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shopify.com/promo. I was gently

1:14

bumbling along at

1:17

about 40, 42 or 43,000 feet. Reminding

1:21

my own business really because it was just getting

1:23

some hours in for Saka. So

1:26

not much in the way of why was I

1:28

there. And so my mind

1:30

was slightly in neutral I would imagine.

1:33

And suddenly the aircraft almost shook itself

1:35

to bits as this engine wound down.

1:38

A lot of noise and adrenaline flowing

1:40

then. This

1:44

is Cold War Conversations. If you're

1:46

new here you've come to the

1:48

right place to listen to first-hand

1:50

Cold War history accounts. For

1:54

many the dream of flying begins in childhood.

1:56

Staring up at the sky and wondering what

1:58

it would be like to soar. amongst the

2:00

clouds. Jeremy Lane's

2:03

fascination for aviation was nurtured

2:05

by countless hours spent watching

2:07

aircraft at Staverton Airport on

2:09

North Wield. Jeremy

2:11

describes his experiences flying the jet

2:13

Proversed and later the Canberra. He

2:16

describes the capabilities of this versatile

2:18

and iconic aircraft from high speed

2:20

reconnaissance to its nuclear role. The

2:24

Canberra's design with its twin jet

2:26

engines and rudimentary navigation equipment required

2:29

a high level of skill and

2:31

constant attention. The stories

2:33

of flying at low levels navigating

2:35

with minimal aids and the ever-present

2:37

risk of engine failure provide a

2:39

gripping insight into the life of

2:41

an RAF pilot in the late

2:43

1960s. Whether you're

2:46

an aviation enthusiast or simply curious

2:48

about the life of an RAF

2:50

pilot during the Cold War this

2:52

episode offers a compelling and immersive

2:54

experience. Tune in next

2:56

week for part two where we go

2:59

into detail about the challenges of nuclear

3:01

operations along the edge of the Iron

3:03

Curtain. I'm

3:05

delighted to welcome Jeremy Lane to

3:08

our Cold War conversation. My

3:11

parents and their generation were all involved

3:13

in the Second World War so to

3:16

that extent they were military

3:18

but not in the professional sense

3:20

i.e. long-term military careers.

3:23

So my father actually invited it out

3:25

of the military during

3:27

the war. My mother served as an

3:30

ambulance driver and a staff car driver

3:32

I think and my

3:34

father went joined the BBC and

3:36

became a producer of children's children's

3:39

hour on the radio and

3:42

as a result of that quite unusual in those days.

3:44

He did a lot of foreign travelling and one of

3:46

the things that he did was he

3:48

flew with British Airways and the

3:50

captain who he interviewed as part of

3:52

he was doing a series of it

3:55

was about jobs and so one of

3:57

those was interviewing a British Airways captain.

3:59

whose name I still have on my

4:01

tongue, Laurie Arthur. He

4:04

came and stayed with us and drank more

4:08

than a few bottles of whisky. And

4:11

to my father's chagrin, I think. But

4:14

he introduced me to the sort of flying,

4:16

I suppose. I think I was already interested

4:18

at that point. In fact, no, I was

4:20

because I had spent many, many

4:23

hours when I was at school in

4:25

Cheltenham down at Staverton Airport.

4:29

And before that, I remember when I was

4:31

living in Theden Boyes, which is near Epping,

4:33

going on the train out

4:36

to North Wield, which was then

4:38

an operational station and

4:41

watching, just standing on

4:43

the perimeter and just watching the aircraft and

4:45

thinking, I wonder what it would be like to be up

4:47

there. So you joined

4:49

the RAF out of a fascination

4:52

for flying and for aircraft. Yeah,

4:54

I mean, I did. When I

4:56

was at school, we had ATC,

4:59

like Hawaiian Cadet Force, as it was known at

5:01

my school, but I mean, it was essentially military

5:03

training at a basic level.

5:06

And I was in charge of the RAF section.

5:09

Sergeant in charge, I think, I can't remember something

5:11

like that. But I

5:13

had the opportunity to go flying on

5:16

chipmunks. I was taken to Filton,

5:18

Bristol, and I would sit in a crew room

5:20

waiting for anybody to give me an opportunity to

5:22

go up for half an hour in a chipmunk.

