HANGAR FLYING—TALES FROM THE FLIGHT DECK by Jack Schofield

HANGAR FLYING TALES FROM THE FLIGHT DECK

JACK SCHOFIELD WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

ART COX

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HANGAR FLYING TALES FROM THE FLIGHT DECK

Library of Congress information is available upon request.

iv All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit www. accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777. Coast Dog Press 565 Lapin Road Mayne Island, British Columbia Canada V0N 2J1 coastdog2@shaw.ca National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Schofield, Jack Hangar Flying isbn 978-0-9950292-4-8 1. Schofield, Jack 2. Airliners—Bush planes Helicopters 3. Biography. I. Title.

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Copy editing by Colleen Sinclair Design by Jack Schofield Printed and bound in Canada by Hillside Printing and printed on acid-free paper Published by: Coast Dog Press Gallery of paintings throughout including cover by ARTHUR COX Painting of Beaver on back cover and page 10 and Single Otter on page 26 by Graham Ward Pen and ink drawings throughout by the author, Jack Schofield Air-to-air photos of Tiger Moth by Brian Schofield Flight Deck of Ford Trimotor on first title page by Albert Dyer

HANGAR FLYING TA LE S FR O M T H E F LI GH T DECK

j ac k s c hof i el d COAST DOG PRESS

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art co x

introduction

H A N GI NG U P THE HEAD PHONES

ne morning, just a few months back, I noticed an email on my computer screen. It was from Rebecca Cox, the wife of Art Cox over in the UK. Art and I were collaborating on stories and art work for a three volume chronicle, and were getting close to completion. He was planning paintings for the three covers and a few more for his flying yarns recalled from his airline and air force days, but that was now not going to happen. Rebecca's email delivered the staggering news that Art had died on the weekend from what he had earlier described to me as merely, "some aches and pains." A skilled airline captain and Royal Canadian Air Force flight instructor would be achievement enough for most of us, but Art added his accomplished artistry of writing and painting to his lifelong successes. This long planned project to bring some significant flying stories to life illustrated with his paintings, was now to be either put aside or revised and presented as a tribute to a man whose entire life was involved with a love of this craft. I chose the latter and have included a gallery of his previous paintings as a tribute to my good friend. This is an unhappy way to make an introduction to a book of mainly happy flying stories, but I ultimately resolved to continue with the now revised project and to augment his illustrations with my own pen work and some significant aviation paintings by others, along with stories from some additional deserving writers. From our many Skype conversations between our two worlds, I know Art would have agreed with my choice of his and other artist's work as we had agreed at the outset that aviation art, the writing of it and the illustrating of it, was to be what we considered the sub text of these Hangar Flying tales from the flight deck . J ac k S c h o f i e l d

Art's Astar painting was to be used in a fiction titled, No Laughing Matter designed to be serialized for publishing in aviation magazines.

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P R E FA C E

was the duty pilot. There was no one else working this early in the day; no 'ramp rats,' as we called them, to help me load and refuel the Beaver, no dispatcher to tell me where to go, no other pilots and no AMEs (aircraft maintenance engineers) up in the big hangar tinkering with an R985. It was just me at the gas pit pumping gas into the front and centre tanks of a scruffy-looking amphib Beaver called JFQ. So, I just decided to invent the dog. “The dog?” “Yes, I wanted the reader to learn what it was like to do all these preparations, and to take off at 6 am in an amphibious Beaver into a flawless sky with the sea flat calm beneath the pontoons; mirror-like—glassy water, we called it. “So why the dog?” “I thought it might be more interesting for the reader to hear what it was like through the eyes and ears of a dog.

RCAF Sabres pose on takeoff for ART COX'S paint brush.

A dog would pick up on things I might miss, like the thumping of the tires during takeoff. He looked over at me wondering what the heck were those thumps? I answered his enquiry, "Cracks in the old concrete," I yelled. " It was built during the Second World War to handle lendlease bombers going to Russia." How would I have thought of that if those big brown eyes hadn't asked? That's why I told the story through the dog; the story that was to be used in my third book, titled Coast Dogs Don’t Lie. When the publisher’s designer was laying out the pages for that book he would want an illustration for the article; a photo perhaps that captured the mood of the scene or a pen and ink illustration. That’s where Art and I were going—to tell some exciting flying stories and illustrate them with artwork—paintings and drawings and well composed photographs. Stories told by pilots after a

flight are called, Hangar Flying, thus our title. When told live, such stories are accompanied with much hand-zooming, but when told in print we must add some pictures to make the point. That dog is poetic license and appeared as the header for the little account of an early morning flight on a perfect day. I noticed that my dog, Chester, a standard poodle,

for Art’s story, “Back to Basics” and also used for the cover of the book. Art was at the controls of that airplane many times and painted it in acrylics years later when in retirement. He had been a flight instructor in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), a “North Star” captain in the RCAF’s transport division during UN peacekeeping missions, a 20 year vet-

appeared in silhouette as if wearing headphones, so I came up with this little whimsy as the header for that article. Of course this isn’t art and yet this book is dedicated to bringing the reader some outstanding examples of aviation art, so you must turn the pages until you come to Art Cox’s painting of a Lockheed L1011 climbing out of a MiddleEast desert runway. This is the header h a n g a r f ly i n g

eran with Howard Hughes’s TWA, and was Royal Jordanian’s L1011 check pilot before retiring to his home in the UK. Art and I were collaborating on a project when he, sadly, died from a long fight with cancer that he kept secret from me until the end. I kept going with the project, as he would have wanted, and have done the best I could with my sketches and some additional wonderful plane art

by Gilbert Ward whom Art would have appreciated as both a fabulous artist and one imbued with our common love of the craft with a touch of the future in his method. Here then, are some great true stories from the flight deck of airliners, the cockpit of bush planes, trainers, helicopters and executive jets to bring back memories for pilots and to introduce to the uninitiated what it is like to fly airplanesâ&#x20AC;Śand to draw and paint them and marvel at the fact that, sometimes, you just might get paid to do all this. Dedicated to: Art Cox Airline pilot, artist, writer, dog lover. raconteur

c o nt e nt s

Introduction

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Preface

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Thrills in a Tigerschmitt Approach to Limits Baker Lake Style Back to Basics How to Buy an Airplane or Three Once an Aviator The Yellow Peril No Pringles for Bleriot Encounter over the Hudson Another kind of Hero Beaver to Helsinki Samuel Hearne Didn't Have Get-home-itus North Star to the Rescue Over the Pond Near Miss Teardrops for the Boats Beech 18 versus North Star Katabatic Adventures

15 20 34 44 48 62 72 78 84 92 104 110 118 130 138 146 154

E VE R Y O NE U SED TO H AVE A T IG ER MOT H ST OR Y

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by ja c k s chofiel d A i r - to - A i r P h otos

of the

T i ger M ot h

Brian Schofield

T HR I LLS IN A T IGE R S C HM I TT

he De Havilland Tiger Moth was the basic trainer that trained thousands of pilots during the Second World War. Known in Canada as the DH82C, the Canadian version of this early British design had a special sliding canopy that was supposed to protect the pilot and instructor against the below zero winters in the many prairie training bases of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). It did keep the wind chill factor under control, but it took a “Teddy Bear” flying suit to keep you at near normal body temperature. The Canadian version of this early British design was a steel frame, rag wing biplane powered by an inverted inline, 100 hp engine that turned the prop in what we in North America deemed to be the wrong way. The trainer was affectionately nick-named the “Tigerschmitt” by those 1940 pilot-trainees who would soon enough face its more frightening namesake, the Meserschmitt 109 fighter of the German Luftwaffe.

The Tiger Moth invaded post-war flying training when the grateful government of Canada gave four or five of them to each of the flying clubs, who had initiated service flight training in the first months of the war, and had become an important part of the BCATP. They also gave a few Fairchild Cornell’s (PT26— M62-A3) to the flying clubs, so we budding post-war pilots got a taste of how the wartime Air Force pilots were trained. I soloed in a Tiger Moth in 1947, and as was required in those days, logged 25 hours with my Private Pilot’s license before being allowed to carry a passenger. With this staggering amount of flying experience behind me, I took a friend along on my first cross-country flight— a trip from Vancouver British Columbia across the International border to Seattle Washington:

My passenger was sitting up in the front cockpit, and we would yell to each other through what was called, a “Gosport” tube—just an aviation name for a garden hose with a funnel stuck in it at each end, and connected to smaller rubber tubes up to your ears. We took off when sensible aviators were not flying. The ceiling was down to 1500 feet and visibility was about a mile in rain—perfect numbers for a 25 hourh a n g a r f ly i n g

wonder. As we droned along at 85 mph, indicated on that gadget mounted on the outboard inter-plane strut, things got worse. We were being forced to fly lower and lower as we crossed the International border, and by the time we got to a place called. “Marysville” (I knew it was Marysville because a big factory smoke-stack told me so) things looked bad up ahead, and lo-and-behold, even worse behind. I recalled my instructor once telling me how to pick out a useable field for an emergency landing. “Land in a field that appears sort of green-brown in colour,” he had told me. Seemingly, green-brown gave the airplane a hard surface to land on while straight green was usually a crop of some kind and straight brown was mud—aerodynamics 101. We knew that Marysville wasn’t far from the city of Everett’s Paine Field, so we hung a left at the smokestack and motored toward where Paine Field should have been, but this took us into what accident reporters refer to as “rising ground”, so I decided to do the greenbrown thing. I yelled into the Gosport tube something to the effect that we were going to do an emergency landing in that field straight ahead. The response was garbled as usual, because Gosport tubes have a language of their own.

The landing was right out of the textbook and we slid to a stop about midfield between two rows of blackberries. Stepping out of the Moth was easy on this day because we had sunk down into pure U.S. mud right up to the lower wingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;there was no daylight showing under the aircraft at all, and that short lower wing was now supporting our DH82C as it does in flight. When I stepped out of the cockpit my "visiting Seattle" shoes, socks and trousers disap-

peared into the muck just short of the knee, so I got back in again, and this time did a leap to the safety of firmer ground, and inadvertently into the blackberry bushes, the thorns of which drew blood and rendered just a slight rip in those "Going to Seattle" pants. While we were disengaging me from the blackberries, a traffic jam was being created on the road beside the field. Cars had stopped to look in awe at the Wright Brothers mired in the blackt h r i l l s i n a t i gersc h m i tt

berry patch. The next thing we knew, a young guy came sloshing across the field offering to help us push the plane into an adjacent field that he deemed to be suitable for take off. Our benefactor introduced himself as a former Corsair pilot from the U.S. Navy. He immediately started heaving on the aircraft to get it out of the mud, and we joined in, managing to get the Moth onto dry ground. We had to see-saw the wings through the blackberry patch and ultimately reached the perimeter of the field where a barbed wire fence brought us to a halt.

"No problem," said our now mud covered friend, as he ran back to his vehicle and reappeared with a pair of side-cutters. He also reappeared with the local Sheriff who had come along to investigate the traffic jam of cars lining the road that had stopped to watch our progress. The sheriff was a big guy with two pearl handled six guns just like the sheriff on the TV show, In the Heat of the Night. I was hoping he wasn't from the deep South. "What's going on here," he demanded, "You can't put that plane on the road. You'll be holding up traffic." Then, as he realized the details of the situation, and that this was a Canadian airplane, he became very helpful.

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"Are you sure you have the owners agreement to cut that barbed wire fence, he asked? "Oh sure,"replied our fearless Corsair pilot as he cut a full panel of wire out of the fence, "He's a good friend of mine." We then see-sawed the Moth through the opening and actually lifted it over the ditch onto the road as the Sheriff stood there. I figured he was wondering whether to arrest everyone or to direct traffic. Fortunately, he was better at directing traffic than throwing us in the slammer so we proceeded to walk the airplane between telephone poles until we reached the other field recommended by our friend, who was now busy cutting another wire fence allowing us to push the Moth off the road into that field While this was going on, the line-up of cars got longer and longer and some obnoxious guy near the middle of the line-up kept yelling at our friend, blaming him for the delay in very colourful language. This drew the attention of our pearl-handled, wide-stetsoned friend, who convinced our heckÂler to shut up while we dragged the airplane to where takeoff would be possible when the weather allowed. Our Corsair pilot might

Following the Second World War, the grateful government of Canada gave those Flying Clubs, who had participated in the giant wartime Commonwealth Air Training Plan, a half dozen of the surplus Tiger Moths .

have thought the field was appropriate—he was used to carrier takeoffs, but it wouldn’t have been my choice as the first 300 yards of the takeoff run would be uphill and the next 500 yards would be downhill, and the climb over the power lines would have to be done near the point of stall in order to clear them. However, when the time came, we did make it over those wires, and I distinctly remember the serial number on the transformer mounted on that power pole.

When we arrived at the City of Ever ett’s Paine Field to fuel up for the trip back to Vancouver, the Sunday visitors to the airport collected around what looked to them like an old biplane from the early days of flight. They must have been particularly impressed with the length of blackberry bramble still attached to the tail wheel and the bedraggled look to the mud-covered airplane and its two mud covered novice pilots as we took off on our return trip to Vancouver.

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Graham Ward

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R o ya l C a n ad i a n M o u n ted P o l i ce

A i r S er v i ces B ra n c h

AP P ROAC H TO LI M I TS BAKER LAKE ST Y LE

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rom June 1957 to June of 1960 I was stationed at Churchill Air Detachment, Fort Churchill Manitoba, as the Aircraft Maintenance Engineer responsible for RCMP Otter Aircraft CF-MPW.

The De Havilland Otter is a large single engine aircraft with a wingspan of 55 feet (17m) and is 42 feet long (13m). The passenger cabin is about 16 feet (5m) long and has seating for 9 passengers or up to 3000 pounds (1361Kg) of freight when the seats are folded up against the cabin walls. It operated on wheel/ skis in the winter and on Floats in the summer. It cruises at about 115 mph (185K/hr).

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This was my second posting, having served the previous 4 years at Patricia Bay, B.C. maintaining the Grumman Goose CF-MPG. My NCO i/c and pilot was Sergeant Verne Rose who was in charge of his first detachment. Our role was to support the RCMP detachments in the eastern Arctic, which were accessible only by air. In late 1958 we were also tasked with the transportation of personnel and freight for the Department of Northern Affairs in this area. In order to handle this additional workload a second Otter aircraft, CF-MPW, was purchased and a second crew consisting of pilot Sgt. Gordon Carter and engineer Cpl. Moe Parker, took over MPP while Verne and I were assigned the new Otter.

In addition to our aircraft maintenance duties, the engineers flew regularly with the aircraft to handle the refuelling, engine preheating duties in the winter months, and h a n gar f ly i n g

to assist with freight loading and unloading. It was a very busy existence and we sometimes went a month without a day off. It was a team effort and we all enjoyed each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s company and trust. April 12, 1960 dawned sunny and exceptionally warm for this time of year with a temperature of just below freezing and little wind. The purpose of our flight that day was to transport 3 carpenters, their tools and equipment and several large rolls of insulation to Baker Lake where these men were to carry out renovations to the government buildings. We were to return via Chesterfield Inlet where we would pick up a constable from that detachment then on to Rankin Inlet for some native hospital patients and thence to Churchill. Since Verne was the senior captain, he had the option of selecting whether he would fly the passengers or the lumber, roofing nails etc, for the construction.

Most Single Otters are now powered by the PT6 Turbine—a quieter, more dependable engine than the Pratt and Whitney R1340 radial that gave yeoman service for 60+ years.

He selected the “walk-on freight” as we called it—the three workers—to save our aching backs. The settlement of Baker Lake N.W.T (now Nunavut) is situated on the northwest corner of a big lake, located approximately 400 miles northwest of Churchill. It consists of a Hudson’s Bay store,

a Department of Transport (D.O.T.) air radio and weather station, a Department of Northern Affairs office, an RCMP detachment, and a few hundred Inuit people many of whom are itinerant hunter/trappers living off the land in this general area. Our passengers arrived at 08:15 and we departed shortly thereafter. approac h to l i m i ts

Using the forecast winds, Verne flight planned for a flight of 3 hours and 50 minutes. Our route was to follow the Hudsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bay coastline to Eskimo Point then alter course a few degrees west to proceed direct to Baker Lake. The weather forecast for the route was for clear conditions for the Churchill to Eskimo Point portion of the flight with gradually increasing cloud, but good visibility for the Eskimo Point to Baker segment.

We levelled off at 1500 feet (457m) and Verne swung the control yoke over to me so he could concentrate on hand-rolling some cigarettes. I smiled to myself as he spilled as much tobacco on the floor as he got into his cigarettes. While I had not renewed my pilotâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s license for 3 years, I still enjoyed his letting me fly when the weather was good as it broke the monotony. Shortly after passing Eskimo Point, the first vestiges of cloud aph a n gar f ly i n g

peared and I handed back the controls to Verne and dug out the maps from his briefcase. I positioned the map on my left knee so that we could both read it. The time for daydreaming was now over and it was time to go to work. By April of each year the snow cover in the barren lands makes it extremely difficult to map read in the virtually flat eastern Arctic as the tundra blends with the shallow lakes and rivers. Whenever the visibility went down below about 3 miles one could never be sure of knowing your exact position. Our procedure was to fly a compass heading when map reading until we could pick up the Baker Lake radio beacon on which we could home with our automatic direction finder (ADF). An hour out of Eskimo Point cloud had completely obscured the sun and the visibility had gone down to about 8 miles and was slowly deteriorating. This was no sweat as

soon we would be able to pick up the Baker Lake radio beacon, which would guide us directly to Baker and provide a fix for an instrument approach should the weather deteriorate below visual flight rules. For some reason the range of the Baker Lake radio beacon was only 50 to 70 milesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;much lower than the other beacons in the Arctic, which were useable at 250 to 300 miles. I turned the ADF to 251 kilocycles,

the Baker frequency, in anticipation of picking up that beacon. In half an hour the ADF needle started to waver from its 90 degree parked position and shortly thereafter it slowly swing around to an unsteady zero or dead ahead position. Good news. Now, we could relax a bit with our map reading. Fifteen minutes later we had a steady ADF needle and the south shore of Baker Lake appeared. However, the lake itself was covered

A scene at Baker Lake Nunavut. The Otter, on skis, was making for that frozen lake, Note the hills in the background, which became a subject of some concern on the approach.

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with a solid layer of cloud, which extended upward well beyond our altitude. As we plunged into the cloud visibility dropped to zero. Verne again requested Baker Lake weather and got the same information as previously obtained—2500 foot ceiling with 10 miles visibility. “Baker must be sitting in a hole,” he said. No sooner had he said this than the ADF needle swing 90 degrees to the “park” position.

