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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1656.PDF
"Flight" photographs(Left) Catapult launching—in this case of an 894 Sqn. Sea Venom—usually means loss of the bridle. (Right) Refuelling a Venom at night. CARRIER WORK-UP . . . and is saluted by the discharge of two red Very lights—he slams on fullpower and stands off until he can be fitted into the circuit again. As soon as the whole detail—perhaps a dozen or moie aircraft—hasbeen recovered, plus the planeguard helicopter, the comparatively empty deck becomes alive once more, though now the tempo is just a littleeasier, the deck personnel chiefly concerned being those responsible for refuelling and re-arming. The two hangar lifts sink and rise to anaccompaniment of warning bells, and tractors and servicing vehicles scurry about their errands. Meanwhile the ship has reduced speed andturned through 180 degrees, so that she is now steaming downwind, and the chilly flight-deck gale drops to a mild breeze. * * * A visit to the catapult room whilst launching is in progress is aslightly intimidating experience. Space is at a premium, and one finds oneself squeezing along a narrow, greasy catwalk between a row of vastcompressed-air bottles on one side and, on the other, a gloomy gallery. In it, above a sizeable swimming-pool of oil, are the enormous ram andthe pulley-sheaves which, via wire ropes as thick as a man's wrist, multiply the speed of the ram's thrust. Warning lights flash on thecontrol panel, bells ring, the operator pulls his lever (it has triple inter- lock safeguards that make a premature firing impossible) and die wholething goes into monumental action for a couple of seconds; the general effect in this claustrophobic space is of standing in a railway tunnelthrough which a giant is hurling a double-decker tram. Yet, as in so many other departments of the ship, the Chief E.R.A. in charge clearlyregards this formidable alliance of steel, compressed air and oil with all the pride and affection of a fond father for his golden-headed child. * * * One of the quieter places in the ship, even during a launch, is theglass-enclosed bridge—or, as it is known, the compass platform, and the flying-control position which, leading off it, overlooks the flight deck.The compass platform, one may say, is purely nautical both in its equipment and in the various tasks of the officers and other ranks whoinhabit it. Here, scarcely ever leaving his post except to take a quick meal or a cat-nap, is to be found the Captain, an incredibly cheerfulindividual ("I'm just a fish-head, though I thought I'd better learn to fly an Auster"), whose chief aim seems to be to keep his Flyco neigh-bours happy by so manoeuvring his ship, if humanly possible, as to fit in exactly with all their varied requirements. "Can I come back to mycourse, please?" we heard him call across to them. So politely. And once again a preconceived notion was shattered. . . . If life in Flyco itself is a little less peaceful than on the compassplatform, there is still never even a suspicion of flap. Lt-Cdr.(F) appears to have the enviable facility of being able to talk imperturbablyinto several microphones and telephones at the same time. He works surrounded by people equally on top of their jobs, exchanging with themthe minimum of brief essential comments. To the presence of various others who congregate in his vantage-point for no apparent reason heseems politely oblivious. Only when, at the end of a recovery, he rises from his stool and gives the order "Down foxtrot" (the "F" flagdenoting flying in progress), does one detect the termination of a period of slight tension. * * * No. 813 Wyvems on a rocket strike. . . . Half a mile astern of theship bobs a smoke-float, insignificant as a garden bonfire. Out of the sun, from 6,000ft, the leader plummets down in a 60-deg dive. Thestreaks of the 60 lb R.P.s are just discernible, then suddenly the bonfire is obscured by great fountains of spiay and dirty brown smoke. Secondsafter, the hiss of the rockets and the thuds of their S.A.P. warheads float across the water. Another Wyvcrn attacks from a different quarter,then two simultaneously almost from opposite directions, crossing as they pull out of their dives. * * * The onlooker, they say, sees most of the game. And, sitting up frontwith the pilot of the planeguard Whirlwind as it keeps station on the carrier, you see the point of the old cliche. In the cabin behind, withits open door, are the winchmen, ready for a perilous dangle at the end of the wire should a pilot have to be fished out of the heaving greenturmoil below. The helicopter pilot, you notice, never once takes his eyes from the carrier's deck as the aircraft shoot out from the catapults.Perhaps, from sheer familiarity, he is unconscious of the sheer grim beauty of this great war vessel—functionally ugly perhaps in comparisonwith an Atlantic liner of comparable size—as her sharply flared bows contemptuously fling aside the waves in tumbling cascades of whiteand green. With a mild shock of surprise, one notices that her stern is notaltogether unlike that