Air Safety

After an uneventful five hour flight from Richmond we arrived at Samuel Hill, the forward base in the Shoalwater Bay training area from which the squadron was engaged in workup operations. We quickly settled into the routine of exercise life, which in those quaint rustic days meant lots of low-level Tacex (Tactical Navex) work during the day and fulfilling any night flying requirements in the hours after sunset. This maximised the amount of drinking time to be had, clustered around a roaring bonfire recounting gross falsehoods, and occurred well before some spoilsport decided that aircrew should gain essential practice in the rudiments of gunpit digging and experience the joy of sitting in same during blackout conditions.

The scenario of this particular exercise was standard. Hordes of marauding Kamarians (Orange force) once again had designs on our fair land and womenfolk. The disposition of the five Caribous at Sam Hill was somewhat arbitrary, they were ostensibly for the good guys (Blue force), but could be used on an ad hoc basis by Kamaria. To this end, orders came through one sultry evening to prepare for the shooting match to begin. This was to be achieved by a dawn assault by a parachute company, dropped from two Caribous.

My Captain immediately volunteered us for the 4. 30am wakeup (he was sinking ever lower in my estimations) and a plan of action was drawn up. The two Caribous would depart Sam Hill approximately forty-five minutes before the TOT (time on target) of 0630 and engage in a Tacex designed to simulate a skulking Kamarian infiltration. The paratroops would be dropped at an airfield roughly fifteen minutes flying time away called The Glen.

As copilot of the lead aircraft, the navigation duties would fall to myself. I presented a picture of confidence that I did not feel. Navigation had not up to this time been the strongest string to my bow. There had been that unfortunate incident on the last flight of my conversion course (my Nav test, no less!) We had launched out of Port Moresby tracking direct for Townsville and due to an unfortunate confluence of circumstances: (a) another ungodly early start after a night on the sherbets; (b) a totally unforgivable error by the Met forecasters, (the winds were twenty degrees out); and (c) a wholly understandable confusion on my part over that most baffling of navigational maxims (Variation east, Magnetic . . . er . . . best?), had all conspired against me to deposit the aircraft over the Australian coast eighty miles north of Cairns!

By diligent work over the ensuing months I had just about lost the tag, Vasco de Trauma.

This was different, I consoled myself. This was over lots and lots of lovely land with hills and valleys and rivers to point the way. Track Crawl! That was the answer. None of this mucking about with esoterics such as track made good, drift, true north and such.

After about an hour’s work I produced on my contact-covered TPC (Tactical Plotting Chart) an eye pleasing array of lines and timing markers which I proudly presented to my Captain. He declared it tactically sound (ie we went around the hills instead of over them), and a rough fuel calculation was done. The Caribou burns 600lbs per hour in cruise and normal forty-five minute reserves are 400 lbs. The prospective load was 27 fully equipped paratroopers per aircraft plus one dispatcher to push out the recalcitrants, which left just enough margin to put on an even 1,000lbs of fuel for the mission. With the forty-five minutes of the Tacex plus the short return leg back to Sam Hill, it was tight but legal.

I retired to the luxury of my camp stretcher (orthopaedic, back injuries, for deterioration of) but first checked my watch alarm. I did not need to check, since joining the squadron it had been permanently lockwired in the 4. 30am position.

It seemed that I had barely closed my eyes when the alarm sounded next to my ear like the Trumpet of Gabriel. Blearily I staggered out of the tent to a string of war weary epithets (darn, but it is somewhat frigid, Gad, but war is hell . . . etc) from my fellow crew members. We breakfasted sumptuously on tactical toast (designed to withstand all but a direct hit) and combat coffee (rumoured to be illegal under the articles of the Geneva Convention pertaining to chemical warfare), and proceeded to the marshalling area.

The Caribous were barely discernible in the pre-dawn gloom. At the rear of them were fifty odd sweating, swearing paratroopers being organised by their sergeants. We passed them wordlessly, with only the barest perceptible shake of the head as we wondered for the thousandth time how anyone could want to make a living by jumping out of perfectly serviceable aeroplanes. Anyway, we had a mission to accomplish. This was the start of the war! Everybody was depending on us to get the job done. Failure was unthinkable. The war must go on!

It seemed that the gods were with our cause at least. The morning was crystal clear. The last of the were being beaten off by the still distant sunrise. It was stil(somewhat cold mind you, but nothing that service issue thermal underwear (sniggers, for the producing of) couldn’t handle in a trice.