5:25

And I don't know

5:28

how many hours I did flying, I did

5:30

a lot more sitting in a crew room

5:32

than I did flying, but I certainly got

5:34

some experience of flying. And then I did

5:36

my flying scholarship, which I was doing while

5:38

I was still at school. So

5:41

I got my private pilot's license courtesy

5:43

of the Royal Air Force. And

5:45

they, yeah, I did. I think

5:47

in those days, it was 30 hours. And

5:50

I did it at Birmingham Airport. What

5:54

year did you actually join the

5:56

RAF? I joined

5:58

the Air Force in 1966. I left

6:04

school in 1964, I

6:06

did a year at a

6:09

language school in Geneva and then

6:12

came back and joined the Air Force. It was a

6:14

bit of a sort of straightforward move

6:17

from school to Air

6:19

Force because they provided you with everything,

6:22

food, and the only thing you had to do was buy

6:24

your own beer. There wasn't

6:26

much time for drinking beer to be honest. They

6:30

had you working out as

6:33

it was a boot camp and

6:36

there was some education at the

6:38

same time. I was at

6:41

South Cerny, which was an

6:43

old wartime air base and

6:45

I remember on day one, it was an absolute

6:47

shock to the system. I guess I was 19,

6:49

yeah, 19. We

6:52

were invited to run around the perimeter

6:54

track carrying a dining

6:58

room bench, if you can imagine what a

7:00

dining room bench was like. The

7:04

two of you, one at the front, one at the back. I

7:07

don't know how long the perimeter was but it must

7:09

have been at least a couple of miles to

7:12

get around the Perry track on that airfield.

7:15

If you got back and were still standing up, they just

7:17

invited you to go around again. There

7:21

were many of us who

7:24

thought we were quite fit but

7:26

we found out that we were not at all

7:28

fit and we were all, the following

7:30

day down in South Cerny Village, we were

7:33

all like a bunch of old cripples walking

7:36

through the town. That was the introduction and it

7:38

went on like that from there on. One

7:41

of my lasting memories is doing the

7:43

assault course and part of

7:46

the assault course was to walk along the edge

7:48

of a hangar on

7:51

the roof. There was no health and safety in

7:53

those days, no ropes, no high

7:55

vis vests or I don't know what else they were these

7:57

days but there was nothing in those days. part

8:00

of the assault course was to go

8:02

over, climb up to the top of

8:04

the roof on the hangar, you

8:07

know the old World War II hangars that they had.

8:10

Walk along the edge of that and get down the other end. Well,

8:13

I had, believe it or not, although they

8:15

never discovered this because I never told anybody, I had

8:17

a terrible head for heights. And

8:21

it doesn't affect you when you're flying, but it

8:23

does when you're looking down over

8:25

a precipice. And

8:27

I surprised myself amazingly, got down the other

8:30

side and never had to do it again,

8:32

I don't think. And they taught you

8:34

to be a military man, you

8:36

know, we had a week in Wales on

8:38

camp and then they taught you

8:40

all the etiquette of being an officer. And

8:43

at the end of it, you commissioned with

8:47

a uniform and acting pilot officer

8:50

with a view to going off to flying training.

8:52

That's, I think it was about a class of six

8:54

months, I think something like that. Maybe

8:57

not long, maybe it was only three. It probably felt

8:59

like six months. It certainly did.

9:02

I spent a lot of time

9:04

sleeping because it was really

9:06

grueling, grueling work, you know, a lot

9:08

of work in the gym, getting

9:10

medicine balls and

9:13

obviously a lot of parade work, learning,

9:15

learning military discipline and learning military

9:17

rules and understanding Queen's

9:19

regulations and all that stuff. You know, it was,

9:22

I mean, look back on it with great affection,

9:24

I think it was brilliant. The

9:27

other thing that I remember so well was

9:29

my first pay parade. I

9:32

thought, you know, because I was being looked after,

9:34

I didn't expect to be paid. I didn't think

9:36

anybody's going to pay me. And the naivety of

9:39

it all was extraordinary. And

9:41

I think I think my first parade, I

9:43

got a brown paper envelope with

9:45

I think it was I think

9:47

it was five shillings. It's my

9:49

recollection. When the first day, maybe

9:51

it was, no, it was definitely it was definitely in the

9:53

sort of five

9:56

to 10 shilling area for

9:58

a week of hard labor. So

10:01

anyway, that all came to an end and because

10:03

I got my flying scholarship, I didn't have to

10:05

do the primary training, which was on Chipmunk, which

10:08

a lot of them had to do, but I'd done

10:11

my flying scholarship. So they sent me

10:13

straight to Syston, which was near Cambridge

10:16

and still there, I think. Syston, there's

10:18

some data on my list. Anyway, it

10:20

was one of a number of primary

10:22

basic flying training schools where you spent

10:24

a year on Jet

10:27

Provis. Right.

