Reflections – Hawker Seahawk

I soon checked out in the Seahawk and found that it lived up to its looks and was a delight to fly. Apart from an earlier propensity to blow up in the air due to fuel leaking into the rear fuselage, it had no vices. Fortunately the fuel problem had been identified and corrective action taken by the time I got to fly them, but it was still mandatory to eject immediately if the fire warning light came on.

There were, however, a few little quirks that one needed to know and to get used to, such as the fuel system itself. All the fuel was carried in the fuselage in three tanks. The third tank, known as the saddle tank, fed into the rear main tank, so for normal operations you could consider the aircraft as only having two tanks. This was to cause me a problem later but I will return to that in due course. There were two LP cocks which were normally left on; they were mainly used for maintenance work. There was an ingenious arrangement for maintaining the c of g in limits without the pilot having to fiddle with the fuel transfer pumps. This was done by the reading on the fuel gauges controlling the pumps in the two tanks, turning them on and off to match a preset ratio between the tank readings. This may sound like a Heath Robinson arrangement but it worked. The only snag was that if you suffered a fuel gauge failure and didn’t notice it in time, the c of g could very rapidly get out of limits. In the event of such a failure you could control the pumps manually and keep the aircraft in balance by feel.

Shortly after I joined the squadron we had a course through which included a Surgeon Lieutenant. Flying doctors were rare animals and were to be given every encouragement. This young gentleman got airborne one day with the rear LP cock off and commenced a sortie of cine air-to-air gunnery. After a while he found that as he rolled in off the “perch”, the aircraft was tending to pitch up. This got steadily worse until just about the time when he thought he might have a problem, the engine flamed out. He then found that he could not control the airspeed in the glide, the aircraft having entered a rapid phugoid of plus and minus 50 knots. He attempted a forced landing at an RAF airfield but missed out by about 100 yards and bent the aircraft somewhat badly. His c of g was so far aft that it was remarkable that he had any control of the aircraft at all. Sorry to say, our medico didn’t last long, as two weeks later, after having received a mild rebuke for his misdeeds, he taxied into the dispersal and wrote off several Seahawk rudders with his wingtip!

Another aspect of the aircraft that required some care was the need to ensure that the powered ailerons were properly engaged after start-up. To do this, the stick had to be moved through its full range laterally once you had hydraulic power. As the stick was moved from side to side you could feel the pawls sliding along the control rod and engaging in their detents. Failure to engage properly could result in a half power/manual situation which could be very disconcerting. The early model Hawks, of which we had a few, tended to lack a clear neutral point in their aileron set-up, causing a knife edge effect which could make formation flying a pain.

The ejection seat was an earlier model without leg restraints but fitted with fairly solid metal thigh guards which sprang up at the beginning of the ejection sequence. After a spate of shattered elbows following ejection, it was established that if you pulled the face blind straight down, your elbows would meet the thigh guards rising on their very powerful springs. The technique subsequently adopted for ejection was to grasp the face blind with the palms of the hands outwards, this automatically forced you to lift your elbows as you pulled down (try it!).

Finally there was an occasional problem with the canopy lock which would leaving you trapped inside the aircraft after shut down. This wasn’t too bad in winter but could be hellish in high summer.

The Seahawk was fitted with a Rolls Royce Nene centrifugal flow gas turbine which proved to be a very robust engine and rarely caused us any problems. The intakes and exhaust were bifurcated, with the engine well and truly buried in the fuselage. The flap/speed brake arrangement was quite ingenious. The flaps were simple split flaps which in conjunction with a similar over wing panel, formed the speed brakes when the latter were selected. This arrangement was useful on entering the circuit when, after using the speed brakes to kill speed on the break, selection of flap would drop the upper panel. It was essential however to deselect speed brakes otherwise they would operate again when the flaps were selected up {shades of the Wirraway!). The view from the cockpit was excellent and the aircraft also had a very effective rear view mirror mounted inside the canopy.

The Seahawk was relatively easy to fly on instruments being particularly stable once set up on the glide slope. When the weather precluded flying the students, I would detail the instructors to go and do low level GCAs (ground-controlled approaches). You could nip round the circuit in a matter of minutes as we only climbed to 2,000 feet after each approach. It really honed your instrument flying skills. Stability on the approach also made it a kiddy car for deck landing; 110 knots on the mirror landing sight and just drive on down until you arrived!

The Seahawk was cleared for spinning but the pilot’s notes gave a prediction of a fairly hairy ride with the aircraft pitching up and down once in the spin, with a rapid rate of turn. This was certainly the case on my first spin and I quickly went to recovery mode, but on subsequent analysis I concluded that what I had experienced was merely horizontal flicking and not a true spin. I left it longer next time and got it into a proper spin. Recovery was straightforward and rapid.

I flew the Seahawk for just on two years so experienced the delights of UK weather in the depth of winter. Lossiemouth wasn’t too bad for snow but we did get the occasional polar low which would dump several feet in a very short space of time. I once had the good fortune to be first off after the passage of one of these lows, when as usual we had brilliant blue skies in the aftermath. The aircraft fairly rocketted up in the climb because of the extreme cold and I had the most magnificent view of the whole of Scotland, totally white.

As I recall, snow didn’t interfere with our flying generally but the odd accident occured due to the banks of snow on either side of the runway; one certainly needed to watch out for any crosswind, particularly on takeoff. Our major problem was ice on the taxiways which required exercising some care when braking.

We used to start night flying at 1530 in the depth of winter, but of course in summer we had the reverse problem of barely a few hours of darkness. During my second summer, because of the number of students we decided to migrate south for our night flying period and I took the Scimitars, which we had acquired by then, to Yeovilton in the south of England and the new CO took the Hawks to Brawdy in Wales.

