Thunder City, ZU-BEX and Mike Beachyhead RIP
Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2020 11:55 am
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Just a nostalgic nod to the time when things were actually done rather well at Thunder City, 3 Lightings were still flying, and when Mike Beachyhead, Dave Stock and ZU-BEX were extant and the decline of Thunder City, that led to the loss of ZU-BEX and the death of Dave Stock, hadn't yet started.
I never had you down as a Teddy Boy Boac!
I never had you down as a Teddy Boy Boac! Actually more Pyscho Billy Band... than Ted...
SOME OF THE CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS TO THE GLOSTER METEOR 1945-1957 IN FIGHTER COMMAND (Royal Air Force and Royal Auxiliary Air Force) 1. Unexplained Dive into the Ground: 80 write-offs, 80 deaths 2. Collisions: 80 write-offs, 50 deaths 3. Single-engine Practice: 38 write-offs including 12 Meteor 7s with both pilots killed, 33 deaths 4. Bale Outs: 100 write-offs (100 bale out attempts), 30 deaths 5. Approach and Landing: 200 write-offs including 60 undershoots and 25 wheel collapses, 12 deaths 6. Running out of Fuel: 56 write-offs, 11 deaths
Total 1945-1957: nearly 800 write-offs and 400 deaths There were 329 Meteor pilots killed during the time I was flying Meteors, the worst year being 1952 (my first full year with 616 Squadron), when on average a Meteor pilot was killed every 4 days.
You would think they would give the guy a break and pick someone else?when on average a Meteor pilot was killed every 4 days.
https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/ ... Safety.pdfThe Meteor had a particular vice, to which the T.7 was more
susceptible than a single-seater. The undercarriage legs came down in
sequence causing the aircraft to snake. If the airbrakes were still
extended the yaw resulted in the inner wing stalling and the aircraft
rolled and dropped its nose. The solution required the brakes to be
snapped shut pretty swiftly but at circuit height and speed, there was
but a narrow margin between a successful recovery and, what was
known as, ‘the phantom dive’. It was this phenomenon that led, on 30
May 1988 at Coventry Airport, to the loss of the last RAF Meteor.
It is also worth noting that, although some elements of the RAF
had been working in nautical miles and knots for many years, it did
not standardise on these until as late as 1945. As a result, until all
aircraft had been refitted it was quite possible to find examples of the
same type of aeroplane with ASIs calibrated in knots while others
were still in mph. The implications of this in terms of dredging up the
appropriate set of recommended manoeuvring and limiting speeds
from one’s memory bank are obvious.
Yes, it was, based upon my reading of Geoffrey Higges' How Meteors Hit the Ground 2, in which he honestly highlights his less than stellar career, and how the lack of currency could kill you very quickly in the Meteor even under ideal conditions.
He wasn't alone in accidents in the final approach stage in the Meteor, with pilots struggling to get to grips with the slow response of the jet engine in comparison to prop aircraft and its engine's tendency to flame out when the throttle was rapidly opened or closed.At the end of November after just 2 months with the squadron, I decided to miss flying for 3 weeks while I concentrated on studying for my first serious University examinations. After the examinations, I turned up at Finningley in the week before Christmas, looking forward to getting back to serious flying. But with the operational program that week already under way, I was given the honour of transporting our Flight Commander to West Raynham in Norfolk, where he was to spend the week end partying with old friends. As he climbed into the back of one of our Meteor 7s with his weekend bag on his knees, I climbed into the front seat as pilot, and we set off. As we crossed over The Wash with Kings Lynn coming up on the right it was such good visibility that I could make out the location of the airfield about 40 miles ahead. I called the control tower asking for a direct approach to the runway in use, which was 025 degrees. A “direct approach” is one where a beeline for the final approach path is made, dispensing with the downwind and crosswind legs of the formal circuit. Gradually descending from our cruising altitude and reducing airspeed, I reached an ideal point on the long approach path at 190 knots with a quarter flap selected and 10,000 engine rpm. Final checks for landing were carried out – airbrakes in, undercarriage down at 170 knots, fuel contents checked (enough for overshoot if required – 50 gallons), 8,500 engine rpm, flaps half, three green lights showing that all three wheels were down and locked, brake pressure OK, speed reducing to 130 knots – O No! Somehow the speed had dropped below 130, and I was descending too fast. In the short time that I had not been flying I had forgotten the intense concentration that is required every second of an approach and landing. There was a yell from the rear