“What the Hell,” Verne picked up his mic once more. “Baker MPW. Confirm your beacon is serviceable.” “MPW Baker. The monitor shows the beacon as serviceable.” Verne turned to me, “Tune the ADF to Chesterfield Inlet.” The Chesterfield Inlet beacon came in loud and clear and the needle pointed towards the station. I then tried Churchill and again the needle gave a good bearing. I then h a n gar f ly i n g

tuned back to Baker Lake and there was no signal. We had proven that our ADF was working properly and the problem must be with the Baker Lake beacon. Verne notified Baker Lake of this and they said they would look into the matter. Suddenly our no sweat operation had taken a sinister outlook. We had lost our only reliable means of finding the hole in which Baker must be sitting. Verne must now hold his compass heading and time himself from our last visual position, which was the south shore of Baker Lake. The lake is about 50 miles across so we should break out in the clear in about 20 minutes if that weather report was correct. 20 minutes passed as if it were 20 hours—no sign of the would-be hole we hoped to find, and I could not see anything past our wing tip. “Baker MPW. Confirm your weather is still the same.”

“MPW Baker. Affirmative. 2500 feet and 10 mile visibility.”

been a better choice than the walkon kind.

We continued on for another 5 minutes. It was now apparent we had missed the hole.

Verne instructed me to switch to the RCMP detachment’s frequency and ask them if they had happened to hear us fly over. “Yes,” they replied, “our special constable was digging out your fuel drums at the lake and he says he heard an aircraft fly over in the cloud about 10 minutes ago.” I then asked what the weather was like.

“Baker MPW. Could we have the Chesterfield Inlet weather?” The report came back that Chesterfield Inlet had an estimated ceiling of 500 feet with visibility 1 mile in freezing rain. Chesterfield is located on the Hudson’s Bay coast approximately 130 miles east of Baker Lake and was our only alternate with our remaining fuel. Since the Otter had no deicing equipment, it was clearly not an option. The realization now set in that we were committed to finding Baker or spending the night on the barrens with 3 passengers who were not dressed for winter camping and with whom we must share our meager rations. This was a time when inanimate freight would have

“MPW Baker. It looks like a very low ceiling but the visibility is good. I can see about half way up the hills to the west.” The hills he referred to were 600 feet high. What an interesting turn of events. Why were we getting such conflicting weather reports? We had no time to dwell on this problem. We decided to stay with our RCMP people as their weather report fit the situation we were seeing much better than the information we were getting from the D.O.T. station. approac h to l i m i ts

“Baker MPW. Please get some people out on the ice and let us know if you hear us again.” Verne did a left hand 180 degree turn to retrace our previous track and, hopefully, bring us back over the settlement. “I am going to start a slow descent. Let me know what you see,” were his instructions to me as I fixed my gaze straight down out the side window. I saw nothing but gray cloud beyond our skis, then a sudden slight darkening, then suddenly a cluster of boulders.

“Rocks. Pull up,” I shouted, “Climb!” Before I got the words out of my mouth the big Pratt & Whitney bellowed its power song as Verne applied take-off power. I instinctively tightened my seat belt. A minute later we were at 1000 feet and safe from the terrain. Verne reduced the power to cruise and we h a n gar f ly i n g

both relaxed a bit. “How close?” he asked. “!00 to 200 feet,” I replied. “I think we were in the hills just west of the settlement.” Verne fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette and put it in the corner of his mouth where it dangled unlit at about a 45 degree angle. I had seen him do this before when the weather got bad. I saw it as a sign that he was concerned. For a moment I thought it amusing that if he only had a porkpie hat and a handful of cards he would resemble the big stakes poker player portrayed by actor James Cagney in an old movie I recalled seeing as a kid. In reality, we were both gamblers in this profession that we loved so much, and this time we were playing for keeps against huge odds with 5 peoples lives on the table. Verne must now play his cards really well. My fleeting thoughts were interrupted by the radio, now on company frequency:

“MPW Baker. We think we heard your engine west of the settlement.” “Okay Baker. We will try another run to the north. Keep us posted,” Verne replied, as he commenced a very gradual 180 degree turn to the left, which would hopefully position us a mile or so east of the Baker Lake hills. He rolled out of the turn on our original northwesterly heading. A few minutes passed then: “MPW Baker. We now hear you due south.” Another minute passed and they came back to us—“you just passed overhead.” Verne acknowledged and started an immediate right turn and rolled out on the reciprocal, which would take us over the lake where we could start our letdown. He waited about 2 minutes then reduced power and asked for full flap, which I was happy to give him. This brought our speed back to 65 mph

(104K/hr) and hopefully would lessen the impact if we flew into the lake. We had no way of knowing the ceiling out over the lake so we must prepare for the worst. We continued down to 500 feet, then 400 with Verne concentrating solely on his instruments. He reduced the rate of descent to 50 feet per minute. I was once again looking straight down with an occasional glance at the altimeter now showing 300 feet (91m). I thought I discerned a slight lightening of the undercast when suddenly at 250 feet (96m) we broke out into the clear and the vast lake was spread out in all directions before us. Verne did another 180 degree turn and lit his cigarette. “Baker MPW. We are visual at 200 feet. Landing in ten.” The north shore of the lake appeared then the settlement, which from our altitude looked like a row approac h to l i m i ts

of about 6 tiny strawberry boxes spread out along the lakeshore. It was the most welcome sight we had seen in the last hour. We landed on the ice strip, taxied up to our gas cache where the RCMP detachment NCO in charge, Cpl. Clare Dent, greeted us. Verne closed our flight plan with the D.O.T. 32

“Interesting trip?” asked Clare, to which Verne replied, “Damned interesting and thanks for your help.” We unloaded our passengers and freight and Clare invited us up to his house where we discussed the events of the flight and unwound with a feed of beans and toast. As we were finishing our lunch we heard the unmistakable sound of an Otter engine. It was MPP. The pilot, Gord Carter, circled at low altitude and landed on the ice strip. We walked down to meet him and enquired how he had made out.

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“When we heard your dialogue with Baker Lake D.O.T. on the radio and when we also lost the Baker beacon signal, we landed on a small lake about 30 miles south of here to wait for the weather to improve and to listen to how you fellows made out. When we heard that you had made it we took off and stayed on the deck.” Epilogue: It turned out that the D.O.T. operator was fresh out of training school and this was his first posting. He admitted that he had read the weather information wrong, which indicated 250 rather than 2500 foot ceiling that he had reported to us. He apologized profusely and begged that a report not be filed. The beacon failure resulted from the radio equipment maintenance crew deciding to replace the guy wires on the 100 foot antenna tower. Instead of replacing one wire at a time, they removed all 4 wires and

an unexpected wind gust blew down the tower taking the beacon signal off the air. We were shown the beacon signal monitor in the radio room, which was still showing the beacon as on the air, however it was reading only the output from the signal generator and not the radio frequency output. Since the radio operator was not the only person contributing to our excitement that day, Verne decided to give the young man another chance. He made this decision after having slept on the situation for a couple of days. He did not file an official complaint. I have written this account almost 51 years after it occurred. The events of that day are still vivid in my memory. For me, it lends credence to the old aviation saying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Aviators are 95% of the time bored to death, and 5% of the time scared to death.â&#x20AC;? D o n H a n coc k

d i ed i n

2011

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BACK TO BASICS w r it t en and il l u s trated BY ART C OX

ART COX

BAC K TO BAS I C S by ART COX

his story encapsulates an article I wrote for an aviation magazine some years ago. Since then the advancements made in aerospace technology, aircraft design and operating procedures, beggars belief. Today’s flight decks scarcely resemble those of a generation ago due to the sophisticated glass cockpits of today with their highly developed ‘fly-bywire’ systems. Too, these advances have completely changed the way of thinking as regards procedures, consequently airline training centres now place an inordinate amount of emphasis on the use of automation in flight - so much so, in fact, that it’s been to the detriment of common sense, having been the direct cause of at least two air disasters in recent history. It would seem that good old “stick and rudder” flying is a thing of the past – replaced by a push button discipline that is slowly and insidiously superseding the basic skills of aircraft handling.

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The aforementioned accidents could have, should have, been prevented had simple logic prevailed. The investigations into the crashes came up with the same fundamental conclusions - that pilot error was a prime factor in both cases. Misinterpretation of the information the automated flight systems were providing, and not reverting to manual handling at the critical moments, allowed the aircraft to get into unrecoverable attitudes - with tragic results. The findings of the accident investigation when attempting to analyze erroneous data instead of simply flying the airplane. The two cases in point are only a fraction of the incidents that have occurred since the emergence of the glass cockpit era, but I mention them here because of the considerable loss of life involved. I, as do many others, feel that serious and significant revision to training syllabuses is called for if more of these unfortunate scenarios are to be avoided.

The article I wrote for the magazine years ago illustrates that very point and, although outdated and anecdotal in a sense, bears the same message. It’s based on one of my own flights with Royal Jordanian Airlines in the days when Flight Management Systems were still relatively new and regarded as Gee Whiz stuff. It was a beautifully clear day – a day for sightseeing. I was with Royal Jordanian Airlines, currently flying from Amman’s Queen Alia airport down to Dhahran, on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. Our flight path traced the oil pipeline route that stretched from the eastern Mediterranean down to it’s point of origin in the oil-rich Arabian Gulf. We flew, seemingly suspended, at 33000 feet, treated to a vista of reddishbrown terrain punctuated with black basalt outcrops which highlighted the sea of sand. An occasional patch of green heralded the presence of an oasis and it’s accompanying groves of dates and olives. We were barely abeam Riyahd when, already we glimpsed the familiar ribbon of blue, as the gulf began to take shape, albeit still some two hundred miles away. It was late afternoon and soon the sun would

begin it’s descent – already casting long shadows from the dunes. I never ceased to marvel at the beauty of the desert, reflecting now on my good fortune at having been given the opportunity to see and experience life in this part of the world. What’s more, I was in the left seat of, arguably, the most sophisticated airliner of it’s time.....the Lockheed 1011 “TriStar”. In the early seventies instrument panels and consoles began to take on a new look as more and more automation appeared on the scene – the forerunner of today’s glass cockpits. Competition was fierce among aircraft manufacturers, who were ever striving to improve their product. The resulting L1011 was Lockheed’s gem. A first generation wide-body, it was a technological marvel that handled like a Cessna. The ultimate state-of-the-art machine, it’s avionics were the most advanced of the time. Since the beginning of powered flight pilot error has contributed significantly to accidents and incidents; now technological prowess was directed towards reducing workloads and stress on the flight deck. More and more the human element was being removed from the b ac k to b as i cs

equation as “black boxes” assumed tasks previously assigned to crew members. Autoflight was the flavour of the day. Airline training centres stressed it’s use as much as possible. In the case of Royal Jordanian a considerably large portion of the syllabus was specifically devoted to teaching the intricacies of the L1011’s flight management system – that marvellous piece of electronic genius that virtually flew the aircraft from take-off to touchdown. Ground instructors went on and on, dwelling on the L1011’s capabilities – usually ending up in a lengthy dissertation of it’s virtues. This carried through to simulator and line training, of course. It was a sign of the times. As one old-timer put it, "caught in the rudder?” Humorous but true. Times were changing. Now, the better part of pre-flight drills was taken up programming computers. Today it’s old hat, back then it was viewed as amazing. A review of our flight progress told us it was time to begin our descent. Checking in with Dhahran control we were cleared to a lower level. The First Officer (I’ll call him Ahmed, although that’s not his real name),

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who was flying this leg, dialled in our new altitude and pressed a button on the autopilot control panel. Slowly the throttles retarded to the flight idle position and the nose dropped, ever so slightly, to maintain our speed as we descended. Like the others in his group, Ahmed was Jordanian. They were pleasant, keen to learn, and anxious to demonstrate their capabilities – the latter sometimes to a fault. Whatever they may have lacked in skill they made up for in effort. It was customary to share the flying, trading off leg for leg, and handling the nonflying duties when not piloting but, occasionally, they were loathe to surrender up the menial when at the controls, practically insisting on doing it all, leaving the left seat occupant to twiddle his or her thumbs. They were being groomed for command and their actions were designed to make everyone aware of their capabilities – not to be construed as an attempted coup of the flight deck. Their situations were important to them. Unlike Europe or North America there was no union protection should one run afoul of management. They relied solely on their merits to carry them through. This motivation translated

into a most genial atmosphere in the cockpit. Working with them was refreshing and Ahmed was no exception to the rule. We’d been paired up often in the past; always a pleasant experience. He was a very knowledgeable airman and had a personality suited to a position of command. Moreover, he was a skilled “hands on” aviator. Dhahran ATIS was reporting clear skies and unlimited visibility, with light and variable winds. Runway 34 Right was in use. Ahmed called for the pre-landing checklist and the flight engineer began the litany, pausing after each item for the response. “Seat belt sign....” “On”. “Shoulder harness....” “Secured and locked”. “Approach data....” “Reviewed”. And so on. We neared 10,000 feet and began to slow up in preparation for our approach. There was no reported traffic in the area so when we switched to Approach Control they very obligingly cleared us for a visual, coupled with a request to call the tower three miles out for landing

clearance. It was a ticket to do our own thing. However, upon receipt of the clearance, Ahmed immediately began to programme the FMS, his fingers a blur as they danced over the keys. I was puzzled for a moment and then I understood. He was inserting waypoints to describe the circuit, thus setting up to fly the aircraft on autopilot around the pattern. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen this. The impressions left by training command were indelible. Arrivals were carried out via radar vectors to an ILS almost exclusively. In the rare event that one was cleared for a visual the tendency was to stay with the autopilot and manufacture some sort of alternative via the FMS. To fly a good old-fashioned, unassisted, manual approach was practically unheard of. We were slowly but surely slipping away from the “stick and rudder” business, so to speak. I decided to seize the moment. It was time to get back to basics. “Do you remember your initial training at the Academy, in the Cherokee?” I queried. I was met with a somewhat quizzical look from the right seat.

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“Remember how you were taught to fly the circuit, wingtip tracking the runway on downwind – turning at a 45 degree angle on to base, etc.?” There was a nod but, again, the questioning look. “Well, why not do the same thing here? You’ve got a tailor-made opportunity. You even have the runway on your side, since we’re cleared for a right-hand visual.” He was beginning to realize that I really meant it. I went on. “An airplane is an airplane, even if it’s a wide-body. Don’t let the size bother you. The TriStar’s as responsive as a light aircraft, so why not hand-fly it for a change? Just make your circuit a bit larger so that you’re stabilized on final at the 500 ft. mark, that’s all”. I continued. “Supposing all this wizardry packed up? It’s always a good idea to keep your hand in when given the chance.” He still looked apprehensive but took off the autopilot at my urging. As he set up on downwind he looked much more comfortable and was handling the aircraft with authority. By the time we turned onto final and, with a little more encouragement, he was back in the Cherokee, his confidence fully restored. He executed a textbook flare and touchdown, and I offered up my congratulations on a job well done. As we turned off the runway he was grinning from ear to ear. I had made my point. **

ABOUT ART COX'S PAINTINGS Art worked in acrylics, which is the medium he used in this painting of a Lancaster bomber returning from a raid during World War II. This painting was done as a labour of love rather than being an illustration for a story as was his painting of the Royal Jordanian Lockeed Tristar displayed on the cover and as a header to his article, "Back to Basics." Art was Royal Jordanian's check pilot on the L1011 and his painting of that aircraft was created by working from photographs and many memories of this early jet. He often joked that he was tempted to put camels in all of his paintings to suggest the contrasting cultures of the Middle East.

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A Fu n n y T hing Hap p e ne d on t he way t o t he Piano C oncert. .

very high class fishing resort near Campbell River British Columbia was planning its gala opening. The staff assembled a group of tables around the magnificent outdoor swimming pool to seat some 100 guests. Each table was equipped with a large umbrella to shade the high-paying guests from the heat of the July sun and a space was left at the head of the pool for the concert pianist employed for the occasion, to provide a musical background to the gourmet meal being served. The backdrop to this scene was the surrounding blue of the ocean and a panorama of the B.C. coast range of snow-capped mountains—idyllic—with Beethoven’s 9th providing a soft background to the idle chatter. The pianist was seated on a piano stool in the space provided, but where was the piano? The smiling, tuxedoed maestro was without a means to provide the music and appeared rather ridiculous seated as he was before a missing keyboard. Was it a glitch in the program? No, it was the piece de la resistance of the program. The concert grand would, momentarily, be lowered into position from a helicopter whose inimitable whopping sound could now be heard as it approached the little peninsula on which the lodge had been constructed. The helicopter’s pilot, brought the airborne Steinway into position but couldn’t lower it as it was spinning on the end of the long-line. Maneuvering his aircraft to best correct the rotating piano, the helicopter’s down-wash proved too much for the umbrellas and the tables were all blown into the swimming pool along with the maestro himself on his stool. Beethoven’s Ninth became Handel’s Water Music as the tuxedoed pianist performed the Australian crawl. The pilot, seeing the havoc he was creating, banked violently away from the scene causing the piano, which had previously slipped the surly bonds of earth, to plunge into the ocean—a dramatic, possibly chromatic, end to this gala event.

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Painting by Art Coxâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Original hangs in the South Terminal of Vancouver International Airport (YVR

how to buy an air p l ane or thr e e by

J a c k Sc h o f i e l d 45

n the mezzanine at YVR south terminal, there is a painting of a small twin- engine airplane called a Barkley-Grow. This all-metal, low-wing airliner is depicted in the early livery of an airline called Yukon Southern, and on the nose of the aircraft the proud name, “Yukon Queen.” This early aircraft is distinctive in that the undercarriage is not retractable and the manufacturer put “pants” on the wheels. “Pants” where actually called wheel fairings, and their purpose was to reduce the drag created in flight by those big tires hanging down into the slipstream. In performing this task they also added a rakish look to the airplane and provided the pilot with a rugged undercarriage that could withstand the shocks from the gravel strips of those days. In addition

the manufacturer put an extra 30 gallons of gas per side in the space into which a retractable gear would have retracted and gave the operator an extra 600 pounds of payload through the elimination of all that gear required for retraction. The T8P-1, the type designator for the Barkley-Grow, also had an amazing wing, the design of which was used in dive-bombers for WWII due to its amazing strength from a honeycomb-like construction. The story of those Barkley-Grows is, in part, the story of Grant McConachie. That painting at YVR takes us back to the days when MConachie was a name people were hearing of more and more. He was an aviator who had begun to make history in Canada’s skies, and would be the man who created Canadian Pacific Airlines, which for years was the h o w to b u y a n a i rp l a n e or t h ree

One of the BarkleyGrows mounted on floats comes alongside. McConachie was seemingly romantically involved with a titled lady—a princess—who gifted him a Ford Trimotor aircraft registered as CF-BUP. the aircraft became famous around Vancouver airport. when it was demolished by a Hawker Hurricane fighter that ground looped into it during WWII. Of course McConachie collected the insurance on an aircraft that had long been withdrawn from service.