10:29

Your first introduction to flying jets. That

10:31

was my first introduction to flying jets

10:33

and I think we were one of

10:35

the first because the Jet Provis hadn't

10:37

been introduced that many years before. So

10:40

we were one of the very early

10:42

all-jet trained pilots. They

10:46

were before that, they were piston

10:48

provis and then Harvard's and things

10:50

which were, you know,

10:52

training pilots in the second world war,

10:55

Canadian active. So

10:57

we didn't get to see those. And

11:00

was the the Provis is a

11:02

training aircraft. It was intended to

11:04

be easy to fly. Did

11:07

you enjoy flying the Provis? I absolutely loved it.

11:12

You get a toy like that

11:14

and you know, you're flying somebody

11:16

else's expense. It's just big boys

11:18

toys. I mean, it's just fantastic.

11:21

I loved every minute of it. And

11:25

I was clearly meant to

11:27

fly. I

11:29

didn't have any problems. I never had,

11:32

you know, check rides or re-rides or

11:36

attempts to have me thrown off the

11:38

course. The failure rate was significantly high.

11:41

We called it the chop rate. If you

11:43

were invited to go with a chop ride, a chop

11:46

ride with the chief flying instructor, you

11:49

know, you knew your time was up. And

11:51

that guy's got yeah, they were it was

11:53

quite intimidating, really. It's

11:56

a process. But you can get on because

11:58

they didn't want to, they didn't want to, you know. be

12:00

paying for you when they knew you were clearly not

12:02

cut out for it. So in

12:04

your class, let's say, how many people

12:06

didn't make it through? What sort of

12:08

percentage was that failure, right? You

12:12

know, I don't really, I can't give you

12:14

a figure, but I mean, I guess we

12:16

were about 20 of us on the course.

12:20

I would say by the time you got

12:23

to the end of your training, there

12:26

weren't that many of us left. I

12:28

mean, in terms of fast jet train

12:30

pilots, so we moved on

12:32

from there to Raleigh to fly NATs and I

12:34

would think by the time we'd finished on NATs,

12:38

the chop rate must have been, oh god, I would

12:40

think it was about 50%. You

12:42

know, half people, everything.

12:45

And so what would have happened

12:47

to those people? Would they have

12:49

been put onto propeller aircraft or

12:51

something like that? Yeah, some would

12:53

have gone to helicopters, some

12:56

would have gone to transport.

13:00

They wouldn't all have been complete

13:02

failures. But if you can get through basic flying training,

13:04

then you didn't go anywhere. I mean, you just got

13:06

chopped and that was it. But if

13:08

you got through basic flying training, you got your wings. I

13:11

just want to ask the question. So what is

13:13

the difference that they're looking for with fast jet versus

13:16

other flying? Is it reaction or

13:19

time? What are they looking for there? I

13:22

think it's an attitude

13:24

for, I mean, I'm not able to

13:26

answer your question because I never

13:29

became a flying instructor. So I can

13:31

say I don't really know what they

13:33

were looking for particularly, but I would

13:36

guess it was

13:38

attitude for

13:41

fast jet operations.

13:43

I mean, in those days, there

13:45

were really only three

13:48

operational types in the fast jet

13:50

world. There was the Lightning, the

13:52

Hunter and the Canberra. Those

13:55

were the three fast jets of the day operationally.

13:57

When I got to the end of my advanced night training.

13:59

getting at the valley. I did have to

14:02

restate a bit of one final process,

14:04

which is the navigation. And

14:07

I never really think that I kept

14:09

up with the aeroplane or I was,

14:11

I did get through, I mean I was parf, but it

14:13

was flying at,

14:15

you know, when you're flying a jet promised, I

14:18

think we flew at 220 knots or thereabouts at

14:20

low level, 250 feet. And you moved on to something

14:28

which landed about 160, 150, 130 knots. I think it landed at

14:30

130, 140 knots. But

14:35

I mean, the jet, the

14:38

NAT was fabulous aeroplane.

