the cadets had simultaneously become qualified air force pilots and commissioned pilot officers. But the navy was different. Firstly, naval ‘wings’ are traditionally gold in colour. Secondly, we were still midshipmen. Thirdly, and significantly, naval ‘wings’ were not confirmed until the wearer had passed an OFS: an Operational Flying School on a front line naval aircraft: for me, the Tracker. Fail that, and off those wings would come. I had barely scraped through the Pilots’ Course with marginal officer qualities, and now the OFS was the next hurdle.
However, I would have some time to wait for that. The Tracker OFS had been delayed, and it had been decided that I would continue to fly Macchis for a while: but not those with the orange tails emblazoned with the black swan. The jets that I would fly were the smart blue, white and silver Macchis that belonged to VC 723 Squadron at Nowra.
