My Life as a .............

[Alisoncc]

I am sure that many of us have tales of deering do that if not recorded now could be lost forever. Whether it's 500N's story of his time as a stand-in for Crocodile Dundee, and how he stopped a charging buffalo with just two outstretched fingers which he will be telling from his wheelchair. Or Mrs Ex-Ascot's time as a member of the Royal bodyguard, and when she went undercover as one of the royal corgies. So many stories to tell. I will start the ball rolling with my story.

[Alisoncc]

The fact that Vulcans carried a Rear Gunner was a closely guarded secret, with many air crew being terminated should they have inadvertently disclosed their knowledge of such. Termination being initiated by requiring them to exit the aircraft at altitude with a malformed parachute. If the termination was carried out with extreme prejudice then the captain would lower the undercarriage before the terminatee exited. Bouncing off the nose wheel hydraulics was considered extreme prejudice.

Many would have seen evidence of the presence of a Rear Gunner by the apparent deployment of a parachute out the back of a Vulcan on landing. It was considered standard procedure for the Rear Gunner to open their hatch to get some air immediately the wheels touched the ground. The sudden inrush of air made it extremely difficult to stop the deployment of the Rear Gunners backpack parachute once the hatch had been opened, thus necessitating them to hang onto their seat like grim death as the aircraft slowed.

It was widely believed that the B2 Vulcans had four Olympus 200 series engines. This is wholly incorrect. There were in actual fact only three fitted, with the fourth, the inner starboard slot being taken up a with a revolving Gatling gun. Hence the need for a Rear Gunner. The Armourers would be required to hoist a fully loaded gun into the rear of the inner starboard jet exhaust slot prior to take off on a mission.

Whilst they were rarely mistaken in locating an inner slot, and were well aware that Port was left and Starboard was right, occasionally they assumed that left and right was looking from the back of the aircraft where they were working and would install the gun in the jet exhaust of a working engine. This had the unfortunate consequence when the engine was fired up of launching the complete loaded gun in the direction of the Tower at a high rate of knots. Bit like a cork out of a champagne bottle. The Air Traffic Controllers weren't overly impressed with this as it required them to duck under their desks, sometimes at very inopportune moments like when one had a full house in the their daily poker tournament.

An interesting aspect of the training undertaken at 230 OCU RAF Finningley in the early '60's was the ability of new pilots to undertake "asymmetrics". This initially necessitated the CFI shutting down the engines on one side of the aircraft and getting the pilot in charge to fly parallel to a line down the centre of the runway using max rudder. Once they got the hang of this it wasn't unusual for the CFI to fire off a hundred rounds or so from the Gatling gun to test their ability. This was banned when it was found that using the runway 02 direction the shells were coming uncomfortably close to RAF Bawtry, with one shell passing though the AOC Group's office window when he was in residence.

Beside having the responsibility of protecting the rear of the aircraft from enemy fire, on long missions the Rear Gunner ran the aircraft laundry. Should such a long mission be planned then one of the ECM cans was filled with warm sudsy water prior to the flight. The equipment mounted on the pointy bit at the end, often referred to as Red Steer was in actual fact a washing machine with the impeller blade easily being mistaken for a rapidly spinning antenna. By venting the relevant water containing ECM can into the radome after the addition of the crews clothing, enabled the crew to exit the aircraft on completing the mission with freshly laundered kit.

The AEO had control of the washing machine and was able to monitor their undies circulating around via his screen in a like manner to front loading machines of today. This practice was discontinued when female members of the crew became commonplace. If the front end crew forgot to send fresh coffee back at reasonable intervals then it wasn't unusual for the Rear Gunner to vent glycol into the washing machine instead of the sudsy water.

Whilst the laundry facility worked fine when Vulcans flew high altitude missions, once they changed to low level attacks in 1966, the ability to dry the clothes when the weather may have been inclement was a problem. A solution was found whereby the Rear Gunner was allowed to string a clothes line in the large bay immediately forward of his/her position. Occasionally when this was found necessary and if there was large white shiny object with fins in the way of the clothes line, it had been know for the Rear Gunner to jettison it to make more room. This, quite understandably, caused great consternation in Whitehall. Standard Operating Procedures were immediately amended specifying that any such jettisoning of nuclear arms should only took place overseas, preferably over France, and never ever over the UK.


To be continued.......

[CharlieOneSix]

Brilliant Alison! - with the crowd we have on here I can see this thread running and running.

[Alisoncc]

I am hopeful that someone here will be able to recount tales about the Grey Ghosts - the Shackleton aerobatic team. How a formation of six Shackletons in close formation and line abreast managed a full barrel roll. I have only heard anecdotal rumours. I also understand that in keeping with their nautical roots all aerobatic manoevours were synchronised using Aldis Lamps through the forward bomb aimers window shown below.

avro-shackleton.jpg

[Slasher]

For any Seth Effrikans - is the Shackleton that was perched between Cape Town and the Wharf still there? I remember it in the early to mid 90s.