14:40

I loved flying it. But

14:43

moving from large

14:45

scale maps to half mill maps,

14:47

which have very little detail

14:49

on it. And we didn't have any other navigation aids

14:51

really, not at low level. It was just, it was

14:54

a Mark I bought. That was it. And

14:56

things happened very quickly at 420 knots.

14:58

I mean, they really do, that happens

15:01

very quickly. And you're 250

15:03

feet, 420 knots, and everybody's going past very quickly. I

15:08

never seemed to catch up with the aeroplane.

15:10

So a lot of my flying at low

15:12

level navigation was pretty much guesswork. And

15:17

I hoped I don't know at the right

15:19

place. Anyway, so yeah,

15:21

I think that we

15:24

were shown the opportunities

15:28

for postings, you know, could put down

15:30

our preferences at the end of advanced flight

15:32

training. And so I decided I needed

15:34

a navigator. So the choices

15:36

to have a navigator were not the hunter and

15:38

they weren't the lightning. They were

15:41

both single seats. So I had the choice of

15:43

a Canberra or the V force. And

15:45

the V force was considered to be a death knell by

15:48

those going through because A, you weren't

15:50

in charge of the aeroplane. You had

15:52

to sit beside somebody who was going

15:54

to be basically you

15:57

were a crewman. And

15:59

I didn't want that either. So I opted

16:01

for Canberra's and we

16:04

were shown a promotional film at

16:06

Valley about the Canberra and I thought it

16:08

looked very exciting. So I

16:11

was delighted when I got my posting from

16:14

Valley to go to

16:16

the Canberra OCU which was

16:18

at Bassingbourne. Can

16:21

you just describe what that aircraft

16:23

is like? Yeah

16:25

well it was designed by a chap called

16:29

Heather who worked for the English Electric Company after

16:31

the war and there

16:34

was an air staff requirement for

16:36

an aircraft to effectively replace

16:38

the Mosquito which had been the high

16:42

speed reconnaissance and fighter

16:45

air to army. They had guns and all sorts

16:47

but no self-defense. This was a high

16:49

speed bomber for the new

16:52

age if you like. The Canberra's twin

16:54

jet engine, quite basic

16:56

in many respects. I mean it

16:58

didn't have any power flight controls.

17:00

It had very

17:03

rudimentary navigation equipment

17:07

from the second world war because really hadn't

17:09

moved on much from that. In fact many

17:11

of the more sophisticated things that they developed

17:13

during the second world war and fitted to

17:15

the aircraft and no fitted to Canberra's. It

17:18

was a low level, it was a

17:20

low medium high level aircraft. It was

17:23

very versatile and obviously a bombing capability,

17:25

a good range. You

17:27

could fly high level for

17:30

four and a half hours. I mean you could

17:32

fly from the UK down to Cyprus in one

17:34

in one hop. It

17:38

was pressurized but

17:40

only partly pressurized so you didn't

17:42

have like you have in a

17:44

modern cabin of an airliner where

17:47

you can sit there to roughly

17:49

8,000 feet is what

17:51

most airliners are flying at inside in the

17:53

cabin. Whereas the Canberra

17:56

was half your height plus two

17:58

so the operational height of a

18:00

camera, ending up to 48,000 feet.

18:02

So you would be at 24 plus two, so 26,000 feet inside

18:08

the aircraft. So it was pretty cold. It

18:12

was cold. It was particularly noisy, but

18:14

it was, but you had to fly it all the

18:16

time. So whether you were low level or high level,

18:19

it was 100% flying. No, no, no

18:21

autopilot. The only version which

18:23

had the only version which came with an autopilot,

18:25

I believe I never flew it, but the PR

18:28

nine, I think did have

18:30

an autopilot and also had power flying

18:32

controls. So a much easier aeroplane to

18:34

fly in the end. The final version,

18:36

the final iteration of the Canberra was

18:38

a very fine aeroplane and people who

18:40

flew it loved it. And I

18:42

actually, we loved, we loved the versions. I mean,

18:44

I, the operational version of actually

18:46

was the BI8 that it was introduced in

18:49

about 1956, the

18:51

BI8. So by the time I got

18:53

to fly it was, well,

18:55

it was probably 12 years old, but I got to

18:57

fly it, but they were still,

18:59

they were still, yeah, considered to be quite

19:02

potent aeroplanes. You could carry a bomb load

19:04

in the bomb bay and there were

19:07

pylons on the wings also

19:09

to carry bombs or rockets in

19:12

Germany. Our main role, by

19:15

the time I'd finished my training or conversion

19:17

on the Canvas, I went out to Germany

19:20

and our main role was support

19:22

of SACR, the Supreme Allied Command

19:24

Europe, who had a plan to

19:26

wipe out the Russians in Eastern

19:28

Europe. So we were nuclear, we

19:30

were nuclear armed, which most people

19:32

don't know. I did

19:34

do a little bit of research about

19:36

the Canberra and I was really surprised

19:38

to find that NASA still fly to

19:41

massively modified, but it's still essentially a

19:43

Canberra. It is. Yeah. Yeah, they do.