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only viable competition to the public airline, Trans Canada Airlines. More than anything, the Barkley-Grow and how McConachie acquired three of them tells of the man’s amazing salesmanship, and perhaps his touch of larceny, which coloured his career: In 1939, Canadian Car and Foundry acquired the dealership for the BarkleyGrow aircraft and contacted Grant McConachie, asking him to test fly one. Can-Car, as they were known, wanted McConachie to equip his new airline, Yukon Southern, with this new

aircraft. The test flight convinced Grant that it was the plane for the job, and he sat down with Murray Semple of CanCar to hammer out a deal. “Hammering out” might be a misnomer, because McConachie had no money at all. The aircraft were originally priced at seventy thousand dollars each, but under the circumstances Semple agreed to let three of them go for a total price of one hundred thousand. Grant McConachie admitted that the price was right but he still couldn’t afford to buy them. Semple reduced the price to ten thousand a piece.

McConachie explained that when he said he had no money he meant NO money, and a lease purchase was arranged based on a payment of one thousand dollars per month per plane. Canadian Car were at that time preoccupied with other serious business matters and seemingly forgot about the deal, and McConachie never made a payment on the craft until he sold them many years later. When the Barkley-Grow became available in 1939, its competition was the Beech 18 and the Lockheed 12, the latter being the ultimate choice of most North American airlines. Despite being a superior aircraft in many respects the Detroit manufacturer declared bankruptcy, and disappeared into the annals of history.

T h e h ero o f t h i s stor y i s t h e f amo u s a n d b e l o v ed C a n ad i a n p i o n eer av i ator , G ra n t M c C o n ac h i e w h o created C a n ad i a n P ac i f i c A i r l i n es f rom a gagg l e o f sma l l operators . H i s w i t a n d c h arm w ere ma n i f est i n t h e ma n n er i n w h i c h h e w h ee l ed a n d dea l ed to

create t h i s w or l d c l ass a i r l i n e .

This

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a l oo k b ac k at o n e o f h i s most pro f i ta b l e tra n sac tions.

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b u s h h aw k

once an aviator by

Mel T u rner Illustrated by Art Cox

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on c e an aviator by Mel T u rner

Editor’s Note: Mel Turner is a lawyer who lives in St. Andrews in the Canadian Maritime Province of New Brunswick. He is really an aviator skulking behind that lawyer façade, having logged 5000 hours on 30 types, some of which are pictured within his article. Mel would rather be strapped into a Martin-Baker ‘bang seat’ than dealing with habeus corpus, so it wasn’t difficult to inveigle him into recording his story in which he reveals an engaging writing style and establishes no small record of RAF terminologies. Mel was medically discharged from the service when he lost his flying category after doing the unforgivable - fessing up to a doctor. He made it to Squadron Leader but doubts he'd ever have made it much higher; bollocking Air Commodores wasn't a good career move, especially if repeated.

was born to Scottish parents in a small town in England, on the Welsh border, the year Hitler came to power. It wasn’t bombed much but it was on the route to Liverpool which was bombed every night for weeks on end during which we slept in the 'shelter’ my Dad built in the cellar of our 300 year old house. Dad was a doctor, had trained as a pilot in WW1 but, fortunately, didn›t complete in time to go to France, and in WW2 was an air-raid warden so was out many nights while the family slept and listened to the distinctive "wum wum wum" of German Jumo motors. During his daily rounds my Dad would drop me and my brothers off at the railway bridge just west of the airfield, and we›d sit on the parapet and watch the Magisters and Masters and the occasional Spit or Hur-

ricane bouncing down the runway and sometimes coming to grief. As the war went on the Americans introduced variety into the skies and I particularly remember Thunderbolts with their big tubby front ends, and P38s and sometimes the various other twins and the odd Fortress as a change from our Wellingtons, Halifaxes, Lancs, Stirlings and Mosquitoes - and before that Blenheims and Whitleys. When the war ended that airfield became a collecting base for aircraft brought in to be stored and dismantled and we could climb all over the ones that were put out to graze. It was difficult for kids to climb into the cockpit of Mossies, and against the rules too, but man it was exciting even though the instrument panels were usually empty. With that background I got hooked on flying at an early age, left school as soon as I could, signed

Boulton Paul Baliol 52

Gloster Meteor

Martin Baker "Bang Seat" h a n g a r f ly i n g

up for the Queen's shilling and entered the RAF College at Cranwell on a cold day in January 1952. I got my wings and was commissioned in July 1954 as a Pilot Officer. We were lucky to be the first lot to fly Chipmunks. Next came Harvards and after that Boulton-Paul Balliols, designed for deck-landing training but abandoned by the RN when it became apparent that jets were the future. These things were a great thrill; derated 800 hp Merlins (yes Merlins - you know the noise they make!) driving 12ft 4-blade props, tail-draggers, side-by-side, manual controls but electrically operated air-brakes like barn doors which made them into Stukas. From Cranwell I went on the first PIT (Pilot Instrument Trainer) course at Driffield. The idea was to train people to "fly" Meteors on instruments before they actually flew them. I can›t say that in my case it was successful but I survived the Meteor conversion course at Worksop in the foul weather of the winter of 1954-5. (About 1700 Meteors of all types, fighters and trainers, were built; about a third of them were lost; a duration of 40 minutes in British clag with British comms was not conducive to longevity). I grew to love the tandem, two-seat Mk7 which I continued to fly throughout my time in the Service as an IRE (Instrument Rating Examiner) and using it as a general hack. The Mk 8 fighter intro'd us to Martin-Baker bang-seats but I'm happy to say that I only banged on the rig. Strange are the ways of the RAF. No sooner had I completed the course at Worksop than I

The Vickers Varsity (top) and the Shorts Sunderland flying boat were both famous in their use by RAF Coastal Command

was sent to Swinderby to learn how to fly Vickers Varsities, nice biggish trikes with huge Bristol radial engines much given to 'coring’ (sleeve valve problems) but lovely to listen to. The reason for this was that there was a shortage of pilots in Coastal Command and 'ere long I found myself at Kinloss in Scotland, up on the Murray Firth (best weather-factor in the UK) converting to Mk1 Shackletons, and from there took the threemonth Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance Navigation Course at St Mawgan in Cornwall (on

Lancs; so, I can say I have flown Lancs, but only high above the ground and over water, between shifts). I joined No 37 Sqn at Luqa in Malta in November 1955 flying MR 2 Shacks which had very wonky retractable (sometimes) dual tailwheels. I must at this point pause to put you square on me-and-Sunderlands—a love affair. During our summer breaks from Cranwell we were required to acquire ‹air-experience› on a variety of options and I chose those big, wonderful boats at Pembroke Dock in South Wales. They had always fascinated me. To be clear about this, cadets got only two to three weeks on such detachments and sometimes there was no flying at all depending where and when. I got in less than twenty hours on the Sunderlands and it was not as ‘second-dickie› but as volunteer substitute for the auto-pilot while the real guys slept it off down back over the Bay of Biscay. I didn›t endear myself to my first crew when I dropped the fuel-cap wrench off the starboard wing into the water while topping up on my very first time out, but I gradually got less clumsy and was lucky enough to meet up with an old and hoary training-captain on one of my trips, and on a nice day he let me do a takeoff and a touchdown from the left seat. I volunteered for boats but nobody listened and probably a good thing too since they were on the way out, but I loved them.

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The author had a great respect for the Handley Page Hasitings I had two years in the Med, based on Malta but stretching from there to Gib at one end and Cyprus at the other with spells in parts of Tripoli at El Adem (Tobruk) and Castel Benito later called Idris, ranging as far south as Kano in Nigeria and east to Nairobi (Eastleigh). All of it was on Shacks with the odd joy-ride in whatever I could scrounge. The job was anti-sub, hunting Russians, but mostly anti Makarios - the Greek cleric who wanted the Turks to get out of Cyprus and spent wads shipping arms to his people via caiques which landed at night on various parts of the coast. Mostly we flew those trips out of Luqa, four hours away, twice round - usually at night - makes twelve, and four back mostly likewise makes sixteen, but if things got lively we went round three times or attended to the matter and could refuel at Nicosia if the winds weren't right, and if we got it wrong could divert to El Adem, sometimes on a prayer. h a n g a r f ly i n g

Don’t believe what they tell you about the lovely weather they always have in the Med. It was often nasty and rough in winter and since our recce kit was World War 2 radar and Mk1 eye-ball plus flares, we flew relatively low, around 1,000 ft on patrol and as low as necessary for intercepts. We reported by WT when VHF failed us, which was often. Two pilots, two navs, an engineer (the "owners" of those old crates) and four or more signallers doubling as lookouts. El Adem was a famil course in fogged-in approaches, with no ILS, if you were lucky a very iffy GCA, and a "sometimes" beam-approach set-up, to a strip (hardened and not bad) marked out by "goose-necks." Often the winds were from the sea and the view was through the other guy's windows and it wasn't unusual to put out a few of the lights as we bounced and weaved our way along.

DeHaviland Venom in Swiss Airforce livery Malta was a great place to be based and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Our companion squadron was No 39 flying Meteor NF11s, plus some Beaufighter target-towers and an endless stream of visitors of all sorts. Luqa was a hub for Transport Command ‘Handley Page Hastings’ serving all points east. The operational, living and recreational facilities were good, the people were lovely, particularly the girls, and there was a big naval presence which attracted the ‹fishing fleet› - young ladies on the lookout for a husband of suitable quality such as the Royal Navy could provide (they said) in plenty - around the edges of which we were permitted to hunt; really couldn't have been better for a bachelor. And

you have to remember that we weren't at war; the other side, whatever it was, didn't have guns. That changed a bit during the Suez caper. There were Mig 15s on the ground at Mersah Matruh as we passed by at our usual stately 170 kts but Allah be praised they didn't take off; talk about "sitting ducks!" A busy time; we were issued with Benzedrine tablets to help us stay awake; forty-seven hours in five days. We acted as air-link outside Alexandria, out of Castel Benito/Idris. One of my College pals was flying Canberras and was chased by a G/A (Ground to Air) missile; I didn't know about those things; we had it easy though a lot of other folk didn't, especially on the ground.

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In June 1957 time off was needed for but we shared a joint operation with his Venoms the Shackleton squadron that had been stuck so things got turbulent on the ground as well as in Aden too long assisting the resident 8 Sqn, in the air. My ground guys were superb. The conwhich flew Venoms. Nobody else keen, so I was ditions were bad; hot and humid and sandy but directed to take five aircraft and seven crews plus they kept us going without a hitch. Everyone in assorted kit and a lot of very fine ground crew that outfit was a volunteer and the senior ground (most of whom followed on by Hastings) to crew in particular were people who had had a Khormaksar. I led off in the early morning cool, lot of experience. They kept the wheels on my overloaded at 100,000 and a bit pounds. Even personal wagon so to speak; in that department I with water-meth pouring into the Griffons it didn't know my arse from my elbow. was a long, long takeoff. We couldn't climb over Before long my ‘Chiefy' and his lads deany hills so abeam Cyprus we hooked north and cided, (without asking me!) that the time had down the Tigris to Habcome to get 'the enemy’. Our baniya (hot as hell) and N e a r B e l h a n i n t h e days routinely started at sunup after an overnight there before it got raging hot. About n o rt h w e s t s e c t o r o f on to Aden. two weeks after we got there t h e p r o t e c t o r at e t h e y Most of us have I walked from the Mess to our h a d s e t u p m o rta r s i n no idea that in areas like hangar, slowly, as always, and c av e s o n a r i d g e c o m South Arabia Britain when I got there the sight that m a n d i n g t h e va l l e y had been engaged for met my eyes was amazing. 8 decades in ceaseless Sqn had a ‘graveyard’ behind the war with the locals and those who wished to hangars filled with wrecks and bits of wrecks. The disenfranchise the Queen. It was bloody rough ‘graveyard’ was now empty and all of it had been country and every month soldiers died on the made airworthy and was on their flightline. I said, Dhala Convoy, the supply train to that fort on "Thank you, Chiefy" He said "Not at all Sir; it the edge of Yemen. The route was uphill all may larn’em." It did, and from then on we were the way, through defiles in the hills on which on pretty good terms with the ‘enemy’ who were sat very capable tribal marksmen. We acted the best G/A guys in the business and I worked as spotters while the Venoms kept their heads with them in some pretty weird places for the down, to some extent. 8 Sqn was a top outfit next year or so. commanded and led at every opportunity by a My newly appointed CO took over from top fighter hand, Joe Blythe. He hated 'bomber me not long after that. He was a navigator whom guys' and we were each the 'enemy’ to the other, I had known in Malta, an excellent ‘boss’ with a h a n gar f ly i n g

lovely wife who took over the, for me, 'hopeless' task of making families happy—sort of, in the months that followed. In those peaceful days the workers were permitted to be accompanied. That changed in the next few years as things heated up politically, but for most of my time there, Aden was enjoyable, apart from the heat. We didn’t have air-conditioning but we did have Carlsberg and fresh lime juice, and shark-nets to keep ‘em off our beaches at the clubs. My car,

a Fiat 500, did have air-conditioning—no roof and no floor—and it got me around the safe area very well. It (the safe area) got very small in later years; in fact it disappeared. I didn’t know I would be back, and despite being content with my lot, I took the precaution of climbing Shamsan, the dud volcano that dominates Steamer Point, the ‘city’ part of Aden. The legend was that if you did that you wouldn’t have to come back. It didn’t work. I climbed it on Xmas morning with our

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tame ‘pongo,’ Ernie (a Signals Major) who was lamentably unfit to be a soldier. He must have been because I could beat him at squash. The border with Yemen was constantly being penetrated by their side (though really nobody knew where it was) and near Beihan in the northwest sector of the Protectorate they had set up mortars in caves on a ridge commanding the valley where that straggling village is located and they were making life miserable for the inhabitants who considered themselves to 58

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be under the protection of a beneficent British government, the local branch of which felt likewise. I got myself flown up to Beihan by the comm squadron on a routine trip in a Pembroke, which could happily use the local sand strip, and met the resident Political Officer, an Arabist by the name of Tony Jarvis. The snag for us was that Shacks could be hit by small-arms fire (said to be Russian but Egyptian supplied, like the mortars) if running in during daylight, so it was felt safer to do it at night. That kind of ignored the difficulty

of finding the place in the dark so Tony put together a team of locals to erect and light a string of bonfires (god knows what they burned) on a more or less straight line over about seven miles leading in to the ridgeline, with a timeand-distance marker at a pre-arranged spot, all worked out by our ‘navs’ for purposes of bombrelease. It was, I suppose, what might be called 'area-bombing' but it worked. We dumped a lot of 1000 pounders onto the ridgeline in the vicinity of the caves. A Shack could carry fifteen of those. My crew alone dropped 175 over the next few nights and Beihan went quiet for a while thereafter. On the ground, you couldn›t tell it had happened, such is the terrain, but please don't let it be known what the dastardly Brits did to those rocks! The fires that led us to the Jebel Dhahat up near Beihan had to be lit at a time that would allow us to make the roughly ninety minute journey to that neck of the woods. Our takeoff and the preparations at our end had to be timed to coincide pretty closely with the lighting of those fires, a herculean job for Tony Jarvis and his people. We didn't have comms to synchronize the op so it was all down to timing. My new boss arrived in time to join my crew for the first night trip. He was a good guy, and left me to it and came along to get acquainted with the territory. Once we were bombed-up, getting mounted and off the ground usually took about an hour. Met and stuff like that was very vague and could be attended to

well beforehand. I allowed an extra hour that night, planning to orbit along the route to synch up. I went up to the flight line well ahead of departure to see to final arrangements. We needed four or five half-ton garries to deal with crew collection and the like but a problem arose that I hadn't banked on. You have to remember I'd been jacked up well ahead of my competence level and had a lot to learn about human relations, as well as about flying. It wasn’t unusual for persons of importance to find reasons to come to Aden. Booze was cheap and you could buy just about anything at Steamer Point, cheaply. I had heard that an Air Commodore from Middle East Air Force was expected to show up around then. He was known for his liking of a good party. While I was charping it off before the trip he arrived and unbeknownst to me commandeered all the available MT in order to convey himself and his entourage to the big city. Though they were ill-suited to the task that included most of my half-tons/vans etc, as I was to find out when I reached the flightline. This threatened to throw a wrench into the arrangements. I was well and truly pissed-off and got myself down to the hotel where the party was taking place and told the great man (I gather rather bluntly) that he was screwing up an important op. It was good that I'd built in a little time because he promptly had me arrested for insubordination. My escort didn't know what to do with himself. We hadn't been introduced and he was about as surprised as I was by this turn of

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events but cooperated handsomely by agreeing to take a message to my boss at the Mess while I languished in the cells being soothed with limejuice by one of my riggers who had guard-duty that night. Bossman worked the oracle and I was released in time to get airborne a bit late but within the frame. The sortie was a success. The navs nailed it. The guys on the ground did their thing and we picked up the 'lights' without difficulty and dropped our load in a string along the hill or in close proximity thereto from 3,000 ft. above the ridgeline, (not quite our ceiling but getting up there) and as far as we could tell in the light of the sparks the guys in the caves were going to have severe headaches. Later Tony confirmed that things had gone pretty well and before the next trip we agreed that we didn't need anything more that a couple of fires (eventually reduced to the timing-point alone - though we shifted it around a bit so his guys wouldn't get ambushed by friends of the mortar parties). Back in the buildings’ things didn’t go so well next day. I had an unavoidable talk with the WingCo Flying (i/c Ops) who explained to me (and my boss) that a repeat of my latest career move was inadvisable. You have to understand that this nice man was already a little bit leery of me. When we first arrived I had suggested to him that accommodations for the ground crews were more primitive than we preferred. He had responded that our predecessors had got along fine in the same pits and I had injudiciously h a n gar f ly i n g

wondered aloud if that's why they had wanted to go home. I had also tried to explain that they were a primitive lot, from St Mawgan in Cornwall, and had lower standards than us. It turned out he was from St Mawgan. And then there was the matter of the flight-line rearrangement which had apparently come to his attention. Actually he wasn't too unhappy about that I don't think. I heard on good authority that on that day he had been overheard in the bar at lunchtime quietly vetoing Joe Blythe's idea of using our Shacks as gunnery targets for the Venoms. As I mentioned, Joe simmered down and though we were never close friends the guys got along just fine. Later one of them was a student with me at Central Flying School; got me through it and is a buddy to this day. "Dormez bien," as they say in officially bilingual NB. Following page: There is an Avro Lancaster look to the Shackleton except for that singular nose and those counter rotating propellers driven by the four Rolls Royce Griffons.

