THE TOW BAR INCIDENT

On the third afternoon of the ice storm, the station adjutant, a non-pilot and coincidently the officer responsible for snow removal on all station paved surfaces, had an inspiration. He thought we could de-ice the tarmac and runways by trailing a bulldozer with its blade up behind the jet pipe of a T-bird. The idea being the dozer blade would deflect the hot jet blast downward and melt the ice. if successful, it would boost his chances of obtaining a prized permanent commission in the shrinking peace-time RCAF with its attendant lifetime pension. After all what could go wrong?

Officer instructors electing to stay on base during the storm, after three days of sitting on their hands, were hors de combat in the officer’s mess doing what one does on an afternoon free of duty. Being flight cadets, we were not allowed adult beverages till after dinner. i was sitting chain smoking Turkish cigarettes with two course mates, a Sergeant of the Royal Norwegian Airforce and a Lieutenant from the Turkish Airforce, when the adjutant stormed into our Mess. i was the guinea pig and we would try it first on a taxiway. if it worked, three of us would do a NATO alliance, echelon left, formation down the runway. Our mission; strike at the heart of Mother Nature where she lived. i had my handy pocket sized T-33 checklist in my hand and for the first time in my life, i started a Rolls Royce Nene jet engine. Little did i know then that later in my career i would start many RR Nenes four at a time modified with reduction gears stuck on the front attached to a prop a.k.a. R R Dart Turbo prop engines. They hung on the wings of Vickers Viscounts. That, however, is another story for another day.

He shouted, “Right. i need three volunteers” and pointing at us continued, “you, you and you … outside! i’ve got a job for ya”.

Being a groundling, he wrongly assumed we had already logged some T-Bird flight time. Sitting closest to the door, we had just been a convenient target of opportunity for him.

“Now,” he said, “We will have you connected to the tractor tug with a tow bar on the nosewheel and the dozer trailing along behind. The tug driver will set his brakes hold up his fist indicating for you to hold the TBird’s brakes full on … not the parking brake use the foot pedals. Then when he is satisfied, he will wave his hand over his head in a circular motion indicating to you to advance the throttle to 60%. Understood? … Good. Now let’s get out there and melt some ice!” Not one of us wanted to miss the opportunity of scooping our classmates by being the first to start the engine of a T Bird … so we kept our mouths shut.

Coordinating all the hand signals was going to be a bit confusing. The tractor driver in front gave the signal that he had set the tractor brake. i replied by giving the signal that the T-Bird’s brakes were set, and since i couldn’t see behind, i guessed the bulldozer guy was doing what he was supposed to be doing. i advanced the power slowly, and everything was going well but on this day 60% was way too much power and the laws of physics would not be denied. At 60% the engine produced more than enough thrust to overcome the locked brakes and the combined weight of the tractor, aircraft, and tow bar, and the ice, unsurprisingly, was slippery. What the hell was the tug driver doing? He and the tractor were moving sideways. He seemed to be violently trying to slash his own throat. Finally, it dawned on me. He wants me to shut down. i sheepishly did. The tow bar was bent, the tug driver was scared witless, the dozer guy was bewildered and i was sure my air force career was prematurely ended.

No one involved wanted to admit it was not the brightest of ideas. Luckily, for me the adjutant controlled the flow of documentation in and out of RCAF station Gimli. He quickly quashed all the paperwork associated with the incident including the names of the guilty. He hoped the file would disappear into the maw of military bureaucratic red tape and not dim his chances of a cushy permanent RCAF commission. indeed it must have; i never heard another word about it.

More T33 Drama

Usually a pilot’s first solo or the first time solo after being checked out on a different airplane results in a feeling of unadulterated elation. We had finished a couple of circuits and were waiting just short of the button for another one.

The T33 was one of the early jet fighters that soon became relegated to the role of a training aircraft. Canadair built the T33A for the RCAF under contract from Lockheed Aircraft Company. .

The instructor sighed and said, “Okay she’s all yours” i waited for what seemed an inordinately long time before hearing the magic words, “Airforce 222 cleared for takeoff.” i applied full throttle ... the Tbird didn’t move...what the? Check; parking brakes off ...yes. The engine roared at a 100% and airplane shook but it did not move. i throttled back and told the tower, “i have a problem”. i looked over and my instructor was walking back toward the plane. He looked disgusted and signaled me to set the brakes then disappeared under the nose. i felt a couple of thumps through my feet. Taxieing onto the runway, i had cocked the nosewheel. it was locked at 90 degrees to the runway and the T-bird would not budge. My instructor had to put his shoulder under the nose...heave up...take the weight off the nose wheel and kick it straight to line it up with the runway. it kind of took the shine off of what should have been my Olympic moment. Unprompted the tower called: i blasted off, my ego completely shattered.

He raised the canopy, baled out over the side, slung his parachute over his shoulder and started to amble across the infield. Wow was i excited? i called tower and was cleared to position and hold.