We reached our respective aircraft and commenced the preflight procedures. The plan was to have the engines started, warmed and run up before the troops were loaded at 5. 30am to facilitate a 5. 45am takeoff. I noted that the fuel load was about fifty pounds shy of an even thousand. Unconcerned, I sat in the right hand seat and quietly reviewed the Tacex. I folded the map to a convenient size and glanced reflectively out the window. Was it getting a tad misty outside? Maybe. I didn’t give it a second thought. We had more pressing problems. Wars to start,

reputations to uphold (or in some cases, repair). . . . .

My captain finished his exterior check. Massaging his d1g1ts he contemplated starting the aging Pratt and Whitneys. This required close cooperation and the fingerwork of a Mandrake. The resultant reports from the exhaust stacks from any mishandling of this procedure was known as duck shooting and ensured for the culprit much derision. Two minutes later we had all twenty-eight cylinders chugging away more or less in _ concert and settled down to wait patiently for them to achieve the required operating temperatures. We gained solace from the knowledge that the combined noise of the run up would waken any corpse within one nautical mile’s range and certainly our somnolescent comrades.

Glancing out of the windows revealed the area was definitely beginning to mist over. I checked the countenance of my captain for any trace of concern but he was more worried by reports from the crew-tech that the grunts were apparently experiencing difficulty in getting their act together and did not look anywhere near ready to get on board. The time was rapidly approaching takeoff time and it soon became clear that they were not going to make it.

I checked the map looking for possible short cuts in the event of an abbreviation being required to the Tacex. I satisfied myself that I could comfortably shave about thirty minutes off the route and still have us over The Glen at 6. 30am sharp.

5. 45am came and went with the only change evident being an increase in the tempo of swearing and sweating from the rear of the aircraft as the troops struggled to complete their preparation and safety checks. The two Caribous sat with their engines ticking over at a slightly higher that idle setting to ensure that the correct temperature was maintained in thepre-dawn chill. Suddenly between us appeared our flight commander who was also the authorising officer for this particular jaunt. He had been wakened by the run up and was now merely trying to find out the reason for the delay. Satisfied that no post flight post-mortem would level blame at the blue suiters he wished us luck, took his leave and departed back in the direction of his tent

We watched as he disappeared into the gloom about five hundred metres away. Five hundred metres! Can we takeoff in this stuff? (The question should have been could we land in this stuff)?

The flight commander had not said anything about it so it must be okay. We did not have time to think about it, the grunts were finally getting on board and obviously ready for action.

We closed up, inquired of number two his readiness and taxied to the end of the strip. The visibility over the runway was marginally better and there appeared to be breaks in the overcast. I noted that the extended wait on the ground had taken its toll on our fuel state, now down to marginally over eight hundred pounds, but the captain observed correctly that we had more fuel because of the shortened Tacex.

With gathering speed and misgivings the Caribous once again defied the laws of gravity and aesthetics and roared airborne to settle immediately over an expanse of white that stretched from horizon to horizon!

“I need a heading”, called the captain urgently. “I need an aspirin,” I thought as I looked in desperation for a landmark, ANY landmark. The ground was visible through the mist but only directly beneath the aircraft. In the distance, some solitary hilltops intruded above the layer. It was a beautiful scene, why was I so terrified? A quick reference to the map produced a rough heading to fly initially whilst we tried to soot everything out. The Tacan (Tactical Aerial Navigation) set mode and revealed that number two was in one mile trail. Our UHF radio was set to the squadron frequency but was not being used due to Emcon (Emission Control).

The north-easterly heading we had adopted was heading us towards the coast. Here the mist was beginning to break up and I

could see, to my relief, sufficient portions of the coast position and timing fix. We had taken off about sixteen minutes late so the Tacex had been considerably reduced. The trick was now to time our turn back inland sufficiently accurately to arrive over the DZ (Drop Zone) plus or minus fifteen seconds of the TOT. In the Caribou it was better to be a tad early that late. The Caribou could decelerate like a champion, acceleration was another matter.

By consulting my worry beads, reading the entrails of a frozen chicken dinner that had been left in the aircraft oven, and noting the juxtaposition of the sun to a ragged patch of cloud on the horizon, all time honoured navigational techniques, I gritted my teeth and told the captain that he should turn . . . now . . . to achieve the definitive inbound course.

This he duly did and I sat sweating for the next five minutes as we trundled over the ever thickening layer of what could only be now termed fog, looking for some sign that we were still over Australia. A small hilltop cruised serenely by. I noted the time to run, perused my TPC, held my breath and lo! There it was! My hilltop. Of course I had no way of confirming it was the correct hilltop but I would take what I could get.