THE

YEL L O W P E RIL 62

ART COX

THE YELLOW PERIL

by ART COX

nyone who went through pilot training in the RCAF in the ‘50s and early ‘60s will have, without exception, received their basic instruction on the venerable Harvard. Countless young trainees, including yours truly, cut their teeth on the noisy brute whose sole purpose in life was to lull you into a false sense of security and then ground-loop if you weren’t alert on the rudder pedals after touchdown. In those days there was no lead-up - no interim trainer on which to glean a few hours before being introduced to the beast. For those of us who had previous flying time it was bad enough, but for the abinitio pilot it could prove to be a monster. A youngster coming straight off the street couldn’t be blamed if he felt a little trepidation at the prospect of starting off a flying career, cold turkey as it were, on an aircraft whose reputation preceded it. Like others over the years, the Harvard had acquired various labels and nicknames which would stay with it throughout it’s lifetime; the most unflattering and formidable of these, undoubtedly, being the Yellow Peril. Having said that the Harvard was one of the most versatile aircraft ever built, it’s very name a matter of legend; an icon in aviation circles. Before the book was closed on the final chapter countless variants had crossed the drawing board. It not only served as a primary trainer but in various other roles as well, including that of a bombing and gunnery platform. Originally designed and manufactured by North American Aviation as the AT-6 and Texan, it first came into being in 1935. It became the primary trainer for US airmen during WWII, and a naval version, the SN-J was developed for the Navy. The name Harvard was adopted when the aircraft was sold abroad. The RAF purchased hundreds, as did the RCAF to

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equip the BCATP. Many other countries followed suit and before production ceased over 15000 had come off the assembly line. It’s rugged construction proved to be it’s most valuable asset, enabling it to absorb incredible punishment, especially during the initial “circuits and bumps” stage of training. It’s design complimented the role perfectly- large control surfaces, which amplified a trainee’s movements, aided the instructor immeasurably as visibility from the rear seat could make life difficult when trying to determine where a student went wrong. As with any “tail dragger” certain protocols had to be observed zigzagging when taxiing, for example, because of the high nose attitude; being alert on the rudder pedals on landing to avoid any tendency to groundloop; etc. When one had mastered its quirks it became a joy to fly. Four basic Flying Training Schools were active when I joined up; three of them on the prairies and one in Ontario. My course was assigned No. 2FTS Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, to which we arrived on a chilly day in early November, 1954. As a precursor to flying we were given a two-week ground school indoctrination, which included an extensive briefing on fly-

ing to and from the designated practice area which was some twenty miles north of the base, and north of Moose Jaw itself. The main east to west airway crossing the country, Green One, lay directly over the city, so traffic coming to and from base had to cross it. Prior to April of that year students had been briefed to stay below the minimum enroute altitude of 6000 ft. until well clear, which was defined by a landmark, Buffalo Pound lake, a narrow ribbon of water fifteen or so miles north of town. Although the crossing rule was strictly enforced it failed to prevent a disaster, which was to put Moose Jaw on the map forevermore. In April a tragic mid-air collision between a Harvard piloted by a solo student who had climbed above the appointed altitude prematurely, and a TCA (now Air Canada) North Star, resulted in the deaths of all on board the airliner, the occupant of the Harvard, and a cleaning lady who, unfortunately, happened to be in a house demolished by the wreckage. As a result the altitudes were revised to increase the separation between crossing aircraft and airway traffic and each new class was given a thorough lecture emphasizing the importance of abiding strictly to the rules. Also, the gravity t h e y e l l o w per i l

These North American Harvards are owned by individual pilots who belong to an association of owners who have lovingly restored the aircraft to their military livery. The group. known as the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association performs at air shows across Canada and into the United States.

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of the accident prompted the authorities to have the airway moved slightly to the north of the city as some of the debris, including an engine from the North Star, had fallen on Main street, luckily without further loss of life. Thus was our rather lugubrious introduction to Moose Jaw.

to keep it from congealing when leaving an aircraft parked on the tarmac between flights. On extremely cold mornings hangar starts were carried out. On the first flight of the day student and instructor did their pre-flight checks and boarded the airplane in the hangar before being towed out to the

By the time we began flying winterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sub-zero temperatures and wind chill conditions had set in, which meant a few modifications to operating procedures had to be implemented; oil diluting when shutting down, for example,

flight line, whereupon the engine was started immediately. Between flights the engine was kept running while students swapped places. Heating was a simple arrangement whereby hot air from the exhaust system was ducted

A Trans Canada Airlines North Star airliner like this one was cut in half over Moose Jaw by a Harvard flying above the mandatory altitude established for crossing airways. All the airliner crew and passengers were killed as was the RCAF trainee pilot and a woman occupant of a house in Moose Jaw struck by wreckage. One of those Rolls Royce Merlins fell into the main street of the town.

into the cockpit. It was directed in on the starboard side around the rudder pedals, consequently one’s right foot could become unbearably hot while the rest of the cabin remained somewhat more comfortable. Notwithstanding, we survived winter’s climes and by the end of the course it was summer again. We completed basic training, became brand new Pilot Officers and went on to advanced flying on the T-33. Upon receiving our wings, together with another promotion to Flying Officer, we anxiously awaited news of our first postings. Hopefully we’d be going onto the F-86, the Canadair Sabre; the flavour of the day and the envy of several allied air forces, and eventually overseas to one of the

NATO bases in Europe. Word came the following day. We were earmarked for Flight Instructor’s School. Most of us spent that night commiserating over our beers; no F-86 and no Europe was a bit hard to take for a 20 year old! Eventually the realization set in and I reluctantly accepted the fact that I was to spend a few years in the back seat of a Harvard. From student to instructor I’d come full circle since, on completion of the course, I was posted right back to Moose Jaw. Little did I realize at the time that the next three years would become one of the most rewarding and gratifying experiences of my life. The FTSs had a mixed bag in those days as NATO training was in full swing. As well as our own cadre

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of RCAF flight cadets we had British, French, Italians, Germans, Dutch, a mix of Scandinavians, and Turkish students. Teaching fledglings how to fly is one thing but with this international body there arose the added difficulty of communicating when in the air. This was primarily due to the tandem seating whereby the instructor’s view of the student was severely restricted. Consequently the language barrier became somewhat of an issue, especially with the Turks. Even though it was a requirement for all NATO personnel to be conversant with English some of the Turkish boys found it difficult to cope. The others fared quite well although the Germans, in their disciplined manner, sometimes had trouble thinking outside the box, as it were. Interestingly, at one point a group of ex-WWII German pilots was sent over for refresher training prior to rejoining the Luftwaffe. The war had only been over for some eleven years at that point so some of us were a bit apprehensive about what to expect and how we should treat them. We needn’t

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have had any doubts along those lines; they were very capable, co-operative and a pleasure to instruct. As an added bonus many a night was spent in the mess being regaled with tales of their exploits during the war – the story from the other side, if you will. Another enjoyable bunch were the RCN officers who came to us. They had no previous flight time so they were slated to do the full syllabus. Top it off with the Reserve cadets who arrived in the summer and our workload was quite heavy. It wasn’t uncommon to carry four or five students at a time, of different nationalities, and at various stages in the program. To ease the strain of the extra summer load the relief field situated a few miles south of the airport was brought into play. Tents were set up and a completely self-contained flight operated independent of home base. Considering the volume of training, the programs ran relatively smoothly, with very few accidents of a serious nature. There were the inevitable writeoffs mainly due to ground loops and other ground-related mishaps, such as

the night flying incident when an aircraft went missing while doing circuits and landings. When touching down at a higher than normal airspeed the solo student ran off the end of the runway and ended up with the aircraft stuck in a ditch. The whole episode went unnoticed and it was some time before the tower was alerted to the fact that they were sans one of their numbers. Finally it was discovered, nose down, tail pointing skyward, buried in mud but, to add to the mystery, the student was nowhere to be found. For some inexplicable reason he decided he’d had enough and had made his way back to quarters and went to bed! On another occasion a student elected to overshoot from a misjudged approach, but when applying power neglected to select the propeller to fine pitch. At approximately fifty feet in the air the aircraft stalled, flipped over on it’s back and came down on the runway in a crumpled heap, flattening the cockpit. The pilot, a Turkish lad, miraculously survived, crawling out from underneath the wreck mumbling that “Allah” had been with him. There are many more incidents and anecdotes that could be set down here – stories

concerning the abuses conferred on the Harvard during those years of such heavy workloads; enough material to fill volumes. Suffice to say that, in spite of the rigorous schedule, the aircraft performed like a thoroughbred throughout. In 1956 the DeHavilland Chipmunk was introduced into the system at 4 FTS, Centralia, Ontario in a move designed to enhance training by providing a stepping stone to the larger aircraft, thereby significantly reducing the number of hours it took to solo. The scheme worked quite well although the other FTSs didn’t follow suit. This was the heyday of the RCAF’s post war training commitment. The combined total of airmen put through the pipeline in those years numbered in the thousands. However, by the end of 1957 the NATO commitment was winding down and the student numbers were substantially reduced. It was the beginning of the end for the Harvard. It survived for another five years, however the death knell had been sounded and it’s replacement in the form of a side by side jet trainer was on the drawing board. After some twenty odd years of faithful service the workhorse was finally being put out to pasture, but it’s legacy will stand forever as one of the most versatile aircraft ever built.

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Art Cox

NO PRINGLES 72

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for

BLERIOT

NO P R I N G LE S for

BLE R I O T A

some w h at d i stop i a n l oo k at t h e past a n d prese n t o f ma n n ed f l i g h t

JACK SCHO FIE LD

had read everything in the seat pocket and was getting bored with the flight. I cast my eyes around for something to do when I spotted the T-shirt on the lady across the aisle—a T-shirt with a slogan printed across the front. The bumps in the shirt’s terrain made reading difficult but I persevered. I am still missing my ex-husband, said the print, but my aim is getting better. We were flying in an Air Canada 767 now on long final for YVR. The T-shirt lady was feigning sleep but other passengers, including me, were showing signs of fatigue and were fidgeting from the long flight originating at Montreal’s Trudeau Airport. As I gazed around the cabin of this beautifully furnished aircraft; at the individual TV sets in each passenger’s seatback; at the marvel of a moving map display allowing each of the 200 passengers to know the aircraft’s exact position and ETA, a disturbing question started to nag me. The nagging increased as I gazed up the aisle to the bullet-proof door protecting the pilots on the flight deck, and the recollection

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of the recent security procedures involving either a full body grope or a revealing electronic body scan. The other pertinent realization was that our contrail up here at 34 thousand is now deemed to be responsible for much of the world’s global warming.

global warming, would he have shed his feathered experiment in favour of a few more puffs on his Gauloise and a glass of red at a sidewalk cafe in the Latin Quarter?. We are certain that Bleriot held his breath during his channel crossing

My nagging question took on the image of a little Frenchman all dressed up like a barn swallow early one morning back in about 1800, when, with feathered arms outstretched, he threw himself off a cliff to prove that man could fly. His was the first breakfast flight in history, but he was sorely missed at lunch. I wondered, had he known it would all come to a moving map display at each seat plus

as did Lucky Lindy on his solo trip across the Atlantic peering through a periscope in lieu of a windshield, and undoubtedly Alcock and Brown were more than fidgety on their early flight from Newfoundland into an Irish peat bog? I asked myself the question, “would “Wrong-Way Corrigan,” have chosen the right way had he and those other pioneers known that the great unwashed would inherit the miracle n o pr i n g l es f or b l er i ot

of flight and become bored with the experience. Would those pioneers of flight have wanted a selection of six in-flight movies or would five have been enough? She, who has been known to kick sand in my Marguerita, broke into my reveries pointing to some printing on the miniature box of potatoes chips I had just consumed. “Did you see the expiry date on these?” she asked. According to the date on the box they were two years overdue for the garbage can, and she of the shoppers eye had noted the discrepancy. “Can it be that bad at Air Canada?’ I wondered, recalling that the cabin attendant had employed the most recent advances in wireless technology to swipe my Visa card sending advice, by short wave, to

that emporium of usury informing them that I had just paid $3.10 for something priced on the ground at 80 cents, and would they please add it to my monthly bill. She, who could tell you the caloric content of anything on the shelf at the SuperMarket, pointed out the misdemeanor to the collector of paper cups and a new wireless swipe credited the $3.10 without interference to the aircraft’s navigational systems. My digestive tract, having suffered worse time warps than prehistoric Pringles, couldn’t tell the difference between 2007 and 2010. I never did get back to solving my nagging questions presented in absentia to those pioneers of flight before we had landed at Vancouver. I was advised by the airline that while I had now experienced the thrill of manned flight, my baggage had not.

Opposite page: The B25 Mitchell became famous when the United States responded to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor by bombing Tokyo with a squadron of these aircraft launched from the aircraft carrier, "Hornet." Art Cox's painting reflects back to his personal experience flying an RCAF Mitchell during his early air force experience.

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Art Cox

ENCO U NTE R OVER T HE

HU D S O N by J I M G R IFFI T H

e were grinding along at twelve thousand feet in cloud, minding our own business, halfway between Ottawa and New York City in a North Star freighter. It was the gutted version of the passenger variant named, The Flying Merchant, stripped of everything including windows except thankfully, the toilet which was located anything but cockpit convenient at the rear of the cabin. Just before Albany there was a sudden clear break and there below us bathed in a stray shaft of bright sunlight, cruised an unmarked all black World War II fighter plane backlit by the Hudson River. It was a twin-engine Lockheed Lightning, an American fighter built near the end of the war otherwise known as a P-38 or to the Luftwaffe as, der Gabelschwanz-Teufel “fork-tailed devil”. Its graceful design was a marriage of aesthetics and function making it perhaps the most beautiful yet terrifying killing machine the Americans had ever produced. But hang on! Maybe I’d better go back to the beginning of this silly serendipitous little adventure. In July, 1959, I was a twenty one year old, 500 hour, newhire First Officer with Canada’s national airline, Trans Canada Airlines. Being on reserve I’d been called out early that morning to ferry a freighter from Montreal’s Dorval airport to Ottawa Uplands to upload a cargo and deliver it to New York City’s Idyllwild airport then ferry back to Dorval.

Previous page: Built by Canadair, the Trans Canada Airlines North Star was a DC-4 fuselage powered by four Rolls Royce Merlins.

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As a newbie, during flight planning with my newly met captain, I never questioned the iffy weather forecast for the New York area nor linked it to our fuel load which left us with no alternate airport. Neither the dispatcher nor the Captain mentioned what our cargo was to be and I never asked. The dispatcher did emphasise that our New York arrival time must absolutely be no later than 2 PM. I blithely signed my name on the flight plan and we sauntered out to the aircraft. The flight to Ottawa was uneventful and although the Captain seemed friendly he was quiet and seemed a little anxious? As soon as we stopped on the OW ramp a convoy of Brinks trucks pulled up and a TCA ramp crew began to load small but hefty packages sewn in canvas sacks about the size of a two pound package of Velveeta cheese. They were being watched warily by the Brinks guards. A man in a suit stood at the door noting each piece of cheese as it was loaded. It suddenly dawned on me, “thar was gold in them thar hills.”, and we’d be hauling it. Each of those 363 cheese packages in fact weighed 27.5lbs of 99.99% pure gold valued at a pegged value

of $35.00 American an ounce. Our load was worth $7 million American and thanks to a favourable exchange rate, $7.4 million Canadian. I wasn’t to know that the gold had to get to downtown Manhattan and inside the New York Federal Reserve Bank by 4PM sharp at which time the vault doors slammed automatically and irrevocably shut, probably explaining the dispatcher’s apprehension about our prompt arrival time. More sinister was the minimum fuel load with no alternate. With so little fuel we could not possibly land somewhere else thus eliminating any chance that we might have been compromised into some criminal plot to steal the gold. Not that as a $250 a month reserve First Officer it didn’t seem like such a bad idea but how I would ever spend such a huge amount of gold was beyond my wildest fantasies. I did a pre-flight cabin check to ensure the cargo was secure and was surprised by its empty appearance. All the Velveeta had been neatly laid out end to end and side by side in rows flat on the cargo deck covered over and tied down by large tarpaulins. I guessed this was meant to spread the 10,000 lbs of bullion over a wide area so as not to collapse the floor.

The Lockheed P38 Lightning saw action in the European theatre late in the Second World War. Though a formidable fighter the aircraft was not terribly popular with pilots as it proved dangerous to bail out of due to the horizontal stabilizer and the twin engine configuration.

These thoughts were far from my mind now as I daydreamed absently looking down at the beautiful P-38 “Jeez” I said to the captain “there’s a lightening down there” “What? Where’s the lightening? ” exclaimed the Captain, craning his neck to look outside. North Stars had no weather radar and lightening seen day or night signaled nearby thunderstorms. He was right to be concerned about thunderstorms they could swallow even a large airliner, chew it up and spit the bits out below. “No! No!” I said, “it’s a “Lockheed” lightning. You know; a P-38, a fighter plane.”

