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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0380.PDF
LOW-LEVEL RN STRIKE Sortie in a. Buccaneer By HUMPHREY WYNN : "Flight International" Pictures by MICHAEL BARNES WE made our penetration of the coast on a descending path from altitude, getting down fast and low, at below 200ft with the airspeed indicating well over 400kt. Sitting slightly higher than the pilot, with my seat raised by the electric switch in the bottom right-hand corner of the rear cockpit, 1 could see the snow-covered hills clustering ahead as we bored inland on a west- south-westerly course. We just cleared a snowy ridge, its surface flashing grittily beneath: above us was a flat sheet of stratus cloud, the Buccaneer's passage being like a filling in the narrow sandwich between it and the undulating ground. We skimmed the frozen surface of a lake, as if the aircraft were fitted with invisible skis, forded in a flash a river whose current was caught in an icy stillness. Hills rose up on our port side as we turned to recover track after a momentary diversion for a bank of rain cloud caught in a valley; then we skimmed another frozen lake and pulled into a 3g star board turn, the sweepback of the Buccaneer's wings seeming to give us a few feet extra ground clearance above the terrain we were hugging so closely. Suddenly into view on the left came a long, narrow lake, hills rising up steeply from either side; we pulled into a turn to starboard and it disappeared from view. A neck of water stretching inland from the sea appeared on our right: we seemed to touch the end of it, though the altitude in my cockpit registered 180ft, for the Buccaneer crested the undulations of the ground like a gardener's line stretched across potato furrows. Ahead were some snowy humps of hills, at left a small lake and at right another: the Buccaneer was forging over this landscape like a pointer through the contours of a rocky relief map. Weaving our way past the hills and lakes we turned sharply port to run up a lake nearly as long and narrow as the one we had seen a few minutes earlier. The wind flecked the cold grey water with streaks of whiteness, matching the whiteness of the Buccaneer, searing its way over the surface. Suddenly the lake was no more; we had pulled away in a sharp starboard turn; ahead were two small lakes, and a countryside of rocky hillocks; beyond it, the sea. One peak stood up before the blue-grey waters, and the pilot pulled the Buccaneer gently over it and dived towards the surface of the sea. We had been flying for only half an hour since we first penetrated the coastline and made our way through the mountains. Our target—subject of a bombing manoeuvre from a "very fast" speed at low level, pulling up into a half loop with the weapon released on the climb, the aircraft going into an inverted shallow dive then rolling out—might be land-based or maritime. The low-level simulated mission we had half completed was being made in a Buccaneer of 809 Sqn, part of whose training is to fly low-level cross-countries through the Scottish highlands. The pilot on this sortie was Lt G. B. Hoddinott. Over the sea, going east wards, he put up the speed to something over 550kt indicated then demonstrated the effect of the petal-shaped air brakes which the aircraft wears at its stern: the effect was so dramatic that it gave the impression we had stopped completely, rather like the deceleration in a colliery lift shaft which is so marked you feel you are going up again. We rounded out the sortie with a low-level GCA (from 3,000ft) into Lossiemouth, touching-down lhr 5min after a take-off which had been so smooth as to be undramatic. The effect of "blowing" seemed to lift the aircraft off the ground; the sensation was of a gradual rather than a violent acceleration. From the observer's position in the rear cockpit there is good visibility forward, side ways and downwards; one feels one is "up in the world" from the first moment the Buccaneer moves forward, jerking to a stop as the pilot checks his brakes before taxying out for take-off. The process to that moment had been a long one, with starting and pilot's checks following the business of "strapping in"—dinghy connections on either side of the seat pack, personal equipment connections (oxygen and intercom) clamped into place down on the right and plugged-in to the face-mask leads, leg-restrainers passed through the metal loops on the leg straps and plugged-in their sockets, parachute and safety-harness straps adjusted and locked home, bone dome settled and the three safety "pins" on the ejection seats removed and placed in their stowage. Before that, there had been a briefing on the sortie—designed to show the specialist low-level capability of the Buccaneer squa drons. The first of these to be formed, 801, is now at sea in Ark Royal, and has this week participated for the first time in a NATO exercise—so that my visit to Lossiemouth to fly in a Buccaneer, the first time such a facility had been accorded to a journalist, was particularly timely. The exercise, "Dawn Breeze 8," was being held from March 9 to 14. The CO of 801 Sqn, Cdr A. J. Leahy, was away on leave at the time of our visit, but the Commander (Air) at RNAS Lossiemouth, Cdr John Nethersole, and the Senior Pilot and Senior Observer of the squadron, respectively Lt Cdr Lyn Middleton and Lt Cdr John Coleman, filled in the picture of Buccaneer operations in a post-flight briefing. At present the aircraft are armed with weapons carried in the bomb-bay; but it is intended they are also to carry the air-to-sur face N-7a Bullpup missile, standard in the Royal Navy for Scimi tars, Sea Vixens and Buccaneers. The area of operations may be either over land or over sea; thus the Buccaneer's role may include assisting the Army in land actions. As far as its 'crew is concerned, emphasis is upon teamwork between pilot and observer. The former is entirely responsible for flying the aircraft, the latter for
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