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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 1530.PDF
29 May 1959 conforming at this stage very closely to the RAF. pattern. The first crews to be converted entirely in India started theirthree-month course towards the end of August last year. Selec- tion of pilots and navigators was based on previous experience.Of the pilots, those without jet experience had rather more total flying time. The idea was to balance out the pilots' initial capabi-lities against their probable aptitude, and it has worked out well. A month of intensive ground study is followed by two monthsof conversion flying, some of which is at night. A white (jet) rating is considered an essential part of the course, and at leastsix hours are devoted more or less exclusively to obtaining the necessary experience. At the end of the two months the courseis assessed by an instrument-flying examining board; there is an aircrew examining board as well in the I.A.F. (formed in 1956)but the Canberras are as yet too new for all the examiners to have received conversions themselves. During all the training exercises (often after cross-country flightslasting nearly four hours) let-downs are made by radio compass and V.H.F./R.T., the sole airfield radio aids available in India.Nevertheless, at 40,000ft the M.F. beacons can be received at a range of 300 miles, and are apparently little affected by staticinterference except in the first storms of the monsoon. But instruction is given in other ground-based aids used overseas. The L.B. squadron received their first aircraft in April 1957,and last year was an introductory one in which the potentialities of the aircraft—Canberra B(I).8s and B.58s—were fully explored 745 while the two flights were worked up to operational standard.Exercises have been limited to one day of fleet support sorties when the Indian Navy was returning to Bombay, but this yearit is intended to operate a full-scale summer exercise. W/C. Dani, the C.O., expressed himself very satisfied withthe results so far achieved in the high-level bomber role. Bomb- ing techniques are practised both by day and by night, visualand blind, in every condition of weather. Using the self-contained navigation aid (it has been stated that Marconi Doppler AD.2000is installed in R.A.F. Canberras) and a two-crew operation, this squadron has consistently achieved very good results. On another side of the airfield, an S.R. unit (commandedby W/C Bhimrao) is providing valuable service with its Canberra PJt.7s and vertical cameras. In the flight commander's office,standing in front of a giant-sized wall map of India, I was treated to an enthusiastic discourse on the survey work that the Can-berras are doing. By no means all of India is as yet accurately mapped, and the photographic reconnaissance unit is hard at workfilling in die gaps. Mapping the whole area of the Himalayan range, which covers 50,000 sq miles, is Canberra-sized work;and so far 14,000 sq miles have been mosaic-photographed and many corrections have been made to existing maps compiledfrom travellers' reports. Because of the inaccuracies of these maps pinpoints are extremely difficult to obtain; already the unit hasdiscovered the existence of a hitherto uncharted 320-mile-long lake in the Himalayan region. [Continued overleaf • • ft t. ^HBsr
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