“Where is it?” he asked worriedly, squirming, to try and see out my side window. “Down at 9 o’clock…Oh wait a minute looks like he’s sliding back to six o’clock.” I casually replied. Even I knew the six o’clock position was the favoured position for a fighter attack explaining why the Captain seemed a little edgy. He virtually had seven million bucks’ cash in his back pocket for which he was personally and totally responsible. As for me I hadn’t considered the audacious risks criminals sometimes take for much less booty than we were carrying, including murder, to abscond with such an easily fenced commodity as gold. In

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other words I was too dumb to be worried. He couldn’t see it so asked again, “What’s it doing now?” “I can’t see it anymore.” Said I. “Call ATC and ask if there’s any traffic in our area” he curtly ordered. So I did. “New York Centre Trans Canada Charter 15 have you got anybody else around Albany?” “Negative Trans Canada yours is the only target I’m painting in the Albany area. Turn right 30 degrees for radar identification.” replied the controller. No transponders in those good old days. Following ATC’s instructions the captain quickly cranked the cantankerous old bird into a 30 degree bank right turn which safely engulfed us in grey woolly cloud again making us invisible… or so we thought but it got real dark and I knew we’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Suddenly… a bright flash and a simultaneous loud, “Whump!”, followed closely by another flash “Whump!”. The “Whumps” were loud enough to be heard over the clamorous din of the four Merlin engines. We were struck twice, not by canon fire from the Lockheed Lightning but by shafts

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of angry lightening from Thor, the thunder god. So instead of being skyjacked by a war-surplus WWII fighter we’d blundered into a thunderstorm. For the thirty minutes of watching the captain heroically wrangling this cranky bucking bronco bouncing around in the violent air currents of the storm I was silently praying that the restraining tarps were tough enough to make the bullion stay put. I had visions of 363, twenty seven and half pound gold bricks becoming misguided missiles ricocheting around the inside of the cabin. Finally we broke out into smooth air. I went back to check the cheese and was relieved to see nothing had stirred not even a mouse. I couldn’t wait to get on the ground and get this stuff off and head home but alas our troubles were not over. Upon arrival in marginal weather we were unloaded in the reverse of the procedure in OW except this time the minders unlike the dowdily dressed Brinks guards were Wells Fargo Express agents in smart fatigue jackets complete with Stetsons and carrying pearl- handled Colt 45’s in open holsters. The only difference between these guys and the express riders of the old west was that these cowboys

Gold bullion was pegged at $35.00 a troy ounce by the then equivalent of the IMF when the gold standard was in use. It now trades at around $1,380.00 per ounce and gains value when the economy is in bad shape. Velveeta cheese used to sell for a buck a pound but now sells for about $4.99

drove armoured vans instead of stage coaches. A smiling man in a neatly tailored suit who was all business, rushed us into a small windowless hangar office and offered us coffee. The captain and I thought it would be half an hour and we’d be on our way. Unfortunately as we now heard from Mr. Suit in his polite but menacing voice that we wouldn’t be able to leave until every single one of the 364 bars of gold was safely inside the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank. Knowing that the vault closed at 4 o’clock sharp, no exceptions, we figured at worst we’d be away by 4:15 meaning at most a two hour wait. We weren’t exactly being held in custody in that airless little office but when we started to head out the door to have a look around the airport Mr. Suit told us to sit tight and there was no mistaking what the bulge on the chest of the well-tailored suit was. So we waited and sweated in the summer heat. By six o’clock Mr. Suit’s smile faded as he came into the office to say that only 362 bars of gold, of the 363 had arrived at the bank and we’d have to

stay till it was found. He added that the Wells Fargo cow hands had been relieved of their coveted Colt 45’s and put in special cells at the bank and their vans were being virtually taken apart piece by piece. Stealing a glance over his shoulder through the open door I noticed that young men in black overalls were swarming over our Flying Merchant like roaches on spoiled meat. We took comfort in knowing we weren’t the only suspects. By seven O’clock sandwiches were brought in and by eight o’clock it was starting to get dark when finally the phone rang. Mr. Suit answered it, listened for a few seconds, smiled and said we were off the hook they’d found the missing Velveeta in the spare tire wheel well of one of the trucks…hmm I wondered. It sounded suspicious to me. We’d been on duty for over 15 hours exceeding both the Department of Transport duty time limitations and the collective agreement but regulations and contract be damned we were heading home come hell or high water.

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AN O THE R KIND of HE R O AS TOLD TO JACK SCHOFIELD WITH PHOTOS TAKEN IN NAZI OCCUPIED BELGIUM IN 1943 PAINTING by ART COX

art co x

The poppies we wear in November are a tribute to the brave men and women who gave their lives during all the wars in recent history. Here is an account of one man’s war that speaks to the amazing courage of those now forgotten men and women of Belgium and France who, in the face of terrible reprisals from the Nazis, aided the escape of downed allied airmen during the Second World War.

ne minute before midnight on June 21st 1943 a squadron of RAF Halifax bombers took off from an airfield in Yorkshire England. The aerodrome was called Snaith after the nearby village with the colourful name of Snaith Heck near Gool, and was the home, during the Second World War, of Number 51 RAF Bomber Squadron. Each of these four-engine bombers, roaring into the overcast sky that night, was loaded with 13000 pounds of bombs destined for the industrial city of Krefeld, located on the northwestern borders of Nazi Germany. One of the bombers displayed the tail number JD244 and the letter ‘K’ painted just astern of the RAF roundel on its fuselage. This letter K identified the aircraft to its crew as K for King, and aboard was a crew of six young men one of whom was a Canadian, Bob Masters, of Victoria, B.C. Bob was a member of the RCAF attached to this RAF Squadron, and was the mid-upper gunner on K for King. From his vantage point, in his powered gun turret, Masters had a 360-degree

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view of the topside of the aircraft. The two Rolls Royce Merlin engines on each wing were clearly visible to him and when he powered the turret astern he viewed the large wing-like tailplane with vertical stabilizers and rudders on each end—a design unique to the Handley-Page Halifax. “I could actually see the top of the pilot’s head in the cockpit up front, and the tail gunner’s turret astern—it was a great view,” he told me, when recounting his wartime adventure several years ago, “but very cold and scary as hell,” he added. 51 Squadron joined forces with several other squadrons of Lancaster and Halifax bombers over the English Channel, and a bomber force of 1000 aircraft set course for the ball bearing and engine factories of Krefeld, Germany. This night of June 22nd 1943 would change the lives of the crew of K for King forever. “We came in over the target in very clear weather conditions,” explained Masters, “with enemy searchlights lighting up the sky, and with re-

K for King the day after the crash. The photo was taken with a forbidden camera by the fiancé of the girl in this photo standing with the little boy on the bicycle. The Nazis were going to shoot the little boy for touching the plane but his mother came to the rescue yelling at the German to get real, "He's a little boy!" The Nazi gave in to her.

ally heavy flak. In fact,” he added, “I couldn’t see how any of us could fly through all those exploding anti aircraft shells and survive, but somehow we got our bombs away right on the money. From my position atop the fuselage I could see many of our planes being brought down by flak when suddenly, Bang! We got it in both port engines. A shell had exploded close under our left wing and both engines were suddenly ablaze.” The fire in the two port engines streamed down the side of the aircraft, and Bob witnessed the fabric covered port rudder go up in flames. The pilot

was able to extinguish the fires with the built-in engine extinguishers, but was now faced with great difficulty in maintaining control with engine power all on one side of the plane, the dead engines on the port side creating a lot of drag, and greatly reduced rudder control from the fire damage. “Fred Heathfield was a helluva pilot,” Bob stated, “he cross-controlled that plane for about 15 minutes on course for home, but we were slowly losing altitude, and before we got too low to bail out, he ordered us to “hit the silk.” Everybody got out okay except Fred. He couldn’t let go of the

Bob Masters, flanked by two Resistance workers is photographed for identity purposes. The photo and a statement by Bob was sent to England for verification that he was who he claimed to be. Germans posing as downed airmen often infiltrated the Resistance cells. When Bob returned to Belgium after the war he was greeted by the man on his left, Doctor Appledorn, and also by the woman, Mme Bulpe, who was the leader of the Resistance cell.

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controls or the plane would roll over onto its back, so he picked out what looked like a clear area on the ground and skillfully bellied the big Halifax in through some small trees and light brush. He left a few major parts behind but got out of the bomber unharmed, and set it afire with a flare gun so the Germans wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t learn any Halifax secrets.

When Bob Masters bailed out, he landed in an area of white sandy soil that turned out to be silica used by a nearby glass factory. He felt very visible against these white stones, so he crawled into some brush nearby and stuffed his parachute and Teddy Bear flying suit into a ditch. He had landed in Belgium in an area known as Mol where an engineer by the name

A photo taken by an underground member of the Resistance group who aided Bob Masters. They are brazenly out for a walk on the streets of Lille Belgium in June of 1943. The little guy on the left is a resistance member as is his fiancé the young woman in the front. row. What he didn't know was she was having a torrid love affair with the B17 pilot behind her and to the right,walking beside Bob Masters, who told the writer the two kept him awake at night. The fellow in the front row on the right was a Polish Spitfire pilot whom the Resistance group were also helping to escape. These downed airmen were passed from cell to cell on their way to an evasion route.

of Edgard Mol found him and hid him in one of the glass works buildings while he went out to find other Resistance members to assist him. The next evening, with no sign of Edgard returning, Bob decided to leave the glass works. He walked along a deer path to a country road, making his way up the road to a lone building. While there were no lights showing there were numerous bicycles leaning against the building, so he figured there were people inside. “I didn’t know where I was, and was a little fearful of how I would be received, but I could hear voices inside, so I just opened the door and walked

in. The room was ablaze with light and the air filled with cigarette smoke. People where sitting at little tables eating and drinking wine and beer. He found out later that it was a café called “Brug 2” (Bridge 2, near the canal). “When I walked in everybody stopped talking. You could hear a pin drop, then there was a roar of laughter, and I was grabbed and plunked into a chair and a big glass of very dark ale set in front of me. Women came up to me and gave me a kiss, and men shook my hand. I quaffed the ale and they all cheered,” Bob recalled. “As soon as I had finished the ale, Edgard arrived and was amazed to find him there. a n ot h er k i n d o f h ero

Bob Masters (second from left) stands beside Doctor Appledorn, one of the men who first befriended him during the war. This photo was taken in 2000 when Masters returned to Belgium. On Bob's left, Madame Bulpe, the leader of the wartime Resistance cell and others who had aided him during the six months he was with the group. Many were missing from the reunion having been captured by the Nazis and executed.

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“He took me out to the back of the building and had me lie down in some bushes. He told me I was in occupied Belgium, and that the Germans would be looking for me by now. He said he would be back in a few moments. When he returned he arrived with two bicycles, and we rode to a private home where I exchanged my uniform for a business suit with a vest. The vest had four holes in it and was stained with what looked like blood, and that’s just what it was. A lady told

me that the previous owner wouldn’t be needing the suit, and I got the drift of that comment,” he laughed. Bob Masters realized at this point that he was in the hands of the Belgium Resistance and that they planned to hide him and ultimately pass him from one Resistance cell to another to get him out of Belgium into France and across to the Pyrenees Mountains on the border of France and Spain. There were two operating evasion routes used by the

Belgium and French Resistance—the Maquis, as the French groups were called—the Comete Line and the Pat O’Leary Line were manned by some very brave people who would lead the allied aviators through the mountains to Lisbon, which was a free city. The British Consular offices in Lisbon would then arrange transport back to Britain for the successful ones, but there were many who didn’t make it. The Nazis were very clever in tracking the escapees, and also many groups were betrayed by the Vichy French who were on-side with the Nazis. The bravery of those Resistance men and women was too often rewarded with a terrible death at the hands of the German Schutzstaffel (SS). As Bob Masters was passed from cell to cell, the Resistance took advantage of his knowledge of guns, having him repair pistols that had been buried in haste when the Germans arrived. He was also pressed into service on clandestine raids on Nazi rail and arms establishments in the area, and

spoke with great admiration of the Resistance people who aided him. He was not successful in making good his escape, and in December of 1943 was arrested by the Germans when attempting to enter Switzerland. As the Germans enforced the death sentence on anyone working with the Resistance, he was fortunate that his captors did not realize that he had been an active member of the Belgian Resistance. He became a POW at Stalag Luft Three at Sagan on the German/Polish border. In 2000, Bob Masters took the opportunity to return to Belgium to thank his many benefactors who had risked their lives in an attempt to save him from being taken as a Prisoner of War. Bob told me his story in tribute to those brave people, several of whom died in Buchenwald concentration camp having been captured while performing their actions to save him. The writer has since had communications with war historians in Belgium from whom the photographs used in this article were obtained. .

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hua snhg ahraw b f ly k ing

BEAVER T O H E LS IN KI 93

BY JO HN AD DISON

everal months ago I was asked to ferry a Beaver to Europe. Of course I said ‘yes’ never thinking it would amount to anything as most long-range ferries never materialise. In August, Terry asked me again and the answer was still ‘yes’; after all, we were in the middle of a beautiful summer, the flying would be easy. Finally, in October, Terry tells me the aircraft is ready to go then he drops the bombshell…..it’s a DH2T on amphib floats! A wee bit slow, maybe. The only thing slower was the DH1 which managed 70kts in 1915. This trip is going to take forever, in the beginning of winter Bill Alder, owner of Sealand Aviation in Campbell River has done an amazing job refinishing this aircraft, new interior, new panel, new paint, it’s a beauty. Bill is coming along as well and has been organizing life-rafts, immersion suits and all the other emergency goodies.

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The Turbo Beaver C-FOEV was purchased by Sealand Aviation and sold to their customer in Finland. It couldhave been shipped overseas but that wouldn't be as much fun as flying it over, so Bill Alder, a pilot himself, but happier with an experienced world-girdler, hired John Addison to fly the plane while Bill looked after the mechanical end of things. The aircraft was equipped with all the required emergency equipment and an electronic tracking system.

Standard fuselage tanks, wing tip tanks, a belly tank and an internal turtle bladder tank will give us around 7+45 hours of fuel which is roughly 850 nm in still air at 110 KTAS. Hmmm. Bill has got us a ferry permit allowing us to fly overweight; just as well as we’ll be overweight before we even step into it.

an hour, but we’ve filled every tank to the brim and we’re off, sort of. Bit like that fuel tank really, as we ‘turtle’ rather than ‘hurtle’ down the runway. As we wobble Eastbound toward the Hamathko Icefields, I realise that we are going to have to fly between the rocks as we will never reach any sort of cruising altitude before them. Beau-

Bill’s only concern at this point (and you should always listen to the guy that built the thing), is that his bladder doesn’t have the capacity of the turtle bladder pictured. Well, I’ve stopped to pee before, just not stopped on the North Atlantic! Finally all is ready, it has taken half

tiful day though, smooth flying on top of a layer of cumulus cloud. No more than intrepid aviators deserve. We decide to stop overnight in Prince George as the weather is now marginal with light snow falling and it will be getting dark soon. We are going to be limited to one b eav er to h e l s i n k i

The Turtle bladder tank installed for the flight added fuel enough to give the aircraft an 850 nautical miles range burning 160 litres per hour. During the flight a fuel leak was detected in the tip tanks, which Bill Alder repaired along the way—nice to have highly skilled crew in both seats.

leg each day owing to winter’s shortening days being made even shorter with our easterly progress. The 4 hour flight to Fort Mac gives us the opportunity to sort fuel flows; following refuelling, it seems that using 75% N2 and 45psi torque burns 160 litres per hour including start, taxi and take-off. That’ll do.

Full of energy is Bill, before heading to the hotel in Fort Mac, he decides to fix a fuel leak so hops onto a fork lift, removes a wing-tip fuel tank, takes it apart, reseals a leaking gasket and puts it all back together again. Just like that, took about 20 minutes. I think he’s done this before! However, he bathed himself with kerosene; a smell that was, I suspect, still with him h a n g a r f ly i n g

as he walked through his front door a couple of weeks later Now we head off to Rankin Inlet. Time for me to earn my nickel. 700 nautical miles will take 6 hours with low ceilings and poor visibility. The grey sky now blending perfectly with the grey snow-covered ground and as we progress North of the tree line we lose all contrast and so the horizon. Time for some help, so engage the autopilot in roll mode to keeps the wings level and control the pitch manually with a little nose up trim as the rest of this trip, another 4 hours, will be flown in these conditions below 500’. Bill seems happy flying along like this so I just play with the aircraft’s new Garmins until I’m happy we have 3 useful independent GPS systems, including my Foreflight. How could we possibly get lost? We’ve certainly come a long way in the Navaid department in the last 50 years. Rankin shows up just where it is supposed to be. Bill has a system for the fuelling down pat so we fill all the

tanks, put the aircraft to bed then head into town. This is my first visit to Rankin Inlet, seems like a bit of a “one horse town” so I’m quite looking forward to exploring. Little did I know. We wake the next morning to solid grey in every direction with snow. We’ll stay here, I think, and see what delights Rankin has to offer the stranded traveller. A kind lady in the hotel offers to wash Bill’s kerosene soaked clothes; “I like doing laundry; coca cola in the wash will get rid of the smell..” she says. She may indeed have said,… but it didn’t. Bill has found a truck for us, he’s really good at this sort of stuff, finding transport, that is, and we head off on the very short drive to town. Rankin is not large… really; maybe 300 yards one way, and 200 the other. But somehow, Bill, in Moses’ borrowed truck, spent the day driving us around in circles absolutely lost. Just as well you don’t need a sense of direction to fix a fuel leak. The locals were beginning to stare at us, as our pickup truck continued is seemingly aimless pretzel-like progress around town. Nancy could have warned me….I have to admit though, it was tough. The street signs are written in barbed wire. Another day though and Bill would have cracked it for sure. Found good food at lunchtime

but it closed at 6.30 when we tried for dinner..…go figure. Next day brings decent weather so we roar off towards Frobisher; properly called Iqaluit nowadays but old habits die hard.. It is another long flight and we will fly by Coral Harbour and Cape Dorset on the way. The airport is well used to ferry flights so we are fuelled and driven to the Discovery Hotel very quickly. 950 litres after a 6 hour flight. We feed from the main tanks to begin with then transfer the bladder tank into the mains which takes 2 hours, then the tips, front and rear. There isn’t a lot of C of G latitude at our weights so Bill is being a tad careful. Because the belly tank is so slow to refuel, we don’t transfer it but leave it full considering it as our reserve, there is an hour’s fuel in it. Considering how awkward the aircraft’s 7 tanks can be to fuel, especially if fuelling with the sometimes-too-large fuel nozzles, the fuel guys everywhere were more than patient. We are half way through this trip and still in Canada….So, now blessed with fine weather, armed with passports, Euros and round two-pin electrical plugs, we head off to probably the most expensive place to fly to on the planet: Greenland in general and Sondrestrom b eav er to h e l s i n k i

Bill Alder (right seat) has been rebuilding and modifying Beavers for over 40 years from his base at Campbell River, BC. His company, Sealand Aviation, is a sub contractor for Viking Air in that company's manufacture of the deHavilland Twin Otter. In the left seat, John Addison is a pilot with outstanding experience in both military and civil aviation. Formerly in the RAF, he flew the Vulcan bomber, is a flying club CFI, a contract 747 pilot who is quite at home with this kind of a flying project.

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in particular. Needs must with this aircraft, but the scenery is amazing, immigration absent, and the sun is shining brightly…even if it is more than 30 degrees below zero on the ground. This is just about where Fahrenheit matches Celsius ….It’s really cold. The hotel is empty this time of year after a busy tourist season and we saw no commercial flights at all in Green-

aged to spin the motor quickly enough for a start, if slightly on the warm side, but start it does (“Dependable Engines”) so now we wait for several minutes for oil to warm and the aircraft to generally wake up. As we wait on the ramp the customs man finally arrives! My gestures must have got the message across that I wasn’t going to shut down at any price, for he just shrugged and drove off. Bill wanted a

land. We had been offered inside hangar space for $700 US but declined. We nearly had cause to regret this decision as the following morning the cold-soaked battery only just man-

stamp in his passport….oops. Off we go into a beautiful morning but the wheels won’t retract; we’ll have to sort this otherwise we really will be competing with the DH1 in the slow

speed stakes. I point at the emergency gear handle, Bill starts pumping and slowly they come up. This is fun, let’s cycle them one more time just to warm up the hydraulic fluid. Don’t think Bill was best pleased with my request, for it seemed like quite hard work as I watched him! Anyway, we have got the altitude we need to start Eastbound over the icecap so off we go flying at just a thousand feet or so above the ice. Grid MORA is around 10,000’ here which guarantees 2,000’ ground clearance but with such good weather, we are happy at 7,000’. We see all the detail, all the crevasses and fissures. Looks smooth until you get a good look at it up close and personal. Weather from a deep depression over the Denmark Strait is behaving as predicted and layering cloud up against Greenland’s East coast. Cold heavy air from the top causes the Foehn or katabatic winds that whistle down the fjords so we have a fairly bumpy ride as we slide down off the icecap, sneak under the weather and into Kulusuk Bill and I took the opportunity to explore a little; to look at the village and to get some much needed exercise.

