Group Tom - A passion for flying : 8,000 hours of RAF flying

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Copyright Tom Eeles 2008

ISBN 978 1 84415 688 7
eISBN 9781844688562

The right of Tom Eeles to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Contents

Preface

A nnual Confidential Reports are an unavoidable feature of life in the Services. Even after more than forty years in uniform I could not escape them. It was therefore with some pleasure that, during the ritual debrief of my final report, I heard from my squadron commander on Cambridge University Air Squadron that I still had a passion for flying after all these years.

The phrase a passion for flying stuck in my mind and so after finishing my time with the squadron in late 2004 I decided to record my experiences in the cockpit, over a period of more than forty years, before the passage of time dimmed my memories. It was a fascinating era to have been involved with the RAF. The RAF that I joined still had a permanent global presence and operated a huge variety of aircraft, despite the 1957 Sandys White Paper that indicated that there was no future for manned military aircraft. The Cold War was at its height and involved nearly every RAF unit in some way or other, yet we still had many major commitments in the Commonwealth. Our combat aircraft were primitive by todays standards, yet in terms of pure performance they were exciting and challenging to operate. Nuclear weapons featured significantly in our inventory; today the RAF has none.

I was lucky enough to be involved in a wide range of military flying activity, a large proportion being in the strike/attack business. But I also dabbled in air defence and had a long association with flying training in all its variety, ranging from operational conversion right down to elementary teaching. I avoided ground tours wherever possible and in this I had a high success rate. Even when trapped in an office I seemed able to escape back into the air at the slightest excuse.

As this wonderful experience now draws to a close I can look back and say that I always looked forward to going to work in the morning, apart perhaps when stuck on a ground tour. I hope you enjoy sharing my experiences in the air, some good, some not, some hilarious, some serious. My thanks go to my wife and family for their encouragement to set all this down for the record, and to my publishers, Pen and Sword, for their support.

Prologue

I t was 4 January 1967. The Singaporean sun shone as bright as ever over the RAF Changi Fairy Point Officers Club swimming pool, social centre and pride of the Headquarters Far East Air Force, yet somehow it didnt seem quite such an idyllic day like the last few had been. Various pilots and observers from 801 Naval Air Squadron lounged around the pool, eyeing up the female talent, but without the same enthusiasm that had been evident in the previous fortnight. Instead of the normal glasses of Tiger beer they were clutching innocuous drinks such as Coca-Cola or orange juice. The local Chinese barman was intrigued; what was it that had caused this unusual change in the pattern of their behaviour? Very soon the answer to this conundrum appeared, quite literally from around the corner of Changi creek. The great grey bulk of the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious came into view, steaming slowly down the narrow tidal waterway towards the open South China Sea. We watched her with critical eyes as she slowly slid past us. Today was the day that we were due to re-embark, and for me it would be my first time landing on board.

My goodness, she really doesnt look very big, was my immediate reaction. Up to now my visits to her had been confined to the Royal Navy dockyard in Singapore, where, lying alongside the quay, she had seemed really quite large, certainly large enough in which to become comprehensively lost whilst exploring inside her. My small number of worldly possessions was now buried down on 6 deck, in cabin 6Q6. It was really not much larger than a medium-sized wardrobe, with easy access to a large hole just outside the door giving a view of a rotating propeller shaft many feet below. This afternoon we were all going to re-embark after the Christmas and New Year break, spent by most of the Squadrons bachelors in the fleshpots of downtown Singapore.

There had been some flying during this period, which involved getting used to operating the Buccaneer in the steaming tropical heat and carrying out many sessions of MADDLS (Mirror Assisted Dummy Deck Landings), the nearest one could simulate carrier-landing techniques ashore. Not only did this annoy the permanent RAF residents of RAF Changi, who were all in the rather more sedate transport and maritime patrol business, but also a 200 feet wide, 9000-foot long runway that never moved, could never be like a small metal flight deck 700 feet long by 60 feet wide, 50 feet above the sea, with a habit of moving up and down and travelling around at 25 knots. The married men on the Squadron had now all returned from their leave in the UK, leaving behind their families. The Squadron was up to full strength, and as the Fleet Air Arms first squadron to be embarked at sea with the S2 version of the Buccaneer, the eyes of the Royal Navy were on us. We downed our drinks, paid our bills, gathered up our few bits and pieces and made our way to the Naval Aircraft Support Unit where the Sea Vixens and Buccaneers were waiting on the hardstanding.

There then followed the inevitable delay associated with carrier operations whilst the ship found a suitable piece of sea to sail around in whilst recovering its Air Group. The Wessex helicopters and Gannet airborne early warning aircraft were the first to land on, followed by the Sea Vixen all-weather fighters. Finally, we were given our Charlie time and launched out of Changi, with ever-increasing anticipation and, in my case, a degree of apprehension. By this time the usual afternoon tropical storms had brewed up, the sun had disappeared, the clouds had rolled in and the wind had picked up, kicking up a short steep sea in the piece of ocean where Victorious was sailing. As a consequence Victorious started to pitch gently as she sailed into the prevailing wind for our recovery, making the business of deck landing, challenging enough at the best of times, now even more so. We carried out the requisite number of touch-and-go landings, interspersed with many wave offs owing to poor approaches and a pitching deck, until finally each of us was told to put the hook down and land on. Just at this point a squall came through and the ship began to pitch close to the limits; we were waved off and as all aircraft reached diversion fuel at about the same time everyone went back to Changi for the night. I felt a mixture of relief (at least I had been told to put my hook down after some pretty poor attempts at deck landings) and disappointment the Buccaneers were the only ones who hadnt got back on board.