It was on an earlier night trip to Yeovilton as a target for one of the night fighter squadron’s operational readiness inspections that I experienced one of those magical moments in flying. I took off at 2300 and set course south with the sun just setting on my starboard quarter. On the return some time after midnight, there was the most magnificent display of the Northern Lights, which at 30,000 feet was a sight to behold. I was so hyped-up by the experience that I couldn’t resist waking my very pregnant wife at 0200 to tell her all about it!

When I first joined the squadron, the students were ·taken through parts one and two of the OFS (Operational Flying School) on the Seahawk; part one was getting to know the aircraft and part two was using it operationally. We would start off with the usual formation flying followed by battle drill, cross countries, night flying and the odd jolly when we would let them off the leash for a trip by themselves.

I particularly enjoyed taking them for their early formation flying, three students to an instructor where it was routine to end the sortie with a “chase-me-charlie”. What the students didn’t know was that we had a couple of aircraft with “g” suit systems. The early RN ‘g’ suits were worn under the flying suit with a hole in the side for the connection so it wasn’t obvious that you were wearing one. The Seahawk was cleared for 6 g, so if you were wearing a ‘g’ suit you could readily out turn anyone not so fortunate; the poor students would end up all over the sky as we looped and rolled. There was the additional fun during the debriefing when we would lay it on the line that if we, who were 5 to 10 years older could handle “g” better than they could, they had better get out on the playing fields and get themselves fit!

On completion of part 1 of the OFS it was into the weapons phase which included air-to-air, rocketting, bombing and straffing. Live firing on the banner, which was the ultimate test of your co-ordination skills, was my favourite weapons detail. We flew in flights of four with two guns loaded and each pilot having his 20mm rounds tipped with different coloured paint to mark his hits on the banner. Front Line standards were something under 10% and the training standard about 5 % . It mightn’t sound much but to achieve that on the banner meant that a much higher success rate could be expected against a real aircraft.

I well recall a particular sortie when all three of my students had to return early because of gun stoppages. There I was with the banner all to myself, full ammunition, and a long run home. This was toward the end of my time when I had flown quite a few banner sorties. I confess to being in form that day and really filled the banner with red paint . As we flew the last few miles back to base I was praying that the Meteor 7 would not lose its tow in the sea. My score was 47% and I was beside myself until the following week when a Sub Lieutenant from a front line squadron beat me by a considerable margin.

Returning to the Seahawk fuel system, the squadron flew a four plane aerobatic team and used the saddle tank to carry oil for making smoke. There was a specially approved mod which disconnected the saddle tank, thus depriving the aircraft of 40 gallons of fuel. We had to use the aerobatic aircraft for student work and normally this didn’t present a problem, however I got badly caught out through a sequence of events which were obvious in hindsight but not at the time.

The sortie in question was a cine air-to-air mission with myself and two students. Because of a conflict in weapon details, one of the students had to take an aerobatic aircraft fitted with bomb carriers. The weather was marginal for students but we decided to fly. The rot set in when this lad missed his first fuel call (bingo 1) and called bingo 2 half way into the sortie. I knew that he would be using a lot more power because of the bomb carriers but was relying on his bingo call. I immediately headed for home only to be informed that our let-down and approach would be via a GCA due to a deterioration in the weather; this was not a problem in itself but rather in the amount of fuel it would require. We had strong winds blowing and I can categorically state that it was the longest homing to the overhead I ‘ve ever done! We duly commenced our GCA for a formation landing and broke out in good time to see the runway, with me praying my student wouldn’t run out of fuel before we got there. We touched down and went into trail for the taxi back whereupon my lad flamed out. If he had left his fuel booster pump on we might have made it back to dispersal, but it was SOP (standard operational procedure) to switch it off after landing. As on the rest of the sortie, my laddie was also switched off! I had an awkward time explaining to the Station CFI how I, as the squadron senior pilot, had got myself into such a situation.

On another weapons detail, just as I was getting out of my aircraft on completion of the sortie, I heard a loud explosion from the aircraft next to mine. I looked across to see a body lying full length on the concrete. It was immediately obvious that a 20mm round had been fired and it looked on the face of it that we had suffered a fatal casualty. I am not partial to the sight of blood but had no option but to take charge of the situation. As I reluctantly ran across to the scene I was silently saying “don’t roll him over, I don’t want to see”. As I got there, the body stood up and I could see that it was the Petty Officer Armourer, unharmed. It transpired that the aircraft had suffered a stoppage and the sailor trying to clear the round out of the open breech had been too enthusiastic with the cleaning rod. The Petty Officer realised as he saw the rod struck that there was a good chance that the base of the round would strike something in the breech, so he had rolled out of the way just in the nick of time. The sailor concerned was lucky to only have the palm of his hand cut as the cleaning rod shot out of the barrel.

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and towards the end of my time in the squadron we lost our Seahawks and became the Scimitar OFS. Mention of the Scimitar reminds me of the joke circulating at the time the aircraft was introduced into service, that Vickers Armstrong hadn’t known whether to put a hook on it and flog it to the Navy as an aircraft, or tracks on it for the Army to use as a tank, but more of that at another time.

In conclusion, I’ve often been asked “what was the best aircraft you ever flew?”. Its a hard one to answer because it depends on what particular aspect of the aircraft your considering, eg weapons capability, handling, flight envelope etc. However if I had to name one it would have to be the Seahawk because of its all round performance and the fact that it was a sheer delight to fly. Recently I was in the United Kingdom and visited the Fleet Air Arm Museum where they were kind enough to let me sit in a Seahawk. Suddenly thirty years rolled away and I was back at Lossie for two of the most enjoyable years of aviation I’ve ever experienced. □

The next aircraft in the series is the De Havilland Dominie (Rapide), the twin engined Tiger Moth.