Fishing and sealing. The hotel is a little surreal, we are the only guests. Breakfast, lunch and dinner put out for 4; Bill, me, the receptionist and the housekeeper. I guess that’s everybody until after Spring break-up. Excellent food; not sure, didn’t ask, but certainly fresh! We could quite possibly stay here in Kulusuk until Spring waiting for good weather; after all, it is the North Atlantic at winter’s beginning. So I’m having a good hard look at the weather and judging that the freezing level should stay around 1000’, we go. Perfect as we round the corner and head out to sea. Sun shining, icebergs sparkling and after flying around a few of them for a look-see, we climb for the crossing to Reykjavik. This doesn’t last too long before Sod’s Law kicks in and we are down on the deck again, dodging showers where the freezing level will be on the surface. Don’t want ice on this aircraft ! So here we are, happily battling our way across the Denmark Strait more like a boat than a plane before Bill finally climbs up to circuit height to land in Reykjavik. Job done. The next morning is typically Icelandic except the wind remains calm, which is to say here in Iceland, below b eav er to h e l s i n k i

In good company with icebergs, the flight was conducted for much of its duration at low level visual flight, and the view appears to have been spectacular.

gale force. The weather precludes flight following ATC’s preferred departure routing so we just amble down the coast, around Keflavik airport before following the southern shoreline all the way to Egilsstaoir on the east coast. These small airports suit me very well. No fuss, no administration or security to bother with, everybody is so friendly and we can just get on with

Tomorrow we have 665nm to fly over one of the most inhospitable stretches of salt water on the planet. We’ll see what the day brings. This 11th day of the journey starts well enough, even sunny. Timing is everything today; we will plan to skirt just south of a typical North Atlantic depression; 920mb (27.17”), much deeper than our Pacific lows and remain ahead of its occluded front with

what we have to do. Egilsstaoir is an ideal spot for us being the closest Icelandic airport to Norway, just 2,500 people, a great hotel with wonderful food. Ferry pilot heaven.

its foul weather. We should get a nice push too, maybe even 50kts! It’s a rough old steely grey sea down there, the whitecaps flattened by the really strong southerly winds but the

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temperature is staying around 1º to 2ºC so hopefully the sleet won’t stick. We have around 20 degrees of port drift and a 40kt push which means a full gale of around 60kts out there. No wonder there are no fishing boats in view. This is no place for a Beaver either, or anything for that matter; but after around 450 miles of this nonsense we begin to emerge from the overhanging stratus and are able to leave 500’ and climb to a respectable cruising altitude. Feels quite strange to be flying at 5,000’ above a broken layer in intermittent sunshine after battling the elements at low level. Maybe we can even find a rain shower to wash the salt spray off the aircraft. Landed in Trondheim as the sun was setting. That’s the last leg that could have really held us up owing to bad weather. We choose the airport hotel to save time, it’s the same as every other airport hotel, busy and bland. We wake up to a fine day today so pile in the Beaver once more for the last leg to Helsinki Malmi. Now it seems we are expected to speak on the radio. The ocean is a great place to fly below 1,000’ as I just forget about comms. ATC were really quite easy to get along with once they realised that

we were perfectly happy without them and that there was nothing they could do for us anyway. They became quite used to us during the journey, just assuming that we would pop up on ETA and as we always did, they didn’t bother us at all. But now the Norwegians and Swedes want to chat. As I haven’t a clue how to fly VFR around here I just tell them what I am doing and keep clear of all the military airspace, seems to work. As we approach the Swedish coast at the Gulf of Bothnia, we are going to have to descend once more to silly heights to remain in visual conditions. Too much countryside and too many antenna masts sticking up around here for that so we clamber up to 7,000’ into the sunshine and air-file for the last hour or so into Helsinki. We seemed to get quite a bit of attention; wonder why? ….. maybe they don’t get too many amphib Beavers flying IFR around northern Europe. Solid overcast at Helsinki and we now fly the longest RNAV approach of my life. I keep trying to tell ATC we don’t need a 20 mile final, it’s a Beaver! 5 miles is more than ample! No chance, we are way too far out in left field.

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Arriving in Malmi we are met by half a dozen members of the Finnish amphib flyers club. They have been following our progress on Sealandontheroad.com. Victor and Bill are the centre of attention after this epic journey and spend quite some time chatting happily with everybody. Another small airport where there is not too much attention given to security so all who fancy can wander out to take a look. We even have a couple of inspectors from whatever the local agency is who want to inspect the aircraft and the paperwork. I think they just want to sit in it and chat. Why not? Helsinki is flooded with delegates to a very large convention so after one night in town we move to a Spa hotel an hour outside Helsinki. It is very pretty, on the coast. Victor has had one of his people drive across from

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St Petersburg so we have wheels. I have spent the day with Victor and a now empty, properly weighted aircraft flying around Tuusula lake just north of the city to get used to the handling on the water. Victor is used to his 185 on amphibs so feels quite at home on floats. Tonight we drive into town to eat and talk with some of the floatplane club members; it’s a fine evening. Tomorrow Bill heads home to Campbell River and Victor drives back to St Petersburg. The plan going forward is for Victor to complete the Russian registration process with the aircraft in Finland before ferrying it back to St Petersburg in a month or so. An amphib Beaver on this 4,500 mile journey? Who would have thought! Wouldn’t have missed it for the world…… John Addison, November 2015

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H ELS IN K I AT LAS T!

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s am uel he ar ne didn' t h ave

ge t hom e -itus by Jack Schofield

he recent rash of fires in the vicinity of LaRonge in northern Saskatchewan brought to mind an incident that happened to me during a similar seasonal outbreak in that general area. I was flying a Beaver for a resort situated on Kasba Lake, which is located a few hundred miles north of LaRonge and just a few minutes north of sixty degrees latitude. Good weather had prevailed for a couple of weeks making things lovely for black flies, deer flies and Beaver pilots each operating without electronic navigational aids. I had a callous on my right index finger from following my various paths over this featureless land on a Forest Service map, and was gaining confidence from the number of times I actually arrived where I claimed to be going. Eighty forest fires were going to put an end to that. I have no idea who got out there and counted them, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what I was toldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;80 not 79 and they were all quite small fires as the trees donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t grow too tall north of 60, but something they do is make a lot of smoke .

G ra h am W ard

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The Beaver pictured here and on the previous page is CF-MAS, the ident being originally assigned to Manitoba Air Services. MAS was the first Beaver that famous, Al Beaulieu, converted with what became known as the Kenmore modifications—an alternator replacing the old generator and a small battery on the firewall. This digital painting by Graham Ward depicts MAS as described in the story after landing on a lake where the lodge had established cabins for their guests. Though created from the artist's imagination, the scene is exactly accurate in all details.

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I was heading back from a 150 mile trip to locate five empty fuel drums left on a lake by a helicopter crew some five years earlier. The government approves of these things being picked up and rewards those that do so with a good dollar, so the resort owner had sent me out for the retrieval. When I got there (talk about pin-point navigation) there were four empty 45-gallon drums (204 litres) and one completely full, never opened drum of Jet B. Well, the four empties were easy. I just had to float them out to the airplane, which was sitting on a sand bar 60 feet (18.3 Metres) from shore. Naturally, I swam them

out to the plane in my underwear— doesn’t every Beaver pilot do this? But, the full barrel posed a problem and I had to swim it out (it floated semi submerged), remove the cap and pump the contents up into one of the empties in the Beaver’s cabin, then load the now empty drum up into the Beaver. I was tired, soaking wet, cold and perhaps ill tempered by the time I motored off the sand bar and took off for home camp. We were talking about 80 forest fires. Well, the smoke from these fires was suddenly becoming evident as I augered through the northern skies, carefully retracing my earlier flights from lake-to-lake

over totally unknown country. This is Samuel Hearne’s country—he walked through this land to the Arctic Ocean—walked! I reminded myself of this as I sat there getting warm and cozy behind that 985 in Geoffrey De Havilland’s favourite airplane; reiterating to myself that if that guy could walk through this land what was I doing bellyaching about flying over it without a working compass or an operating ADF. I was hoping that the smoke wouldn’t become denser and obliterate my map reading ability, but those hopes were soon dashed and soon I couldn’t see far enough ahead to identify the lakes I had become so familiar with. As I proceeded, the only lake I could see was the one under me, and not much of that. I held whatever compass reading was showing on the magnetic compass and reset and uncaged the gyro compass to zero and held that heading and kept augering. There wasn’t a hill in ten thousand miles so flying into rising terrain was no problem, but I gradually lost track of exactly where I was and for certain a theoretical time and distance problem was, by this time, beyond the reach of my grey matter, so I started to call for my crayons:

“Base this is MAS. Do you read?” Surprise, surprise. Back came the booming voice of the camp roustabout, who just happened to be walking past the VHF transceiver in the kitchen of the lodge. “Hey, how’re ya doing,” he said, in true Transport Canada radio transmission technique. “I’m lost if that’s what you mean,” I said, “I can’t see ten feet ahead in this smoke. Can you hear me,” I asked. “Yeah, you’re coming through loud and clear,” he replied. “No, I mean can you hear my engine overhead,” I explained, “I must be getting very close.” “Stand by,” he yelled into the mic., “I’ll go outside and listen.” What should have been twenty seconds seemed like an hour before he came back to me. “Only the birds singing out there now, Jack, Ha, Ha.” I was flying at 800 feet (you figure out the meters) and beneath me there was some very mirror-like water of a lake whose shores I couldn’t see. I told my radio friend to tell the boss I was going to sit down somewhere and wait for better conditions. He agreed to do that then told me what was on the dinner menu for tonight, suggesting sam u e l h ear n e

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that I wouldn’t want to miss that. I did a glassy water landing and as I was coming off the step there on the nearby shore were two very familiar little cabins. They were one of the lodge’s outcamps that I had serviced many times. I knew exactly where I was. I did a one-eighty on the water and took off in the same ruts left from the landing, flew over a little saddle of land I knew well, and landed again on my home lake. “Yeah, 84 fires now,” said the camp roustabout. “Oh, that’s what did it,” I said, “those extra 4 fires." It was filet mignon, medium rare with the cook’s home-baked Yukon Golds. ** 108

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In case you were at home the day your grade nine class discussed Samuel Hearne, here’s a quick peek back at who he was and some of his feats. Having lived in that country for three months, I take my hat off to this man as a true Canadian hero

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Samuel Hearne (1745–1792) was an English explorer, fur-trader, author, and naturalist. He was the first European to make an overland excursion across northern Canada to the Arctic Ocean, actually Coronation Gulf, via the Coppermine River. In 1774, Hearne built Cumberland House for the Hudson’s Bay Company, its first interior trading post and the first permanent settlement in present Saskatchewan.

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NORTH STAR T O T HE

RESCUE 111

s tory and il l u s tration by ART C OX

Art Cox

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ircraft figure front and center in much of our worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recent history, and their use by the United Nations is part of that record. I had the privilege of being in the left seat when some very crucial events took place while I was flying for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) No. 426 Transport Squadron, which did a lot of work for the UN My time with 426 Squadron was, undoubtedly, the highlight of my RCAF days. One of my fondest recollections is that of a flight from Kano, Nigeria to Pisa, Italy, when on UN operations; the flight on which I had the pleasure of meeting the United Nations ambassador to the Congo, circa 1961, Mr. George Ivan Smith. Mr. Smith, an Australian, had had an illustrious career as a radio broadcaster, war correspondent, movie director, diplomat, poet and author prior to his joining the United Nations. When he joined the UN in 1947 he became closely associated with Dr. Ralph Bunche and, subsequently, Secretary General Trygve Lie. He was instrumental in creating the armistice ending the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict and, during the Suez Crisis, became directly involved in salvage operations, assisting U.S. companies assigned the task of reopening the Canal. He later came to the Congo at the request of Dag Hammerskjold to assume the post of official representative of the UN to Katanga. It was while serving in this capacity that he and his colleague, Sir Brian Uruquart, were kidnapped and severely beaten up by a group of unsympathetic paratroopers. The incident was witnessed by U.S. senator Thomas Dodd who happened to be visiting Moise Tshombe at the time. One of the State Department aides, a Lewis Hoffacker, intervened and, with the help of an Indian peacekeeping unit, managed to get Mr. Smith out of the back of a lorry and smuggled to Leopoldville and safety where it was arranged to have him flown back to the UK. Fortunately, Sir Brian was rescued as well. The flight organized for Mr. Smith was on one of our North Stars operating from Leopoldville (Kinshasa) to Pisa, with enroute stops in Kano and Tripoli. Myself and crew were slated to operate the

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Opposite pages: There were so many Rolls Royce Merlin engines left over from wartime production that Canadair decided to use them with their DC4 fuselages. They called it the North Star and the aircraft became the mainstay of Trans Canada Airlines (now Air Canada) and Britain's BOAC who called it the Argonaut. The "Noisy Star" as it was dubbed was hard on the ears but performed yeoman service for years until the advent of the jets put it out to pasture. The RCAF Transport division had several of these aircraft in service.

Kano – Tripoli – Pisa sector. For those readers who may not be familiar with the machine, 426 Squadron’s aircraft were Canadair Fours, commonly known as North Stars. A derivative of Douglas’s DC4/6 series, the airframes were purchased as war surplus from the US government after WWII. The notable difference between the original series and the North Star was the choice of power plant opted for by the Canadian government. Although the US machines were equipped with the ever popular Pratt and Whitney or Wright engines, as with the airframes there was also a surfeit of Rolls Royce units on the market. After a considerable amount of research, debating the pros and cons of radial versus inline, a favourable deal was struck with the British manufacturer and the aircraft were fitted with R.R. Merlins. This decision would brand the North Star for the rest of its life due the noise factor of the Merlins. Also, the squadron aircraft had none of the typical accommodations of the airliner versions, which catered to passenger comfort. They consisted of web seating lining each side of the cabin. Passengers faced inward and were afforded a scintillating view of cargo strapped to the floor down the

center aisle. As we naturally wanted to make Mr. Smith as comfortable as we could, given that he was still recuperating from his traumatic experience, we invited him to sit in the crew rest area just behind the flight deck, which was fitted out with four airline-style seats and a bunk. About three hours out of Kano Mr. Smith came forward and sat in the flight engineer’s seat between myself and the first officer, who was back in the bunk on his break. Our departure had been in the early hours of the morning and now a beautiful dawn was slowly beginning to break in the east, creating an absolutely breathtaking vista; a multi-hued desert of awe-inspiring beauty. The three of us watched in silence as the scene unfolded, wrapped up in our individual thoughts, continuing like this for some fifteen or twenty minutes. Eventually the Ambassador broke the silence. “I envy you”, he said. That was all, nothing more. The remark was directed to neither of us in particular but to the world in general. I thought about it for a while before I realized exactly what he meant. Here was a man who had spent the best part of a lifetime in the public eye, rubbing elbows with n ort h star to t h e resc u e

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Mr. George Ivan Smith (left). Mr. Smith, an Australian, had an illustrious career as a radio broadcaster, war correspondent, movie director, diplomat, poet and author prior to his joining the United Nations. When he joined the UN in 1947 he became closely associated with Dr. Ralph Bunche and, subsequently, Secretary General Trygve Lie. He was instrumental in creating the armistice ending the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.

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some of the most distinguished and influential names on the planet. His life experiences would fill volumes; a true emissary devoted to improving the lives of the world's impoverished, more than once at risk of losing his own. Yet his appreciation of the aesthetic values of this troubled earth never waivered, never faltered. There have been many times since that night when Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve thought about Mr. Smith. After the Congo he was appointed personal representative to Secretary General U Thant as well as filling other assignments. In later life he returned to Africa as a visiting professor,

lecturing at various venues. Finally, he again became Director of United Nations Office London England as well as devoting time and effort to the problems of nuclear proliferation and acting as a consultant to various international companies. In retirement he wrote Ghosts of Kampala, a biography of Idi Amin. He was awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia by Queen Elizabeth for service to International Relations and his collection of photographs; letters and papers have been donated to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxfordâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;A fitting legacy to a truly remarkable man

Previous page: Dag Hammarskjรถld (bottom right) was a Swedish diplomat, economist, and author who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. At the age of 47 years upon his appointment, Hammarskjรถld was the youngest to have held the post. Additionally, he is one of only four people to be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize and was the only United Nations SecretaryGeneral to die while in office. He was killed in a Douglas DC-6 airplane crash en route to a cease fire negotiation.

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The RCAF North Star transport piloted by Art Cox photographed at Idris airstrip just before Smith came aboard; the statesman having just been released by his captors.

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hen Queen Charlotte Airlines took delivery of four Stranraer flying boats from the War Surplus Disposal Agency following the Second World War, they found that the old, rag wing reconnaissance biplane had been fitted with a crew relief system that consisted of a through-hull fitting connected to a flexible rubber tube with a funnel attached suited for the use by the all male crews of the day. The outlet for this system was located on the hull below the water line and a placard was prominently displayed warning crew members to hang up the funnel on the little hook provided. The airline decided to retain this system for their passengers flying up the coast of British Columbia in this 1935 designed airplane. They installed a shower curtain around the seat associated with the relief tube and passengers, faced with long hours in this 90 mile an hour airplane, would be forced to reluctantly use this archaic system. No one ever figured out how the ladies did it, but it became standard procedure for years, on flights up the coast until, whoops, somebody forgot to hang up the funnel and the aircraft took on water through the relief system and was found like this in the morning.