19:45

They use them for, for Metwork, I

19:48

think. And also the photography of

19:50

launches and recovery of space

19:53

capsules. Yeah. They've been doing that for

19:55

years. Yeah. It's, that's, as you

19:57

say, it's a very heavily modified version of the

19:59

Canberra. still basically, I mean, the Canberra was

20:02

so advanced at the time when it

20:04

came out. I mean, it won, for

20:07

example, very early on. It

20:09

won the fastest

20:11

time from the UK to

20:13

Australia. And it

20:15

was in a PR3, I think. In fact,

20:17

I'm sure it was because I flew that

20:20

particular aircraft I flew when I was converting

20:22

onto Canberra's Basington. It did the first transatlantic

20:24

jet flight. It was the

20:26

first, it was the only, I think even to

20:28

this very day, the only aircraft,

20:31

maybe the Harrier came later, but

20:34

at that time, certainly, until the

20:36

Harrier was the only aircraft that

20:38

Americans bought from anybody else, bought

20:42

the design and built it under license. And they

20:44

built a much better version than ours, of course,

20:46

you could imagine. Yeah,

20:49

yeah. The B57, yeah. Yeah.

20:53

And it flew and did a lot

20:55

of work in the Vietnam War. I

20:57

mean, it was a very, very important

20:59

aircraft. Yeah. Yeah,

21:02

it's a tribute to the to the aircraft that, you

21:04

know, it was one of two

21:06

really types that the US bought

21:08

from us. Ryan

21:12

Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. With the price

21:14

of just about everything going up during inflation,

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we thought we'd bring our prices down. To

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help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer,

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which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile Unlimited

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Premium Wireless. How do you get 30, 30

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slash switch. uhh,

21:35

you. Did

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you know that your account with Amazon can

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21:46

Just search for Cold War Conversations on

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Amazon and leave a review for the

21:51

podcast. Thank you. What

21:54

was it like to fly? I guess

21:56

it's not as lively as a gnat,

21:58

but absolutely not. But I mean, it

22:01

performed. I mean, most of the time we flew wing tanks

22:04

for reasons of endurance,

22:06

really, which could be jettisoned in the event

22:08

that you need to get rid of the

22:10

performance limits of the Canberra,

22:12

you know, on a daily basis were

22:14

affected by the fact that we were

22:17

carrying wing tanks. So the

22:19

maximum speed was 360 knots carrying wing tanks,

22:21

450 at ground level, 450 and 150

22:30

knots without wing tanks. So

22:32

I mean, it's quite, you know, in its day,

22:35

it was a remarkable airplane,

22:37

but it had, it

22:39

had the limitations of a very

22:42

weird system for operating controls, which

22:44

were through tubes. I

22:46

mean, manually, I mean, you actually, you know, when you

22:48

pull something, you pull something, you know, or turn it.

22:51

And in order not to overstress the aircraft, so

22:53

you can imagine 450 knots, it is, you know,

22:55

a big airplane, and

22:58

it would be quite easy to overstress it.

23:00

So it had a system with

23:03

torque tubes. So

23:05

when you, when you turned, or

23:07

let's say you, you, you moved

23:09

a control, you,

23:11

you moved a tube, which

23:14

was then connected to another tube. And

23:18

the tube, the outer tube would

23:20

move, but only as much as

23:23

the wing, the, the air

23:25

pressure on the control

23:28

surface would allow you to. So if

23:30

it was going quite slowly, you could

23:32

get movement of the control service. But

23:34

if it was 450 knots, you

23:36

pretty much had to get your knee underneath

23:38

the control column to make it

23:40

move to three degrees. I mean, it was,

23:42

it was a very clever, it was a

23:44

cleverly designed system. And it was designed to

23:46

prevent overstressing the airplane. And the fact that

23:48

these airplanes continue to fly well

23:51

into the 1980s is testament to the

23:53

fact that the system was

23:56

actually quite remarkably effective.