cockpit, but no shout of “I have control!”, the usual response from a back-seat instructor, because the Flight Commander had his weekend bag on his knees precluding him from such an activity. Because we were still doing 115 knots and the actual stalling speed was about 90 knots I thought I had a good chance of retrieving the situation and immediately opened up the throttles to maximum power. However once the speed gets down below 130 knots on the Meteor it is quite difficult to recover speed without losing height; so my corrective action turned out to be too late, and we sloshed down into a ploughed field, about 750 yards short of the beginning of the airfield. I closed the throttles and held my breath (I don’t think I shut my eyes). The only positive aspect of this disaster, (apart from the fact that we were both not yet dead), was that I was perfectly aligned with the runway, so following a bumpy ride through ploughed fields and fences, and clipping a concrete radar emplacement just short of the airfield, we finally arrived, travelling down the centerline of the runway just as though it had been a quite normal landing. It was all silent in the back seat as I continued to taxi to the parking spot, and pulled in at the place indicated by the ground staff. I kept the engines running with the intention of taking off straight away once my passenger had got out, so as I saw he was on the ground with his bag, I waved farewell to him and opened the throttles to start to move away to prepare for a take off back to Finningley. That was when the panic on the ground started.
Higges lists at least 22 Meteor quirks that were liable to kill the unwary pilot.Again, when the statistics were finally published in J. J. Halley book in 1999, I found myself to be in good, no, bad company with 200 other Meteor pilots between 1945 and 1957 who also wrote off a Meteor during the approach and landing phase for one reason or another, including 60 of these accidents being caused by undershooting the runway, in a similar way to my episode, (with 17 of these occurring when practising flying on one engine).
That qualifies Mr Higges as prat of the century, I fear. If there were a lot more of him, you can see why we lost so many. Mind you, getting out of the back seat with a bag and engines running?? - seems improbable.I waved farewell to him and opened the throttles to start to move away to prepare for a take off back to Finningley. That was when the panic on the ground started.
As you say, perhaps a bit of authorial licence there. He does go onto to tell the reader that the aircraft suffered significant damage and he was rightly censured by the powers that be and that his flying career was called into question. The more I read about the aircraft, the more I realise that it was a flying death trap whose quirks made it unsuitable for flight by all but the most "switched on"!Boac wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2020 7:10 amThat qualifies Mr Higges as prat of the century, I fear. If there were a lot more of him, you can see why we lost so many. Mind you, getting out of the back seat with a bag and engines running?? - seems improbable.I waved farewell to him and opened the throttles to start to move away to prepare for a take off back to Finningley. That was when the panic on the ground started.
and this oneFlying on one engine at low speeds was not straightforward - for example the overshoot procedure for abandoning a landing was different according to which engine was being used: flying on the starboard engine only, “raise flaps and undercarriage, and increase speed to 180 knots before climbing away (at 180 knots)”: flying on the port engine: “raise flaps but leave the undercarriage down, increase speed to 165 knots before climbing away initially at 165 knots”.
Finally, two characteristics which were never officially acknowledged - at least the information was never passed down to the pilots. It was rumoured that if you selected wheels down with the dive breaks still out, some unpredictable instability and partial lack of control could result. It seems that this lack of stability could have been caused by a spiralling airflow around the aircraft being initiated by the wheels coming down one at a time, the starboard wheel first. This would normally correct itself when the port leg came down, but could be exacerbated, and even made impossible to correct if the dive brakes were out when the undercarriage was selected down. The aircraft could then become unstable in a variety of ways. For example when this happened to me, the aircraft would no longer turn left, so (after lots of trying various manoeuvres), my only recourse was to keep carrying out right hand turns to land. This is discussed further in the next chapter. In a high speed dive, control loads became extremely heavy, so that much higher forces than expected were required for recovery. Unfortunately this was not officially acknowledged for many years, so there continued to be many fatalities - officially labelled “unexplained dive into the ground” or similar.