Photo courtesy: Paul Harraway

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ehind the Twin Otter’s cockpit, passengers peered outside and then at each other as ice slammed against the fuselage. At least we knew the propeller de-icers worked and so did windshield heat when Sept Ilés’s runway took shape in the gloom. At that particular moment, memories of a long ago ride in a world a helluva lot warmer than the north shore of Quebec’s wintertime Gulf of St. Lawrence flashed through my mind. A contract in the war-weary Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had provided plenty of experience running from mega-thunderstorms and tree-snapping gales. In the country’s capital of Kinshasa, Belgian-born pilot Jean-Marie Nicoise stepped outside his compound house to confront a rare and exceptionally clear sky and light winds. During my duty-free time, he invited me to ride along as a passenger on an aerial promenade to a timestopped community called Vanga, 191nm east of the city. Our employer—Air Serv International—had been involved in humanitarian endeavours since 1985 and at the time of my sojourn, occupied space in a spider-infested hangar at N’Dolo airport on the city’s outskirts. The flight would take place

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Previous page: This Cessna 208B Caravan is owned and operated by Air Serv International, providing essential supply and transportation services and bringing to Congo villagers some relief from their precarious life style. 120

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in an American-registered Cessna 208B Caravan during a time when my usual airplane moved UNHCR representatives to another part of the country. As we forced our company quatre-quatre (four wheel drive vehicle) across the garbage-covered tarmac and clanged against rock-hard termite mounds, Nicoise explained that our passengers would be members of an Academy of Educational Development from Washington, D.C. While children chased chickens nesting beside the hangar or played games with rolled up millipede carcasses, consultants Laura Drewett and Miel Hendrickson explained that they intended remaining in Vanga (Pop: 3,000) to organize a community school. The Caravan’s manifest showed 1,465lb of pencils, blackboards and various educational supplies, as well as rice bags and 1,400lb of fuel. As loaders stuffed the airplane, I could still not absorb the fact that rain and lightning from daily thunderstorms had not already assaulted the region. Limp laundry owned by workers’ families hung from cement walls close to the hangar and nothing more than slight whispers of wind fanned abandoned Douglas DC-3s carcasses lying in laterite mud bordering an

access path. Lizards loved them and occasionally snakes slithered out and scorpions pranced toward unsuspecting fat-bellied ants to sneak a snack. Powered by a 675shp Pratt & Whitney PT6A-114A, the Caravan handled 1,026nm at 10,000ft with 2224.4lb wing tanks topped. The cabin extended 16.8ft and had a 4.3ft height partnered with a 5.2ft width. Tent poles, seed sacks and steam-heated autoclaves often rode along as well as demobilized child soldiers who never smiled. Although the Kansas-based designers believed their Wichitawonder performed short field, no one expected Caravans to match de Havilland STOL products back in Canada’s ice cube country. Nevertheless, the flight manual specified the aircraft could lift off through African heat waves at 71kt on standard days in 1,365ft with 20 degree flap. A quiet airport, N’Dolo’s tower expected pilots to request permission to start and Nicoise made the call. No stranger to the misnamed “repellent continent,” the 44-year-old had logged his time on types from Cessna 172s to Boeing 707s since commencing flying training in 1989. Most of his accidentfree background came from places like the DRC and, now, he knew every

Miel Hendrickson and Laura Drewett remained in the village of Vanga on behalf of the U.S. based Academy for Educational Development. Both women accepted the primitive living conditions in order to perform their work. 121

pot-holed trail and rock-sided valley outside of Kinshasa. Like most Air Serv staff, he had walked overcrowded refugee camps and medevac’d gunshot victims, burn cases or malaria-struck aid workers in every weather situation Africa could devise. Start approval included clearance to a proposed 9,000ft cruise altitude filed by dispatcher Fernand Mupemba in the downtown Air Serv office. The tropical dry morning 38⁰C appeared to amplify the engine’s exhaust fumes as Nicoise moved toward Runway 08. The route to take off included passage

along a rutted taxiway narrow enough to keep the Caravan’s 11ft 8in wheel base hidden in hub-deep grass from which tiny sparrow-like birds scattered under the three-blade Hartzell meat slicer. A Short SC-7 Skyvan held before trundling airborne in a cloud of cassava cuttings left by a group of sandal-wearing women labouring with hoes and hand-made iron shovels. The 3,609ft x 65.7ft runway happened to be infamous in international aviation. From this non-descript weathered asphalt, an overloaded Russian-built Antonov An-32B overo v er t h e po n d

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Following page: These villager live in a nation where the armies of at least seven countries have fought each other. Human rights activists undergo abduction, torture and murder and epidemics of sexual violence still occur despite so-called peace accords.

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ran the threshold into an open air market dense with innocent shoppers. The crew and 237 Congolese lost their lives. As a result, safety experts mandated that all take-offs take place toward the Congo River regardless of wind direction. Luckily for us, the almost nil breeze would not hinder the Caravan. Besides, gross weight fell 180 lb below the maximum 9,062 lb take-off gross weight. Not quite new with 9,268 hours airframe time, the airplane received excellent maintenance. Aimed toward the rapid-filled white water river, Nicoise paused for several women balancing banana bunches and yellow water jugs on their heads to walk clear. On the roll, the tubular spring steel landing gear arrangement tracked straight along one of the roughest surfaces I had ever experienced. Thud after thud travelled into our seats, wingtips flexed, and the tiny instrument needles Cessna used to save space and increase revenue vibrated to the point of unreadability. The banana ladies and some goats became blurs as we anticipated the 75kt rotation speed. When the oil-filled shock absorbing nosewheel lifted, a trio of snowy egrets exploded from the grass and banked steeply right.

Vertical speed indicated 500 fpm as Nicoise intercepted the 047° radial of nearby Kinshasa D’Djili International Airport. Instructed to switch to 119.7 by N’Dolo, he heard another controller warning of traffic and levelled at 2,000 feet. I looked from the right front passenger seat and watched a fabric-covered Antonov An-2 following the shoreline. Like most Russiandeveloped transports, the big pistonpowered biplane emitted a long trail of black smoke which settled into the river before dissipating. Through 2,000 ft, Nicoise resumed climb while I watched boat traffic on the river’s Malebo Pool. On claustrophobic ferries so tightly packed, passengers could barely maintain their balance. Nearby, odd-shaped freight barges precariously loaded with fuel tanks thrashing through the brown water became tiny figures on the 2,922 mile waterway. To the east, I saw the tall buildings of Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo unaware that in days to come, I would be flying survey-equipped Caravans in that peaceful country for another company. A safer nation, I would walk many miles alone day and night from one cultural refreshment to the next without harm. Doing the same in Kinshasa meant asking for trouble.

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Automatic pilot engaged, Nicoise recorded departure in the navigation log as we plodded towards a low frequency beacon coded “OK” on a Flitestar-printed chart. Drewett and Hendrickson watched the singleslotted flaps retract and airspeed slip to 115 knots. We all felt the change in propeller pitch and heard another controller order Nicoise to “report for estimates” for waypoint Ulvas, 84nm from Kinshasa. Acknowledging while simultaneously adjusting elevator trim, Nicoise switched off landing lights to lessen load on the aircraft’s 24V electrical system. At 9,000 feet, air remained smooth and the Bendix radar indicated an amazing lack of thunderstorm activity. Scattered low cumulus hardly hindered our view of maize and millet fields along the route. Indicated cruise averaged 132kt with the Garmin GNS 450 showing 145kt groundspeed. A heading change to 092° kept us on track and Nicoise‘s 1,800rpm and 1,400ft/lb power settings produced a 310pph fuel burn and kept ITT (Interstage Turbine Temperature) below the 715°C company approved maximum. With enough Congo weather knowledge to keep me worrying, I nervously scanned for build-ups

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With arm rests down and air conditioning whistling through side vents, I scrutinized the plateaux and placid minor rivers emanating nothing except tranquillity. We knew, however, that more than five million people had died from massacre, famine and malnutrition within ten years in the corrupt Democratic Republic of Congo. Peace between warring factions actually broke out in 2003; yet, depraved rebels and bandits disregarded United Nations peacekeepers and continued murdering, raping or burning. Air Serv pilots never became apathetic to horrors the outside world worked hard to ignore. Although no airplanes crossed our path, we heard others servicing the Congo. Some recognized Nicoise’s voice and rambled on about the day’s excellent conditions. French and Russian accents dominated and I was surprised when a chartered Finnair Airbus 350 filed for Agadir, Morocco, joined the conversation. A South African Airways Boeing 747 bound for Heathrow wished everyone well. No question— the fraternity aloft appreciated space empty of tropical thunderstorms. Nicoise interrupted my reverie by reporting position by HF to Air Serv’s “Charlie Bravo Base” in Kinshasa.

Hendrickson leaned forward to ask about smoke columns rising almost to our altitude. Farmers seasonally burned fields and forest plots and in dry times, the reduced visibility forced pilots to fly on instruments. As orange digital minutes to Vanga ticked by on the GPS, more tobacco fields took form and occasionally, slime-like silver streams snaked toward the Congo River. Familiar with the Sahara Desert further north, I appreciated the Congo’s sun-deepened colours and “delirious burning blue” of our temporary aeronautical paradise. Sixteen minutes from landing, Nicoise checked the airstrip data page. Although few aircraft visited the 3,609ft x 66ft grass surface, he broadcasted his intentions before retarding engine power and descending at 500fpm. Smoke passing through our path wafted burned wood and baked earth odours into the airplane. The flight plan brought us to the limits of the world’s second largest tropical rainforest where jungle trees looking like giant green crayons bordered on flat savannah. During the turn, we noticed thin stratus drifting toward Vanga. The malt-coloured Kwilu River contrasted with darker banks attritioned by eons of flowing silt. At

120kt, Nicoise selected 10° flap on base leg before turning final. A pair of grey-grained paddled boats slipping from a shoreline left swirls of foaming water. With full flap, 85kt and propeller pitch full forward, the Caravan’s wheels gently impinged the newly cut grass before settling solidly with a mere touch of the single disc brakes. Moments later, Nicoise parked beside Mission Aviation Fellowship’s hangar. By the time the propeller stopped, the flight had taken one hour and 15 minutes. Colourfully dressed Congolese families who rarely saw whites except resident missionaries and transient medical staff streamed out from leaf-roofed huts to get a close look at the sleek Caravan. A century before, their ancestors had been known for cannibalism but thankfully, their culinary propensities changed long ago. Besides, thin-framed bodies like mine would nourish no one and the well-cured flesh from a bald-headed old Canadian would likely break some teeth. . As doors clicked against their metal stops, three Direction Generale de Migration agents approached. Thinking the usual, since their colleagues elsewhere controlled everything and everyone o v er t h e po n d

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with government approved authority to extract bribes or “fees,” I waited. To my astonishment, they only asked for journaux or newspapers and a small crowd under the wings pitched in to transfer the load through the Caravan’s two-part left rear cargo door into a waiting truck. The villagers of Vanga knew that Academy of Educational Development volunteers did not exploit; they came to help guide them toward better lives. Aid workers toiled relentlessly in what African experts considered a period of “economic retrogression” caused by wars and internal unrest. With the Caravan’s interior empty, except for hawk-size hornets clattering against the plexiglass windshield, we watched the locals disperse to their homes. As Nicoise eased the fuel lever forward to start the Pratt & Whitney, I reflected on how few people understood the logistics of a simple flight to Vanga. The country supported less than 300 miles of paved highways plagued by checkpoints where soldiers demanded bribes to lift a rope across a public road and police never protected— they extorted. The Congo River provided transportation but paddle power sufficed only for short trips.

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The thin cloud we’d seen before landing had drifted overhead and muted the greens of mango trees surrounding the community. Nicoise re-programmed the GNS 430 for Kinshasa and minutes later, little boys and girls at the airstrip’s end watched the Caravan’s undersurface fade in the climb to 10,000 feet. Relaxed and sipping “sweet water” or bottled water, I watched for wildlife but Nicoise reminded me how war, drought and land clearing frightened away iconic game animals like elephants. Bush meat hunters once thrived but they, too, found little nourishment among the dense hardwood trees. My consolation came by spotting brilliant red flame trees poking bone-white branches through forest canopies. While Nicoise passed departure time to Charlie Bravo Base, I recalled how explorer Henry M. Stanley’s penetrated what he called the “land of quick darks”. His books described encounters with spear-chucking warriors before he staggered ashore at Malebo Pool on his way to the Atlantic coastline. Relieved that no thunderstorms appeared when Nicoise scrolled through several distance scales on the radar, we noticed colossal clouds of vertical

Belgium born pilot, Jean-Marie Nicoise has a logbook full of experience on everything from Cessna 172s to Boeing 707s. Pictured here loading educational equipment; pencils, blackboards and scribblers for school children in the village of Vanga. In this "land of quick darks," he operates a very sophisticated airplane in a huge country that has less than 300 miles of paved road and even fewer paved runways.

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development on both sides of track. The ride became a series of gentle oscillations; at least a tailwind brought on a 163kt groundspeed. Aviation writer Ernest Gann wrote that an airplane “…consisted of a labyrinth of electrics and hydraulics in a mechanical combination…” and here we were, smug with confidence knowing Caravans had been proven reliable in most African countries. Nearing Kinshasa, radio chatter

increased as controllers dealt with traffic of all sizes and altitudes moving to specific navigational points. At 67 miles, ATC granted Nicoise approval to descend in stages to 6,000 feet. Vehicle exhaust and burning garbage throwing up yellow smog confirmed city in sight. Eight million residents existed in districts cut by trafficchoked paths and toilet trenches. Some Congolese cultivated vegetable plots along the fringes and these tiny o v er t h e po n d

green patches could mean life or death for the ultra-poor. An Ilyushin Il-76 cargo jet lifted off N’Djili’s 15,420ft runway and seconds later, an Air France Airbus 340 followed in climb for Paris. A landing Czech-built Let 410 became the only traffic for N’Dolo as Nicoise followed controller edicts to a beacon. He knew its location well and didn’t bother tuning the frequency. He called “over the pool” before switching to N’Dolo’s tower for landing clearance on Runway 26. On final, I saw freight boats jostling for dock space along the slime-thick shoreline and sewers choked by human crap drifted stinks into the atmosphere. Nicoise applied full flap, eased in propeller pitch and placed the inertial separator into “Bypass Mode” via a T-handle protruding from the instrument panel to stop debris entering the compressor air inlet plenum. The blades of an idling military Mi-24 helicopter gunship on our right side reflected a flash of sunlight and nearby, dilapidated wooden carts rocked in the rotor wash against an abandoned bus. This time, N’Dolo’s egrets stayed in the grass. In spite of heat-damaged asphalt, we barely felt contact when

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the wheels took the load. Nicoise shortened the run with a few loud seconds of reverse thrust. At the Air Serv hangar, wood scraps and rotted cardboard flew behind the tail while Nicoise waited for engine temperature to stabilize before bringing fuel condition lever back to mark the end of an enjoyable day. It wasn’t often I rode as a passenger under the aegis of a virtuoso pilot. Stepping onto the sun-shrivelled grass, I noticed how passersby used whatever spot happened to be handy to discharge their bodily wastes. Pedestrians crossing the airstrip to access a fish market listlessly stared straight ahead and probably long ago became immune to squalor. Nicoise secured the flight controls and a helper came forward to carry my flight bag for which I said Matundi mingi (Lingala: Thank you) before we pushed the Caravan into the hangar. Tomorrow, I would crew a Beechcraft King Air 200 to another location not far from Vanga. That evening, sense-shattering cascades of rain returned to Kinshasa and police whistles gave way to lightning smashing into roof tops. Hysterical winds overwhelmed the click of high heels belonging to the city’s Tyra

Chances are that the late dictator of the Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko who instigated the murder of thousands of Congolese, never saw the village of Vanga. The current president of the country, Joseph Kabila Kabange has not set foot there either.

Banks look-alikes. Stepping carefully to avoid drowned lizards on my way to invest in a cool Castel beer, I did not know that Air Serv would soon discard me like a donkey in the desert. Four accident/incident-free contracts with them meant nothingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;I reached the magic age when future queries for further humanitarian employment would be ignored. I ceased to exist. They never again showed the courtesy of a reply.

Confined to tranquil Canada, my flying future included the inside of an ice-covered DHC-6 Twin Otter in terrain where outside temperatures reached -41C. Good people, good airplane, no cockroaches, snakes or scorpions and family close byâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;all okay. I still miss the Democratic Republic of Congo. Robert S. Grant 129

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NEAR MISS F r o m Art C ox' s fl igh t deck

ear misses happen. Fortunately not too often and, in most cases, without disastrous results. Most often they can be forgiven. After all, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re only human. What is unforgivable is the intent to gloss over, or cover up, occurrences in the name of national security, that trite phrase that acts as an excuse to metaphorically sweep something under the carpet

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he following is an actual account of an incident which took place over Lake Michigan in the early part of 1988. It happened to myself and crew while on descent into Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, at the end of a long flight from Vienna. As it turned out it was just another near miss. What is interesting is how it was brushed aside without any follow-up. To elaborate on this point I’ve cited the TWA 800 tragedy which has finally come to light again as the investigation is being reopened. I’ve concluded with two other cases involving error of judgment, if you will, which resulted in total loss of life. I’ve structured my text in story-like fashion simply for ease of reading. “Look!” The First Officer twisted in his seat, pointing at something passing on the starboard side of the aircraft. Behind him the Flight Engineer uttered an exclamation. “Holy....!” He broke off. “What is it?” I asked, diverting my attention momentarily from the instrument panel to address the situation on my right. We were nearing the end of a ten-hour flight from Vienna to Chicago’s O’Hare International airport. We’d begun our ‘reentry’ some fifteen minutes previously from thirty-

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nine thousand feet and were now over the middle of Lake Michigan, descending through the mid-twenties. With only a high thin overcast above and good visibility all round, the three of us were on the alert, watching for traffic as we approached the heavily congested Chicago area. “Something went by us...close.... TOO close!” I glanced back at the Flight Engineer. He nodded in agreement, adding “It looked like someth.....like a missile, or something”. “A missile?” I asked, in disbelief. “A missile? What kind of missile? I mean... what exactly did it look like?” I was convinced that they’d seen something, perhaps a bizjet or other small aircraft, but not a missile certainly...it couldn’t be! The First Officer went on. “It looked to be about three or four metres long, round...like a large piece of pipe....and dark in colour”. I was still skeptical until he added “....and it had some kind of military markings.....numbers and letters...and passed by very close!” An affirmative nod from the third seat convinced me they weren’t making it up, but had actually seen a genuine foreign object. This was serious stuff.

On July 17th 1996 TWA's Paris bound Flight 800 exploded minutes after takeoff from New York's JFK international airport killing all 230 people aboard. Official reports on the cause were at odds with 375 eye-witness accounts of a missile seen to strike the aircraft. FBI reports stated that no ships were present capable of shooting down the plane, but later 3 US Navy ships were reported to have been performing maneuvers in the local waters one of which, was the submarine, "Seawolf" doing its initial sea trials.