They replied, “Yes you do and he is walking back toward you. ... Remain in position”.

“Okay triple two you are cleared for Takeoff”, and added “AGAiN”.

Awarded my wings by the Turkish air attaché to Ottawa at a Gimli wings parade i headed the 50 miles down the highway next morning to Winnipeg to report to the squadron and to my wife.

Arriving at the flight line, i expected to see sleek V-12 Merlin powered Mustangs. To my horror now sat eight squat, beetle-like, twin engine Beech-18’s. The squadron’s task had changed from fighter interceptor to communications whatever that meant. i soon found out. it meant an immediate posting for me to Saskatoon in, of all places, Saskatchewan.

Saskatoon at the time was a conversion unit where single-engine RCAF pilots converted to multiengine aircraft. it included those of limited flying experience who had just finished basic training along withsword pilots returning from Europe. As it happened a fresh faced, newly winged, novice was paired up with a best seat in the house sardonic F-86 Sabre driver who looked upon his conversion to the lowly twin piston-engine military version of the civilian Beechcraft-18 with considerable disdain. The Beech-18 was known in the RCAF as the C-45 or ironically, as the Expeditor or less kindly as the Exploder, Wichita Rattler and especially to navigation students as the Vomit Comet. Nevertheless, if the jet jock wished to snare the prized, pension rich, permanent commission in Canada’s peacetime Air Force it was something he would have to endure. The sprog on the other hand had his own aspiration—to be an airline pilot.

Beech 18 Versus North Star

it was a beautiful warm prairie evening with no moon, light winds and endless prairie dusk with our two heroes assigned to Expeditor #1412 for their night training. After sunset and going around and around the airport for two hours of endless circuits to gain the necessary night endorsement for a multi-night rating, our lads thought they were finished for the night. Little did they know the

Dubbed, "the Vomit Comet" and other derogatory names, the Beech 18 was powered by two Pratt & Whitney 450 hp R985s and was a popular civilian aircraft used for light transport work. An RCAF pilot hoping to fly fighters would find this aircraft somewhat underwhelming.

painting by Art Cox

Commanding Officer observing them with his beady eyes on his way to the officer’s mess, would order them back into the sky for two more hours of the same monotony.

“What did they think,” the old Wing Commander demanded of their instructor? “Did they really believe that flying in prairie twilight was night?”

The young lad finished off the extended mission in the left seat giving him captain’s authority and coincidently the accountability. After requesting the control tower for the lowest intensity setting of the approach and runway lights to authenticate a genuine dark night for their last landing, they did a wide circuit a few miles south of town and set up for what turned out to be a flawless airline-like approach. in the North Star, 90 miles out, the crew requested and received initial descent clearance from Edmonton ATC. The captain eased back the throttles on the four mighty Rolls Royce Merlin engines. The passengers came to life and began chattering with their seat mates realizing that with the Merlins at idle they were able to talk without shouting at the top of their lungs to make themselves heard. Meanwhile, back in the Beech 18, the sprog was easing back ever so gently on the controls for a perfect three point landing. He could feel the extended landing lights nibbling gently at the ailerons through the control column. Both pilots sensed the gentle settling of the aircraft anticipating the satisfying squeak of rubber on concrete. They focused so intently on this... the last landing of the night ... that they didn’t hear the bleating of the undercarriage warning horn. Suddenly a queasy feeling in their stomachs as the tickety, tick..tick of the prop tips tickling the runaway gave way to a sudden sharp drop accompanied by scraping, screeching and lots and lots of dust, signaled their unforgiving blunder.

The controller cleared them to land then as an afterthought added, “Air Force 412 be advised an eastbound TCA North Star flight 804 is estimating overhead in twenty minutes”.

The lone midnight-shift controller then shifted his gaze from the pretty white and blue runway and taxi lights to focus his attention on his lunch box patiently waiting for him on a stool behind him. He was already salivating, anticipating the thick kubasa and garlic sandwich contained malodorously within.

The pilots had completed the memorized emergency landing checklist almost before the defiled Beechcraft had stopped its belly slide. Their hasty egress was hampered by a, “Laurel and Hardy”, convergent struggle at the back of the fuselage as two grown men tried to squeeze through the single small exit door at the same time. Thus they abandoned the crippled hulk with its wheels tucked up on their up-locks. They stood in the dark soberly surveying the sad wreck as the dust settled, the sound of hot and rapidly cooling engine metal snapping in their ears with the smell of spilled high-octane gas in their nostrils. Confident that in moments they would hear the sirens of the station fire trucks, puzzled ... they instead heard only eerie silence.

