Reflections – Hiller 12, Iroquois & Macchi

By way of explanation, in the mid sixties I was on the staff at Australia House in London and had discovered that I was allowed to do 25 hours a year refresher flying.

I started out by arranging to do a few hours in Wessex helicopters at the Royal Naval Airstation at Culdrose in Corn wall; an old stamping ground of mine. For this the Australian government was charged something like the equivalent of $800. 00 an hour in current terms.

I thought this was a bit steep, particularly as I was only really swanning around the local area.

Came the time to organise my next period offlying, I decided to look around for an alternative and quite by chance discovered that Bristow Helicopters would let me fly their Hillers for the equivalent of about $210. An added bonus was that they were located at Redhill which is just south of London.

The appointed day arrived and I fronted up at Redhill looking forward to having a go at the little Hiller. All looked to be set when a problem cropped up over the question of whether I needed a civil licence. I knew that Bristows had carried out helicopter training for the RN and had assumed that I would come under this arrangement, which was evidently not the case. The problem was solved by the secretary of the company recalling that under UK regulations, a military pilot can fly an aircraft on the civil register without a civil licence if he is flying the aircraft on the Queen’s business.

Without hesitation we all agreed that I would certainly be on the Queen’s business and shortly after I was airborne on my first dual sortie!

I immediately took to the Hiller and thought it was a first class little helicopter. This needs however to be tempered by the fact that I had only flown Sycamores and Wessex and perhaps didn’t know any better!

In the manner of most piston engine helicopters there was no governor to control rotor revs butI found the throttle/collective cam very well set up and there was adequate power to trim with throttle where necessary.

It was a simple machine in terms of cockpit controls and everything was logically placed and easily to hand. The large canopy provided excellent vision and the aircraft was comfortable to fly: It also had a small collective which is to my liking, I don’t like metre long levers. It was also the first skid fitted helicopter I had flown but this didn’t present any problems as we rarely ground taxied the Sycamore and Wessex. It certainly wasn’t a fast machine; I can’t recall the exact cruising speed but I doubt that it would have been more than 70kts.

After a couple of dual sorties I was let loose to play around on the airfield as I wished. My flying was done during the week with practically no other traffic so I had the airfield to myself. There was a helicopter confined space/manoeuvring area set up on one side complete with a square marked out on the ground. Many was the happy sortie flown going around the square; firstly flying round the four sides; next the same but holding a constant heading; going round at right angles to the square sides, tail inwards on the line; ditto tail outwards; the combinations were endless.

Having come from the Wessex, which because ofits size and weight meant that you had to contend with a fair amount of inertia, I found the lightness of the Hiller made precision flying so much easier. The power available allied with good control effectiveness, made it a real fun machine to fly.

About the only other point worth mentioning is that it paid to fly with gloves on because it didn’t have a rotor brake. Stopping the rotor after shutting down was achieved by gently gripping the relatively large diameter tail rotor drive shaft with you hands. Primitive but effective!

All in all I thought the Hiller an excellent machine.

Bell Iroquois UH-lB

Interestingly, the RAN almost didn’t acquire the Iroquois; the original plan was to acquire Westland Scouts as the replacement for the Sycamore in the training/utility helicopter role.

In preparation for the new aircraft, which had already been ordered, a very experienced helicopter instructor was sent to the UK to check out in the Scout with Westland Helicopters. He was not particularly impressed when the company pilot bent an aircraft whilst demonstrating auto rotations, and then proceeded to bend another. Evidently, rotor RPM were critical in autorotation and very fine judgment was necessary to arrive on the ground still in one piece. It was immediately obvious that the aircraft was not suitable for helicopter training and a report to this effect was made.

Fortunately, after the encounter with the Scout, arrangements were made for him to visit Bell Helicopters where it was immediately apparent that the Iroquois would be an ideal machine to replace the Sycamores. The decision was wisely made to order the Iroquois and the order for the Scouts was reduced to just two for survey work with HMAS Moresby.

All told seven UH-lBs were acquired, three in March 1963, three more in December 1963 and a final one in February 1965.

I had the odd trip in the Iroquois in the late sixties but it was not until my last posting to NAS Nowra in 1980 that I got round to undergoing a conversion.

I found the Iroquois relatively easy to fly, except for auto rotations where I suffered the usual fixed wing pilot problem of wanting to tweak back on the cyclic just prior to touch down. As has been demonstrated over the years, this is a very good way to achieve a mast strike with the Iroquois as it causes the aircraft to touch down on the rear of the skids and to pitch forward. The effect is to cause the rotor to exceed its limits in tilt and the inner part of the blade yolk to hit the rotor mast. In extreme cases, it is also possible to chop the tail boom with the main rotor if aircraft pitches excessively with the collective lowered. There was certainly plenty of energy in the rotor system in autorotation and there was no need to rush things in the final stages of the landing. I well recall a very convincing demonstration by a company test pilot in a US Army Kiowa, the little brother ofthe Iroquois, where he put the aircraft down from an engine off autorotation and immediately picked it up and turned it through 180 degrees and put it down again. I understand that it was also possible to do this with the Iroquois although I never saw it done.