23:59

And so we have. Yeah, I mean

24:01

the original aircraft were the PR3 and

24:03

the B2. All

24:06

crew members had ejection seats and

24:10

there were two guys who

24:13

were trained as navigators sitting

24:15

in the back seats and

24:18

they could crawl forward into the nose. There

24:20

was a bombing, bombing position

24:22

at the front of the aircraft. In

24:25

the original versions they

24:28

all had this very beautifully

24:30

designed cockpit cover,

24:33

if you like. It looked seamless

24:36

and didn't give you quite the visibility.

24:38

Later models did like the B-High 8

24:40

and the PR9 where you got all

24:42

round fighter cockpit visibility, you know, 360

24:44

degrees almost so you

24:46

could turn your head around that far. But

24:49

it was, you know, you

24:51

got a lot of good visibility. There was lots

24:54

of other things that we didn't like. Mostly

24:57

to do with the heating. There was

25:00

practically no air conditioning and heating in

25:02

these early aircraft. They were very poorly.

25:04

So, you know, flying at 35,000 feet

25:06

got bloody cold after two or three

25:08

hours. But

25:11

not probably as bad as being in

25:13

a wartime aircraft. I'm sure it wasn't.

25:15

We did have some air

25:17

conditioning and heating but it was still pretty

25:20

damn cold. And you mentioned

25:22

there the ejector seats. Was

25:24

it the early versions that didn't have

25:26

ejector seats for all crew? No,

25:28

they all did. The

25:30

only one that the only aircraft that

25:33

didn't was the B-High 8 which was

25:35

the operational model in Germany. All the

25:37

other aircraft had ejections from all the

25:39

crew members. But once you got to

25:41

the B-High 8, there were only two

25:43

crew stations. There was the navigator and

25:45

the pilot and the pilot sat up,

25:47

a sort of fighter-type canopy.

25:52

And the navigator sat in the forward

25:54

section of the fuselage at a desk

25:57

really. And there was

25:59

no ejection seats. for him. The piano.

26:01

He has to exit out. Yeah,

26:05

he had to open the door, which was probably

26:07

behind him, or yeah, would have been behind him

26:09

probably. And he

26:12

would escape with a parachute, which he popped

26:15

onto his chest would have been sitting by the

26:17

door. And it had technically

26:20

a 200 foot capability. So

26:23

at 200 feet, you get out, I mean,

26:25

one of

26:27

the features of the Canberra and many

26:29

of the Meteor and many of the

26:31

twin engine aircraft with engines outboard

26:33

from the wing route, unlike say, like

26:36

a comet where the engines were right

26:38

in at the wing route, but on

26:40

the Canberra, the act the engines were

26:42

quite far out down the wing. And

26:45

so lateral control in the event of

26:47

an engine failure was poor at low

26:49

speeds. And there

26:51

was a there was a dead

26:54

man's space between

26:56

liftoff, which

26:59

was at about 130 130 knots in

27:01

the Canberra. So the wheels came

27:03

out stuck at about 130 knots, but

27:05

the aircraft wasn't controllable on one engine until

27:07

you were up to about 150 or 160

27:10

knots. And

27:14

so there was that space in

27:16

between where the pilot

27:18

would undoubtedly have said, say I'm

27:21

off, would

27:23

have pulled the handle, but you know, clearly

27:25

would have done his

27:27

best to get his crewman out. And we

27:29

did practice a lot. In

27:33

fact, they say that we lost far

27:35

more people on

27:37

practice single engine work in the circuit

27:39

than anybody ever suffered from a genuine

27:41

engine failure. There was one only one

27:43

person I know, and he now God

27:45

bless him is no longer with us,

27:47

but a guy called Steve Stringer, who

27:51

who got out of a Canberra after

27:54

a bird strike when he got when

27:56

he got airborne and even navigator and he

27:59

got out. so

36:01

visually and you had to fly the aircraft

36:04

visually because although you had instruments, you were

36:06

still reliant on looking

36:08

out of the cockpit and

36:10

having some visual reference, but it was black, absolutely

36:13

black that night. We were down

36:15

at 200 feet, very close to the sea. Yeah,

36:19

I do remember

36:21

that being a

36:23

very sweaty, salty. We

36:26

wore immersion suits in those days, immersion suits

36:28

were designed to protect you if you had

36:30

to get out of the airplane and fell

36:33

into the water, then the sea would keep

36:35

you going for maybe half an hour. But

36:37

there were very uncomfortable things and if you

36:39

sweated inside them or did

36:41

anything else inside them, it

36:44

was very soggy.