[ian16th]

As far as I know there are 2 Shack's in SA.

One at the SAAF Museum at Zwartkop, Pretoria and one at Ysterplaat, Cape Town.

The Ysterplaat one ceased flying, but did engine runs, until the demise of a retired W.O. engineer, who apparantly was the last guy standing that could maintain RR Griffon's.

[Cacophonix]

As far as I know there are 2 Shack's in SA.

One at the SAAF Museum at Zwartkop, Pretoria and one at Ysterplaat, Cape Town.

The Ysterplaat one ceased flying, but did engine runs, until the demise of a retired W.O. engineer, who apparently was the last guy standing that could maintain RR Griffon's.

While the sad remains of another SAAF Shackleton are slowly being lost to the predation of the sand, weather and itinerant passers-by and trophy hunters....





Caco

[Boac]

Aaah! The Shacklebomber - "40,000 rivets in close formation". The background sound of the mighty Griffons clearly audible when the Fighter Controller was transmitting from 'Anyface'

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Apologies for the poor quality:

ShackCanF3.JPG (40.66 KiB) Viewed 683 times

Shack, Canberra and F3, the first two at about 140 kts with the F3 about 40 kts faster (note it's in 67 wing)

[Boac]

Were they jammed or was it an up-f**k? Would it fly at 140kts?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

It was the display pilot flying it, deliberately 67 in order to exaggerate the AoA difference. The approach speed in 67 wing was, if memory serves, 217 kts min, and only 1 AoA off the limit. I daren't guess what the Alpha was, and the nav wouldn't say. He's sure doing under 200 kts in the video. That said, if you got the aircraft into 'the groove' at high alpha, it was quite stable, just remember to only breathe on the controls.
The pilot was prone to bouts of "Oh, this'll look good in the photos", and I was on the receiving end of one of those, which I think started my hair greying, aged 27.

[Boac]

Gulp!!

The pilot was prone to bouts of "Oh, this'll look good in the photos",

- shades of Mr Whitehouse, July 1970, Tengah, Lightning - along the lines of "If you want to see a rotation, camera ready, watch this...". Luckily, no nav to kill - just two villagers and 1000 chicken at Chua Chu Kang Farm.

[Cacophonix]

It was the display pilot flying it, deliberately 67 in order to exaggerate the AoA difference. The approach speed in 67 wing was, if memory serves, 217 kts min, and only 1 AoA off the limit. I daren't guess what the Alpha was, and the nav wouldn't say. He's sure doing under 200 kts in the video. That said, if you got the aircraft into 'the groove' at high alpha, it was quite stable, just remember to only breathe on the controls.
The pilot was prone to bouts of "Oh, this'll look good in the photos", and I was on the receiving end of one of those, which I think started my hair greying, aged 27.

I assume you took that photo from another aircraft outside the formation Fox3WheresMyBanana or, like many of my asumptionss, am I way off base?

Caco

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

It was not video'ed by me. I do not know who took it.
My own experience was being part of trying to get a photograph of a four ship of F3s with the Rock of Gibraltar in the background. The bright idea from the aforementioned formation leader was to fly reverse echelon with a colocated Nimrod we were working with as the camera ship. The Nimrod was briefed to be the formation leader. The plan was to fly down the runway below Rock height, hang a sharp 90 left due to the Spanish airspace, then snap the pics. BOAC will already know how this will work out. I was #4 Tornado, and therefore flying #5 in a reverse echelon below 1,000 ft, with the Rock on the other side to where I, and everyone other Tornado pilot, was looking. Two things: My formation skills would never have got me into the Red Arrows, and one of the reasons baby pilots get sent Nimrods is because they can't fly or lead formations. But you are #4 on your first tour, so you have a go. The #3 nav decided he didn't like it after the second attempt, and I don't blame him, so they called fuel priority as an excuse, after which I did too. We have a nice picture of 2 Tornados with the Rock in the background.

[Boac]

A 'good' Gib story was the 'other' Gutersloh Harrier squadron (No 3) pairs trip into Gib with an American exchange guy leading. Round the bay and along the beach at Algeciras went they, and the Spanish couldn't touch them for it.

[Cacophonix]

Just looking at Jeppersen approach plates to LXGB. It all looks a little tight! Throw in a little military traffic and the Spanish plus a bloody great rock and you have the basis for some stressful mayhem by the looks of it?

Caco

[Ex-Ascot]

Caco, It is wind turbulence off the rock and the bloody apes hanging off your wing that are the biggest problems. We used to ignore Spick airspace and just go up to the tower and sign the violation book citing wind shear for the reason for incursion on flight safety grounds.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

15 kts was the wind limit from the East for turbulence. I saw a Jag pilot walk into the bar having landed just as it reached the limit - never seen a beer downed so fast.
The approach to the Easterly runway for fast jets involved a base leg just west of North, then a very sharp 100 degree right at under 400 feet to line up. All a good excuse to show off in light winds, but no fun at all with the turbulence. Not possible for non-FJ.