“You have to be quite sure about this” I cautioned, fixing them with a long stare. “We’ll have to let the authorities know.” Already I could envisage the catcalls that would ensue when I reported seeing a UFO! But I had no choice. Although highly unlikely, one couldn’t discount the prospect that

is Royal Jordanian 263” “Go ahead, 263” I took a deep breath. “Yes, are you painting any unusual targets in our area?” “What sort of target?” I proceeded to relate what happened as best I could, based on the

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some stray projectile had, presumably by accident, been fired off from one of the many military installations in the area. Again I looked at the other two. Their unwavering expressions left no doubt in my mind. I picked up the mike. “Chicago, this

information of my colleagues. There was a lengthy pause, then a reply. “Negative on the UFOs, 263. Can you confirm?” From the inflection in the controller’s tone I gathered that he thought I n ear m i ss

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Pierre Salinger, former press secretary for president John F. Kennedy, reported that TWA 800 had been accidentally shot down by a US Navy ship doing sea trials in the area at the time. The FBI denied the journalist's statement and that of over 300 witnesses and caused persecution of Salinger for his statement. Much later, the so-called conspiracy theory gained credence when some accident investigators agreed with Salinger's claim and reconstruction of the aircraft also indicated that a missile had been involved.

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came from another planet. I repeated. “Something passed by us within a hundred yards or so....from west to east on our starboard, and slightly below. It appeared to be some sort of missile.” Predictably this prompted remarks from one or two other aircraft. “Maybe you guys oughta go on oxygen!” and “Clean the bugs off your windscreen!” This last remark wasn’t entirely without merit. More than once an errant insect crawling across the windscreen has led to the initiation of evasive action. When seen out of the corner of one’s eye a mobile bug can present the very real impression of a moving target. Hence the reason that airline flying has been described as ‘hours and hours of boredom....interspersed with moments of stark terror’. But I stuck to my guns. “It definitely

wasn’t another aircraft”. ATC responded. “Roger, 263. Your remarks have been recorded. Call the tower when you get on the ground”. He then furnished me with a number. I was satisfied that this would lead to an investigation, but I was mistaken. I rang the number I’d been given from the terminal. After identifying myself and why I was calling I was put on hold. Moments later a patronizing voice came on the line. “Yes, Captain, we have your report on tape and we’ll look into the matter. Oh, and you might want to take this up with our UFO branch in Minneapolis. Thanks for your call.” I had the very distinct impression I was being given the brush-off. It was obvious that the enthusiasm generated by our report was somewhat akin to that of watching paint dry. I placed the call to Minneapolis and reiterated the incident to an equally disinterested body, all the

The TWA 747 was officially reported as having blown up 12 minutes after takeoff from New York's JFK airport. The cause was given as a defective circuit of wiring associated with the fuel tank, a statement refuted by the pilot who had flown the aircraft on the previous flight. Such a cause would normally result in an air worthiness directive to ground every 747 in the world until some specific maintenance examination had taken place. However, this didn't happen, adding fuel to the so-called conspiracy theory of the plane being blown out of the sky by a sea-toair missile.

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while feeling as if I was encroaching on his time. As it turned out it was the last communication I had with anyone on the subject. Eventually all three of us came to the logical conclusion that the issue had been very quietly dropped - swept under the carpet, as it were; ostensibly for security reasons seeing no harm had been done. The ‘no names, no pack drill’ syndrome. On July 17, 1996 TWA’s flight 800 crashed off the south coast of Long Island shortly after taking off from New York’s JFK airport, ripped apart

by an on-board explosion. There was a great deal of speculation as to the cause of such a disaster, including the “extremely unlikely” hypothesis that it may have been struck by a missile. Washington and military authorities vigorously denounced any such suggestion as being ridiculous; vehemently reassuring the public that it would be utterly impossible for a warhead, or anything else of that nature, to go astray. Investigators from the Accident Investigation Branch carried out a thoroughly exhaustive scrutiny of n ear m i ss

the wreckage, eventually pin-pointing the empty centre fuel tank as the source of the problem. It was determined that an errant spark ignited fumes in the tank, located in the belly of the B747, thus setting off the blast. End of story. Despite various theories to the contrary, the AIB investigators were adamant that the evidence they found supported their conclusions and, curiously, the powers that be were very quick to dismiss the missile theory. Contrary to their inflexible position on the matter case histories from the past suggest that, whenever an aircraft falls from the sky for any bizarre reason, no stone should be left unturned to determine the cause. In the early eighties a Gulf Air Boeing 737, over the Arabian Gulf near Qatar, was hit and brought down by a rocket mistakenly triggered off during a military exercise, killing all on board. The incident was effectively covered up and no details were ever brought to light. In July, 1988, an Iran Air AirBus,

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on a short flight from Bandar Abbas to Dubai, met a similar fate. While crossing the Gulf it was targeted by a U.S. warship, misidentified, and dispatched; again, with total loss of life: the difference being that this time there was a full investigation. I cite these two instances merely as examples of occasions where things went horribly wrong; to contrast any argument which would imply that ground to air defense systems are foolproof. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not. There is always the human element. In the former it was the inadvertent push of a button. In the latter, failure to positively identify the target. Whatever the reason, in the final analysis the consequences were the same. There have been others, not to mention my own experience, all pointing out the fact that mistakes can happen. Thankfully not very often, or with disastrous results; but to turn a blind eye, or deny that they could happen at all, in the face of clear-cut evidence to the contrary, is absurd. An absurdity we can live without.

USS Seawolf missile shot down TWA 800 According to a senior member of the staff of then-Secretary of the Navy John Dalton, the test firing of a new generation Navy missile from the submarine USS Seawolf accidentally struck TWA flight 800 en route from New York to Paris on July 17, 1996. According to the former Navy official, the missile test was so important for the Clinton administration, it was being shown live on a Navy closed-circuit television feed at the White House. The Seawolf's missile was to have struck a drone reportedly being towed by a Navy P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft. However, to the horror of the Navy personnel involved with the test and senior White House staff gathered to witness the missile's successful launching, it veered off course and intercepted the TWA 800 Boeing 747, killing the 230 passengers and crew on board the aircraft.

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TEARDROPS for the B O ATS

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JA C K SC HOFIELD

tea r dr ops for t he b oats "wo uld y o u c a re for a nigh tcap m' l ord?" "ho no lul u at s ix bel l s s u h."

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t had to be the most romantic era in aviation: when Boeing and Martin flying boats in the livery of Pan American Airlines flew the Pacific routes out of ‘Frisco to Hawaii and across the North Atlantic to Lisbon and Marseilles. This “Yankee Clipper,” service as it was known, was conceived first in the UK by British Overseas Airlines (BOAC) with their Empire class flying boats—the origins of the military version that was to be named the, “Sunderland”—operating from Portsmouth, England to such romantic ports of call as Bombay, Calcutta, China and destinations in the Middle East.

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Aboard these four engine giants— both Pan Am and BOAC— passengers were afforded a level of service never before or since provided by an airline. Competing with the great steamship lines of the day: Cunard White Star and the P&O Line, the fledgling airlines boasted of short duration flights, and the glamour and convenience of travel by air. They bolstered the glamour department with wonderful posters advertising their services to exotic destinations and were quick to use the appearance of stars of the silver screen to promote their services. Indeed, as

war clouds appeared on the horizon, a then famous movie star, Leslie Howard (Gone with the Wind), was one of the passengers killed when a BOAC Empire flying boat was shot down by a German Messerschmitt when that flying boat was departing Gibraltar. Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s discount carriers would have been a joke back in the flying boat era: Bunks similar to those on the Pullman cars of the railways were provided to each passenger. Flights in those days were many hours or even days aloft. Arriving, refreshed from a nights sleep over the Pacific, one could honestly From this to a bag of peanuts and 30 inches of foot room. A crew of 10 flew and attended to 74 passengers in the Boeing and Martin Clipper ships during the heyday of the flying boat.

claim to have slept with the stars. Of course you would have to be a member of the 1% to afford the price of admission, and the likes of thee and me were left to dream over the posters. During the Second World War, the U.S. Navy initiated flights to Hawaii with the famous Martin Mars flying boats, which became the daddy of them all during the Pacific war. Those six Mars plied between the U.S. and the South Pacific on a regular basis carrying troops and supplies in and the war-wounded out.

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uppe r o r l owerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;you r choice teardrops f or t h e b oats

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Britsh Overseas Airways Corp'n (BOAC) flew the Empire class flying boats later to be known as the Sunderland, which was employed during WWII as a coastal reconnaissance aircraft. Pre-war passengers enjoyed a comfort similar to Pan Am's service and it was widely recognized that flying boats were the future of civil aviation based on the theory that 60% of the earth was covered with water. The jet engine put an end to this theory and huge amounts of real estate became dedicated to ever-lengthening runways while flying boats became considered as something of an oddity

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They did so for the duration of the Pacific war without a single accident or incident and became legendary for their service. An interesting feature of this wartime service was the tradition of the highest-ranking officer aboard the Mars being required to assume the job of chief steward. Wounded doughboys returning Stateside were amazed to be waited upon by Admirals of the fleet and Generals of the army—somebody should get the congressional medal for enforcing that tradition!

ent owner, Wayne Coulson, of Port Alberni, BC, is doing the restoration and figures it will be ready to fly home in April of next year. The sister ship, Hawaii Mars, will soldier on in service as a water bomber for the Coulson Group of Companies in Port Alberni, BC. Oh, back to the cold war—guess what the Sunderland flying boats were hauling into Berlin? And where were they landing? They carried tons of salt—Windsor brand packaged salt

One of the two remaining airworthy Mars flying boats, the Philippine Mars has been recently restored to its US Navy configuration complete in olive drab paint, and will fly back to its original home to become a much revered static display. The pres-

from Canada, if you can believe it, and were landing on the lakes near Berlin where their cargo was off loaded onto small boats and taken ashore. The Sunderlands then took on children from the children's hospitals, flying them back to safe treatment in the Western sector.

That salt flown into blockaded Berlin aboard those Sunderlands had long been advertised with a little kid in a raincoat standing under an umbrella to boast of the “free-flowing” quality of the stuff from Canada, and now it was free flowing into Soviet blockaded Berlin—a fitting end for the storybook era when flying boats were king. A much sadder ending took place for Pan American's Boeing Clipper service: During the last few months of peace before the Japanese attack on

Pearl Harbour, a Clipper ship landed at the island of Truk in the Pacific where it was apprehended by Japanese military personnel. The crew and passengers were executed and the four Pratt & Whitney radial engines were removed from the aircraft. The aircraft was then towed out to deep water and sunk. The engines were sent back to Japan to be copied and their design used in many of the Japanese Second World War bombers. and fighter aircraft.

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BE E C H 1 8 VERSUS

NO R TH S TAR

BEEC H - 0 NORT H STAR -1

in wh ich a fl edgl ing ai rl ine pil ot and a s eas on e d figh ter pil ot l earn fo r whom the bel l tol l s by

jim griffith captain air canada (retired)

Art Cox

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BE E C H 1 8 v er s us NOR TH S TAR 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, the Witchita Ice Machine and especially to navigation students as the Vomit Comet. The Canadair North Star was tagged with only one moniker—the Noisy Star, by reason of those four Rolls Royce Merlins.

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was reminded recently of an escapade in June 1958 involving two Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) pilots. The Saskatoon base at that time was a conversion unit where single-engine RCAF pilots converted to multi-engine aircraft. It included those of limited flying experience who had just finished basic training and 'sword' pilots returning from Europe. As it happened a fresh faced, newly winged, novice was paired up with a 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. 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 aspirations… to be an airline pilot. 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 multinight rating, our lads thought they were finished for the night. Little did they know the 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?”

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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. 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. 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 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 under carriage 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 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 b eec h

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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: (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.

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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. 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 dust-covered 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

The North Star, built by the then government owned Canadair, was a controversial airplane for politicians. They were either for or against the idea of powering a DC-4 fuselage with Rolls Royce Merlins rather than the traditional P&W radials. Not knowing what they were talking about never bothered members of either party so they battled it out in the House while the North Star went on to create a legacy of outstanding service world-wide with Trans Canada Airlines, BOAC and the RCAF along with several other air forces in the world. It was noisy. Several attempts were made to make it quieter, but cross-over exhaust systems did little to save the ears of passengers or crew. Hearing aids, in their old age would be the fate of crew members.

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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!”

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Startled into action the controller hit the crash button and simultaneously 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.

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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 worked 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 Airlines 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 magazine of course 5701 way back when. It was the predictor of his life. Our Air Force equivalent to a High School annual had this to say about the graduating sprog:

GRIFFITH J.W. “Would you touch a nettle and not be stung?” Jim arrived at QF about a month after the rest of the course. He soon made his mark, however by embracing 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, and the next time. Who or what comes under your next fire, Jim? Little did the course scribe know how preternaturally accurate his prediction would turn out to be.

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We had a freshly painted airplane fitted with the latest electronics and a beautiful sunny day and magnificent country to fly in. What could possibly go wrong?

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a ka ta bat ic adv entur e o r ho w t he pil ot' s s eat cu s hion b ec ame deformed by

Jack Schofield

ack in the days when men were made of iron and ships of wood, I was flying an amphibious Beaver out of Port Hardy airport (YZT) for what was then an upstart airline called AirBC who had just bought out every independent airline on the coast, and had sprayed a new paint job on about 120 clapped-out floatplanes. They also upgraded the avionics in many of the planes, and the little sweetheart I was flying today was now equipped with Loran. I’m not going to explain Loran to those who never heard of it—sufficient to say that it only lasted for a very short time before GPS came along and drove it into obscurity. Loran gave the pilot, among many things, a read-out of his ground speed. A regular customer showed up one day—the sales rep for a big wire rope company. I knew this man quite well

from previous flights, and he now introduced me to his friend, the sales rep for a big tire company. They had chartered the airplane for the day and were splitting the cost of the charter, and planned to fly into a series of logging camp destinations where they could each sell their respective products. There were four stops on the trip and the last stop of the day was to be Bella Coola before we returned to Port Hardy. The weather was clear and visibility unlimited, so everything looked lovely for the day’s flying as we taxied out and took off from runway 07. This flight was taking place at the very time that the controversy of manned versus unmanned lighthouses was raging, and the unmanned idea had won the toss because the government backed it. Instead of human observers, closed circuit TV cameras had been installed at lighthouses

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along with telemetered anemometers and barometers, and as a further cost reduction, private meteorologists were being contracted, in certain locations, where Coast Guard or TC staff had previously provided met services. Back in the cockpit of Beaver, JFQ, the 985 was making its usual reassuring roar, and the passengers, despite 49 years of scratches on the plexiglas,were enjoying a clear view of the wonderful coastline of British Columbia as we greased onto the waters of Kwatna, Ocean Falls, Kimsquit then our final stop at Bella Coola’s lovely paved strip. I cannot recall which logging camp provided us with lunch that day, but we were well nourished and very content with the world as I refueled the Beaver while waiting for my passengers to return from their sales call on the local tire and wire rope dealers. When front and center tanks were topped-up, I walked over to the terminal building to chat with the met office that had been located here. On this very day, the private meteorological service contractor had taken over and a lovely young lady was quick to provide all the numbers from a remote sensing location down in Fisher Channel close to Kwatna. Among all of the read-outs was the wind speed of what

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the lovely lady stated was just 4 nautical miles per hour. What a day for flying seaplanes! For those readers who have never flown the myriad inlets of the BC coast, I might explain that Fisher is a major inlet opening into Fitzhugh Sound, a large body of water about 10 miles wide delineated on its eastern side by the mainland shore and on the western side by one quite large island called Calvert then a whole chain of little “broken” islands called a lot of things which, stretch on up the coast. On the western side of these little islands is a broad expanse of ocean with the next stop being Yokohama. Motoring down Fisher Inlet at about 1500 feet, the conversation in the Beaver cabin was all about wire rope orders received, or truck tires to be delivered, while for me, I was marveling at the Loran display which was indicating that my ground speed and airspeed were the same—106 nautical miles per hour. I was flying in still air—I thought they only did that in textbooks! We arrived at the mouth of the inlet, turned into Fitzhugh Sound, and WHAM! (I like WHAM it says it all) The groundspeed went to 18 nautical miles per hour. I had trouble with grade eight math in school, but

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The British Columbia coast range is magnificent but presents some significant challenges to aviators

this was grade seven stuff—I had an 88 nautical mile an hour headwind! Where did that measured 4-knot wind go? Now wind was not one of the things that got my wind up, so to speak, but descent always captured my attention, and we were descending at over 500 feet per minute even though the airplane was in level flight. Don’t you hate that when it happens? I applied METO power and the descent rate came back to 300 feet per minute. D'you know, the cushion under me on the pilot’s seat suddenly developed a cone shape right in the middle of it? I pumped on flap and altered my heading to get away from the mainland shore where that descending wind was being generated from the ice covered peaks. I headed toward those broken islands to the west. My instant theory percolating through my now dynamic grey matter was katabatic

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winds, and while not equipped with a Latin to English dictionary, I knew the word had something to do with subsiding air and I was in a lot of that, so I headed out to sea estimating Yokohama in about a week. As I inched my way westward, on the far side of Calvert Island into horrific looking seas below me, the descent rate slowly decreased and I was ultimately able to climb and maintain altitude with an increase in groundspeed to 26 kmph. As the aircraft inched toward Port Hardy the wind velocity decreased dramatically to the point that everyone at the base was to express wonder as to what I had been smoking. As the three of us stepped down off the floats my wire rope passenger pocketed a string of beads. "Hey," I said, "I didn't know you were religious.” “Aren’t you glad I am,” he replied.

Lynx Helicopter of a British regiment operating in Iraq by Art Cox. Art was commissioned to paint this scene by the retiring commanding officer of a British airborne attack regiment. The original painting hangs in the regimental officer's ward room in Britain. h a n g a r f ly i n g

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Jack Schofield- writer/illustrator

Mel Turner RAF retired

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Graham Ward (aviation artist)

Jim Griffith ( Air Canada Retired)

Robert S. Grant - Pilot/Writer

John Addison- Pilot at Large

pilots, wr i t er s and ar tis ts for

ha n gar fly ing

his book is a compilation of the writings of six pilot/authors: Robert S. Grant is a professional of both crafts with a long list of published books and articles and an interesting and continuing flying career. John Addison is a retired RAF and airline pilot now freelancing as an airline contract and ferry pilot. Mel Turner, is a lawyer practicing in New Brunswick having retired from the RAF with the rank of Squadron Leader. Jim Griffith, captain for TCA (Air Canada) has a log book full of stories and is looking at putting them together under one cover. Art Cox, used to write and illustrate articles for Aviator magazine and was collaborating with that magazine's former editor, Jack Schofield, on this very book when he was taken from us by the unexpected return of an earlier cancer thought to have been caught in time. This book is now dedicated to Art's memory

Art Cox: RCAF instructor on Harvards, RCAF Transport Command assigned to United Nations flight operations; 20 year Captain with TWA and check pilot with Royal Jordanian Airlines. Consumate artist and writer.

1935 - 2017

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