I confidently announced that the navigation side of things was under control and there was about six minutes to run before we encountered the DZ. The troops stood up and commenced final preparations. I noticed in the distance a definite clearing of the fog cover. Could it be? Scarcely daring to hope, we watched as the approaching ground revealed itself to be, wonder of wonders, The Glen!

The rear door was opened and the troops waited for the green light. We were slightly early but I glowed in the glory of my achievement as I held the jump-light switch in my shaking hands, awaiting the command from the captain. The Day-Glo side markers slid by the left, ‘Standby . . . (red light on) . . . Execute (I always thought the command should be, disgruntle) . . . green on.

Twenty-seven swearing, sweating paratroops exited stage rear. A copybook drop, we closed the door and turned toward Sam Hill. Again the mantle of white presented itself. The UHF suddenly came alive. It was the guys onboard number two.

“Listen, do you mind if we land first, we are a bit short of fuel. ” They are a bit short? “We are down to five hundred,” we replied. “Luxury,” they countered. We decided to let them land first.

For the first time it began to dawn upon us the impending peril we were facing. We could find the airfield due to a distinctive hill located adjacent to it (Samuel Hill, in fact), we could even see the runway by looking down through the fog, but to land there was looking dicey to say the least. As if to confirm this the captain asked the crew tech to extract a max endurance setting for the engines. The second Caribou ghosted alongside, the individual blades on its propellers almost visible as they turned under minimum revs.

“We are going to fly over the runway to try and disperse some ?f this stuff. ” This was a novel approach. We watched as the Caribou descended to the top of the layer, the propellers futilely beating the for It commenced a circuit to the left, lowering gear and progressive amounts of flap. Commencing final approach we watched as it disappeared beneath the layer.

Seconds later the air-to-air Tacan display went blank.

The turned to each other as we digested the potential meaning of this. We looked back in time to see the tail of the Caribou slicing through the mist, reminiscent of a famous scene in a movie, and then the whole aircraft rocketing upwards to safety.

Both aircraft were very light now, with only the basic three man plus a smug looking dispatcher, each of whom were wearing the only parachutes. On the radio came the voice of the flight commander who had realised the problem and said that he would drive a Landrover to the end of the strip with its lights on to mark the position of the threshold.

While we waited for this to be done we compared notes with the other aircraft. We were down to basic reserves 400lb whilst they had approximately 250lb, enough for maybe half an hour. In the back of their aircraft, the crew-tech was bidding a tearful goodbye to his relatives, particularly his aunties. In our aircraft the crew-tech and an increasingly nervous dispatcher were eyeing the crash axe.

Our _ captain was about to show the benefit of those aeons of experience. He stated that if the other aircraft made it in on its next attempt, then we would try. If not we would go to Rockhampton, about twenty minutes away. Unfortunately we had no means of ascertaining if Rocky was similarly affected. Once again the radio came alive. The Landrover was in position and the other aircraft commenced a replay of its former attempt. An identical outcome ensued.

As the other aircraft announced that it was flying back to The Glen we commenced our diversion to Rocky. We wished each other luck, they were down to 150lb, us 300lb. Fifteen minutes later as we approached Rockhampton, still over fog, the sobering thought struck me that wherever the other aircraft was, it was no longer airborne.

Contact was made with the Tower. They reported that they were in fog but believed that the southern end of the runway was clear. We scarcely dared to hope. The airfield became visible and sure enough half of the most beautiful runway in the world was sticking out from beneath the conspiracy of white.

In double quick time we were down, completing the rollout in the rapidly encroaching veil. We had just made it with 130lb to spare.

The other aircraft was even luckier. Doubting their ability even to reach The Glen, they began to look for a suitable paddock. Out of the blue they encountered an airfield not even marked on their charts which was somehow clear of fog. After they landed, tanks almost empty, they were met by some friendly troops who informed them that the bales of barbed wire sitting under yon tree were for the express purpose of rendering the airfield unusable.

Best not to dwell on the negative. Lets see, 10 September 1984, Operation Milehigh, ah yes. . .

Macarthur Job returns next issue with his thought-provoking Air Safety Series. Mac is actually busy at the present time completing his exciting book – Air Crash- the very readable accounting of how Australia’s airways system was made safe through the lessons of 18 major airline accidents since the 1920s. From perusing the initial drafts this book looks a real winner and will be produced by Aerospace Publications Pty Ltd for release this September.