What to do? There were no navigation or anti-collision lights from the a/c; they and every other electronic device including the radios had been switched off when they had turned off the master switch as part of the drill. it suddenly simultaneously dawned on them that:

(a) The control tower operator for some unexplained reason didn’t see what had happened and had not hit the crash button:

(b) The eastbound North Star would without doubt be landing on the same runway on which their unlighted wreck now stood and: in the North Star the Captain at 10,000 ft switched the four super chargers to low blower and called for the in-range check to prepare for the landing.

(c) The danger of re-entering the aircraft to use the radios could ignite the spilled gas and be suicidal.

They had to get to the tower and the only way was overland through the ankle busting gopher hole cratered infield to the new terminal.

At the main terminal doors our two neophytes found the doors tightly locked so one went around the building one way and the other went the other way and met breathlessly at the back. All windows and doors were locked tighter than an airline captain’s wallet.

“Wait a minute,” said the sprog. “i saw a steel ladder attached to the building” and running back, up he went.

The ladder opened onto the catwalk surrounding the tower cab and inside the controller was staring blankly through the glass out over the airfield, the half-eaten sandwich now forgotten in his hand. The youngster started banging on the glass and the controller finally seeing the dustcovered pilot dropped the sandwich stunned at the sight not knowing if the ghostly figure was human or some kind of space alien.

He opened the door to the control tower and before our lad could explain what happened the control tower radio speaker barked into life, “Trans Canada 804 Edmonton Centre. You are cleared to the Saskatoon airport for an approach: wind calm: altimeter 30.11: change tower 118.3”.

“Roger cleared for the approach we have the field in sight looks like we’ll do a straight in visual on 08,changing tower,” replied 804 and the North Star captain called, “Before landing check!”

The controller still hadn’t moved. “Saskatoon Tower Trans Canada 804 three miles out, field in sight, canceling iFR for a straight in visual on 08” Blared the speaker.

“Shit!” screamed the sprog, “Our Beech-18 is sitting in the middle of 08 wheels up with no lights!”

Startled into action the controller hit the crash button and simultaneous- ly cried into the mic, “Negative, negative, negative, 804, there’s a crashed airplane on the runway - use runway 34 - repeat do not land! Overshoot, overshoot!”…and at the same time the field exploded with the sights and sounds of three fire trucks and an ambulance breaking the silence of the prairie night. But they weren’t sure where to go.

“Where the hell is your plane?” the controller screamed at the bedraggled sprog.

“Right in the middle of the runway,” replied the sprog calmer now that the controller seemed more excited than he.

“Crash One the wreck is in the middle of 08 straight across from the tower - it has no lights showing but it’s well clear of the 34/29 intersection.”

“Roger” squawked the disembodied voice of the station crash truck over the tower speaker. “i see it now, there’s no fire but we’ll foam it down anyway.”

Meanwhile flight 804 joined downwind for runway 34 and landed smoothly.

An uneasy calm settled on the two protagonists in the tense tower. The station ops officer appeared on the scene. He took statements then marched off our laddies first to the hospital then the barracks and ordered them to get some sleep. it seemed only seconds after falling into an uneasy sleep that a loud thumping on his door awoke our young warrior. A corporal of the service police, decked out in the formal white webbing of his authority, announced in a voice much louder than it needed to be, “Right sir,” he said, stressing sarcastically the word sir, “i’ll be back in thirty minutes to escort you to the CO’s office.”

The meeting went way better for the sprog but not so much for his partner. After all the ceremonial boot stomping and saluting the beady eyed old wing commander for some reason known only to the god of the military hierarchy took pity on the hopeful airline pilot. He sentenced him to a reproof which would go on his file and expire in a year. The sprog didn’t ask his expectant permanent commission partner about his punishment nor did the hopeful pensioner reveal it to the sprog. Rumor had it that the jet jock’s next posting would be behind the desk of the RCAF’s recruiting office in the nation’s primary naval base, Dartmouth Nova Scotia.

Yet the sprogs humiliation was not over. His older brother on his way to the new Edmonton airport at Leduc for the contracting company he flew for would be landing the company plane that afternoon in Saskatoon. The wreck was gone at first light but would his brother notice the dual black skid marks and scrapped concrete? He did.

Reflecting on his air force career thus far the young lad wondered why he had not been thrown out. First, he broke the rules by getting married on his initial course. Then there was the unfortunate bent T-33 tow bar incident at Gimli and now, barely two weeks as a new father, the unforgivable crime of landing with the wheels up. He began to wonder if it bode well for his airline hopes. He thought that if only he became a Trans Canada Airl Lines pilot everything would be smooth sailing. No more missteps for him he promised himself. Alas it would not be so.

The sprog grew old and in the last few years of his life as he pondered his career he marveled at the insight of whichever course mate wrote his entry in the course 5701 yearbook way back when. it was the predictor of his life:

Would you touch a nettle and not be stung? Jim Griffith arrived at QF about a month late and embraced the questionable state of matrimony. The powers, as Jim described them frowned - Jim smiled, but he escaped until the next time and the next time. Who or what comes under your next fire, Jim?