36:46

So I remember

36:49

that sort of thing, so that was hairy, you

36:51

could say, that was a pretty hairy flight. And

36:54

I did my other one with a very

36:58

nervous pilot

37:00

on the squadron who came back with me from Cyprus one

37:03

time and we got to

37:05

Northern Germany, let down and

37:08

the cloud, there was cloud thick,

37:11

cloud icing conditions, which not very good in

37:13

the camera. We had anti icing

37:15

on the end, no de icing on the wing. So

37:18

if the wings

37:22

started to ice up, you

37:24

needed to get out of the icing conditions.

37:26

It wasn't a question of, fire off some

37:28

boots or whatever, it's the hour on modern

37:30

aircraft. It was important to

37:33

get away from it. But anyway, we had

37:35

instrument flying conditions from 38,000 feet

37:37

down to 200 feet. And I

37:39

had a guy, we had a rumble seat, what

37:42

was called a rumble seat, so you take a

37:44

third crew member and he had

37:46

to sit beside me. So down below

37:49

me on my right hand side was another pilot.

37:51

He couldn't do anything, he couldn't even see what

37:53

was happening because he was

37:57

inside well of the airplane, if you like.

38:00

But I remember him being very, very

38:02

anxious about my ability to

38:05

get this aeroplane down on the ground

38:07

after, you know, flying through all that

38:09

clag. And it was because we didn't

38:11

have really, we had very, very limited

38:13

instrument. I mean,

38:16

we had, you know, instruments for night

38:18

flying or for instrument flying. We're

38:21

pretty basic. And we had an ILS, but

38:24

it was rudimentary ILS. And

38:26

often, often the ILSs were calibrated on the

38:28

ground. So, you

38:31

know, we didn't do ILS

38:33

work very often. And

38:37

so generally speaking, we flew with an

38:39

air traffic controller who was giving you

38:41

position information on where, you know, where

38:43

you were and where you thought you

38:45

should go and heading and

38:47

so on to get to the approach.

38:49

So ground control approach is what we

38:51

call them, TCA. So

38:54

they were very skilled at it, these guys, they were

38:56

very skilled at getting you on the ground. And

38:59

I'm sure that that particular day, I'm sure

39:02

I did a GCA into Goldenrath Uprook. I

39:04

can't remember which it was now. And

39:06

again, it was a very, it was a sweaty doo. It

39:09

was a sweaty doo. It was turbulent. There

39:11

were thunderstorms about. I think

39:13

it was light and, you

39:16

know, just conditions that were designed

39:18

to make you work very hard.

39:21

A lot of factors to deal with.

39:23

Yeah. And it was a

39:25

four and a half hour, pretty much four

39:27

and a half hour flight. So yeah, with

39:29

no autopilot, with no autopilot, you know, you

39:31

were already tired, you were already feeling, you

39:33

know, so yeah, it decents through

39:35

cloud from 35000 feet or whatever it

39:38

was. I mean, cumulonimbus were up

39:40

at that sort of height and you're back

39:42

on the ground. So yeah, that was that

39:44

was exciting. That was probably

39:46

as exciting as it gets. I

39:48

want to talk about your posting

39:51

to the nuclear role. Yeah.

39:54

So when were you posted to the nuclear

39:56

role and did they vet you in any

39:58

way? Yes. relatively

42:00

low yield. I mean obviously would have done a

42:02

lot of damage but it was designed to think,

42:04

you know, take out an airfield

42:06

but not take out the

42:09

city next to it or whatever.

42:11

Would have been pretty

42:13

devastating. But anyway, by the time I got out

42:15

to Germany, the aircraft

42:17

had been converted to carry an American

42:19

weapon, which

42:22

was somewhat

42:24

more versatile in that you could dial

42:28

in the yield. So it

42:30

could be programmed to

42:32

produce a different yield depending

42:34

on SACR's requirements

42:36

and it could be dropped at

42:38

low level, you didn't have to climb up. I'm

42:41

sorry that's where we're going to have to

42:43

end it for this week but make sure

42:45

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so you don't miss out on the next

42:50

episode where Jeremy describes his experiences flying the

42:52

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