of some early sailing ship, with a wide flat transom running up towards a box-like counter from which hang two smallboats. . . . As helicopters cannot in general operate at night, the duties of after-dark planeguard are assumed by an escort—in this case the new frigate H.M.S. Puma, appearing from nowhere in particular at sundown.One's first reaction on standing on the island to watch night deck landings is that of seeing the absolutely impossible actually happening.Setting aside noise and the warm, not unpleasant smell of Avcat fuel (both of which, after a day or two, become less noticeable throughfamiliarity), much of the picture can be drawn in terms of light and darkness. Mostly darkness, for every compartment of the ship aboveflight-deck level is illuminated only by dim red light, every opening in the island is heavily curtained, and the flight deck itself delineated onlyby a few faint rows of amber lights; amber, too, replaces, the white lights in the mirror aid. Red and green wing-rip navigation lights approach from the portbeam, and a third light appears between them as the arrester hook is lowered. "Too high," says one of the goofers (the critical audience ofaircrews and others who congregate both by day and by night at various vantage points on the island). "No, he'll make it," says another. The lights waver slightly as the pilot lines-up and makes his finalcorrections; then they swoop towards the near-invisible deck, and now the familiar crump is accompanied by a shower of sparks as the hookstrikes the deck, and by the glow of the downward identification light beneath the Sea Venom's fuselage. Released, the wire returns to its tautposition in a glitter of tiny friction-sparks over its whole length. Guided by the directors, who are now using illuminated wands glow-ing like dully-red-hot pokers, the Venom switches on red wing-fold lights and taxies forward, its instrument-panel lighting repeating thereddish-orange colour pattern. The next aircraft, perhaps, is a "bolter"; the navigation lights swoopdownwards a little too late, and the dim dark shape flashes past with a blast of sound as the pilot opens up the Ghost to full thrust. As theaircraft climbs away you see the trembling orange-mauve glow inside its tailpipe. Now a Skyraider comes in and taxies along the deck with big purpleflames flicking from the exhaust stubs of its Cyclone, accompanied by a nostalgic chacka-chacka-chacka almost reminiscent of Mono Avros; andthe next arrival may be a Gannet, presenting an illuminated version of its praying-mantis wingfold, with a small red light at every hinge. * * * Night launches arc less spectacular, for little can be seen except thegreen-glowing wand which has replaced the F.D.O.'s flag, and the dull glare in the tailpipes as the aircraft climb away. But the next item provides a new spectacle, for it consists entirely of"touch-and-go," a familiarization technique whereby each pilot makes a succession of circuits, on which, with arrester-hook retracted, he brushesthe deck with his wheels and climbs away again. One has seen a club Tiger Moth doing just that on a grass airfield on a sunny afternoon. Butone has never seen a powerful night-and-all-weather fighter doing it; and in the dark; and on an obstruction-fringed slab of steel floating in theEnglish Channel. Once again, you just don't believe it. • * * And so ashore by Gannet, this time in the centre cockpit, so that onecan see what a free-take-off looks like from the business end. Ashore with a load of interweaving impressions of this unfamiliar world. Whatcan one sort out? First and foremost, perhaps, the sense of an unself- conscious team spirit, whether it be in the quiet depths of the OperationsRoom and the Aircraft Direction Room, where men watch in radar scopes, and record on vast Perspex panels, the comings and goings ofEagle's brood (and, if necessary, of less friendly birds and fish); in the far less quiet Aircraft Control Room, where the location of every aero-plane in and on the ship is tallied from moment to moment; in the tchoeina hangars and maintenance workshops; in the breathless heat andunrelenting roar of the engine rooms. Even in peace-time the aircrews and deck-men in particular are doing—let's face it—a dangerous job. Long and arduous training and a com- plex mass of regulations have been imposed to reduce that danger to anirreducible minimum. Cheerful acceptance of and obedience to those regulations is coupled at all levels with an unmistakeable enthusiasmfor the job. Thinking back to that game of touch-and-go in the roaring darkness, one sees how in H.M.S. Eagle, as in the other aircraft carriersof the Royal Navy, it is just these things that make the impossible possible. R. E. C. "EAGLE'S" SQUADRONS No. 803—Sea Hawks (U.-Cdr. J. O. Roberts). No. 804—Sea Hawks (Lt-Cdr. W. D. D. Macdonald). No. 813—Wyverns (Lt-Cdr. R. W. Hallidoy. D.S.C.). No. 81-4—Gannecs (Lt-Cdr. R. Fulton). No. 894—Sea Venoms (Lt-Cdr. P. G. Young). No. 849 "A" Flight—Skyraiders (Lt-Cdr. B. J. Williams). No. 701 "A" Flight—Whirlwind helicopters (Lt. (S.D.) A. W. Webb).
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