I completed my conversion with an instrument rating and then just continued on with refresher flying to keep my hand in.

My recollection of the aircraft was that you needed to pay attention to your flying to get the aircraft to do precisely what you wanted it to do. However this was perhaps because I did not have the opportunity to build up the solid experience base that squadron flying provides.

The Iroquois certainly served the RAN well and it is good to know that one has been preserved in flying condition.

CAC Macchi MB-326H

The RAN replaced its Vampires trainers with the then new Macchi in 1970. All told we acquired ten aircraft but lost two. I was in a non flying posting at NAS Nowra at the time but managed a brief conversion to the aircraft before being posted off to Navy Office in Canberra. My immediate impression of the aircraft was that it was a worthy successor to the Vampire.

My subsequent flying was essentially just continuation flying when I returned to Nowra so I never got to use the aircraft in its role as a trainer. However I imagine that instructing in it would have been satisfying as it was indeed a precise and positive handling aircraft.

One can argue the merits and demerits of tandem versus side by side seating for training aircraft but the worldwide trend in military trainers is clearly to the former. My only experience of tandem seating was in the Gannet trainer but that was with experienced pilots undergoing conversions. I personally preferred side by side but then perhaps I spent too much time in the Vampire!

I won’t attempt to give a detailed appraisal of the Macchi, there are people far better qualified than me to do that. My aim is to just give my impressions of the aircraft as I recall it. Firstly I found it to be a pleasant aircraft to fly, positive in its control and fairly well kitted out in terms of radio aids having Tacan and a good ADF. It aerobatted well and was fun in the circuit although when I first checked out, it had a restriction on elevator trim rate which made it awfully slow in operation. This caused an uncomfortable lag when trimming for flap change of trim on finals, however, the problem had been resolved by the time I next got to fly the aircraft.

Spinning was straight forward with a positive recovery, however, it was possible to get the aircraft into an inverted spin which caused a little concern as it was not always keen to come out. As I recall from the handling notes, the comment was that the ride could vary “from mild to wild”.

We unfortunately lost an aircraft as a result of an inverted spin demonstration which Treasury subsequently picked up in its role as guardian of the public purse, asking the awkward question as to why Navy was inverted spinning the aircraft when RAAF regulations forbade it.

As the Director of Naval Aviation Policy at the time, I had the task of providing an answer. My enquiries disclosed that there had been a small misunderstanding on the part of our QFis, who, following a demonstration of the inverted spin, though that it was an approved sequence. This was brought back to NAS Nowra and demonstrated in the conversion sequence; unfortunately the handling notes proved to be correct and on the occasion in question aircraft refused to come out of the spin and the instructor and pupil wisely ejected.

Navy regulations however, did not prohibit inverted spinning, simply stating that aircraft were to be flown in accordance with the approved handling notes for the type. The Macchi handling notes, which went into inverted spinning in some detail did not prohibit the manoeuvre and hence we were not operating the aircraft contrary to our regulations. Needless to say however, inverted spinning ceased forthwith!

I had my only experience of fixed wing/rotary wing confusion in a Macchi. In the early days of helicopters it was generally considered unwise to mix fixed and rotary wing flying because of the risk of confusion in the differing control techniques applicable to both types of aircraft.

At the time I was current on both but was currently flying the Macchi.

Anyone who has flown into NAS Nowra would be aware of the dreaded downdraft on 26 runway. (It was a damned sight worse before the gully was filled in!). On the day in question I was on short finals and suddenly experienced a monumental downdraft. For a nano second my reaction was to want to lift the throttle like a collective lever. Needless to say it was only a fleeting reaction and I had power on in a flash. My subsequent analysis was that the aircraft had suffered such a sudden downwards movement that it took it out of the normal fixed wing flight regime into what was more akin to helicopter vertical movement, hence the initial reaction. I can’t stress too strongly that it was the briefest of reactions and never dangerous, butit was there. I wonder if anyone else has had asimilar experience?

All good things come to an end and I decided that the time had come for me to retire. My final flight in the Navy was done in a Macchi on the day before I paid off and I couldn’t resist replicating what I hadfirst done 33 years previously in a Firefly and that was to fly round the local area at 2,000ft and 180kts. Not really Macchi territory but very nostalgic.

Finally, when and if the Macchi ever gets onto the warbird inventory, it would make an excellent machine to own, providing you could afford the cost of its upkeep!

Well, that completes the series on the aircraft I flew during my service with the Fleet Air Arm. I have only covered those aircraft which I formally checked out in although I managed to lay my hands on a few interesting machines such as the Bristol Belvedere helicopter, the Avro Shackleton, the good old Dakota, the Huey Cobra, the HS. 748, the Nomad plus a few others. I’ve enjoyed writing the articles and recalling old memories and I hope that they have provided a measure of interest to those who have read them. Finally would I do it all over again?

Where do I sign?