machine. For example, pressing a rudder pedal induces its ‘primary’ effect of yawing the nose left and right in a flat plane, but it also induces banking, as each wing will move at a different air speed that has to be compensated for. There can also be ‘tertiary’ effects. ‘Trimming’ – almost never an issue when flying the slow old Auster – was essential. A change in airspeed or power results in different pressures on the flight controls, and it is essential that these are ‘trimmed out’ by switches, levers or wheels to reduce pilot workload and increase flying accuracy. The Point Cook instructors were red-hot on trimming from the first flight. They freely bandied about the slogan ‘Trim or fail’, and they were not joking. The CT-4’s engine did not have a straightforward throttle that controlled RPM like the Auster. The RPM of the propeller, and, therefore, the engine, was controlled by a separate propeller lever, and the actual engine power was ‘manifold pressure’, set by the throttle lever. Selecting an optimum RPM for a given manifold pressure is like gears on a bicycle or car, which greatly contributes to efficiency and fuel economy. There was also a ‘mixture’ control. Combinations of manifold pressure and RPM for the various phases like climb, cruise or aerobatics had to be memorised along with maximum and minimum acceptable readings on the engine instruments.
The old Auster had not been fitted with a radio. One was not required when flying in the uncontrolled air space around Moorooduc: pilots ‘saw and were seen.’ But, at Point Cook, as the air space was controlled and densely trafficked, radio calls had to be learned and made at the correct time using the exact phraseology.
There was an introduction to military aerodrome traffic ‘circuit’ procedures. I was mistaken if I thought I was familiar with circuits from my Auster flying. Military circuits were flown as tight ovals. The ‘crosswind’ leg turned into a continuous short downwind, followed by a curving base turn to line up on final approach with the nose facing the runway to land, 500 feet, 150 metres above ground. The result was almost constant manoeuvring, configuring and trimming of the aircraft with two military circuits flown in the time that would be taken to fly one civilian ‘square’ pattern.
Heyfield kept on at me about spacing, height control, where to turn ‘base’ and of course trimming the aircraft, and under his guidance I attained a reasonable standard but increasingly came frustrating instances of inconsistency, silly mistakes and ‘bad days’.
‘Have you heard the rumour? The CT-4s have been grounded!’
In-service failures had contributed to a decision to stop operating the CT-4s until these problems were rectified. There would be a hiatus for several weeks. It was decided that for our edification our course group would be deployed to operational bases for exposure: the air force cadets went to the various frontline airfields, but the navy students had only one: HMAS Albatross.
The town of Nowra, just inland from New South Wales’ south coast and south of Wollongong, is surrounded with remarkable lushness. To the east lies the green flood plain of the Shoalhaven River. Westward there are rolling hills, also verdant, dominated by conical ‘Nowra Hill’. Tucked next to this hill is HMAS Albatross, also known as Naval Air Station (NAS) Nowra. Further west lies deceptively-flat drab green eucalypt country on ground that inexorably rises towards the Great Dividing Range, riven by occasional great gorges. With ears ringing from the bellow of two massive radial engines, the midshipmen of 100 Pilots’ Course alighted from the air force’s dumpy green Caribou tactical transport, for an early visit to what would become the centre of our world, should we graduate. And what a world! As we walked away from the Caribou, Skyhawk tactical jets shrieked overhead while RAN Macchi jet trainers flew circuits in their smart blue and white livery. A Grumman Tracker snarled at full power for take-off, and there was the constant wup-wup-wup of the Fleet Air Arm’s four different types of helicopters. A miniature air force! The air hummed.
The tools used by this small air arm were potent and flexible. Australia was embroiled in the Cold War, its military geared to face the perceived threat from the Soviet Union and its client states. The Russians had no practical sea based naval aircraft, apart from a few helicopters, and the vast military-industrial complex of the United States ensured that America would be able to project superior power at sea through the medium of mighty aircraft carriers, conventional and nuclear-powered. Having participated in the proxy cold wars that became very hot in Korea and Vietnam, Australia also knew the value of sea-based air power and, using the resources this small, young nation had, it did its best to contribute with one small aircraft carrier: HMAS Melbourne and her air wing.
HMAS Melbourne was old, even then. Her construction began for Britain’s wartime Royal Navy as HMS Majestic in 1943. With the end of World War II, she remained in limbo until 1955 when she was commissioned into the RAN as HMAS Melbourne, her angled flight deck one of the first. Until then, carrier aircraft landed directly behind the ship, parallel with its axis. However, missing the ship’s arresting system or a late ‘wave off’ could be disastrous if aircraft, men or machinery were ranged near the bow in readiness for launching other aeroplanes or helicopters. The angled deck alleviated this problem and enabled almost simultaneous launching and recovery of naval aircraft by canting the rectangular landing area about five degrees to port (left), leaving the forward part of the ship clear for launching and ranging (parking) more aircraft. This design is still evident in the American ‘super carriers’ today, and Melbourne was among the first!
HMAS Melbourne was no super carrier. Her engines were entirely conventional, of the technology in use to power any British cruiser of the 1950s. Fuel oil and air were mixed in boilers, which produced steam to drive two Parsons turbines and, consequently, two propellers. This technology had changed little since the days of the Titanic. Designed to operate British piston-engine fighter and attack aircraft, Australia was very much stretching Melbourne’s capabilities by operating Skyhawk jet fighters, big Tracker anti-submarine aircraft and heavy Sea King and Wessex helicopters. Although the ship was made in Britain and was operated by a navy that still followed the traditions of ‘the mother country’, the frontline aircraft and the way they were flown and fought were overwhelmingly American.
The Douglas A-4G Skyhawk was as tiny as an attack aircraft could be. Despite this, the little jet packed powerful capability for aerial warfare both against other aircraft, and against sea and land targets. It could carry a special fuel tank under its wing that was equipped with a reel-out hose to enable buddy refuelling of other Skyhawks in the air. It was a capability that Australia’s air force did not have. All that, with the capability of going to sea, made it Australia’s most potent way of projecting power. However, operating the Skyhawk jets was not Melbourne’s main role. She was an ‘anti-submarine’ carrier.
The Soviet Union did not have any viable aircraft carriers, but they did have nuclear submarines aplenty. These steel sharks, along with their U.S. counterparts, prowled the oceans in two main guises: ‘hunter killers’ that attacked surface ships and other submarines, and huge missile carriers called ‘boomers’ that could mete out nuclear destruction from their missile silos. Anti-submarine warfare, ASW, was the most expensive form of warfare in the late twentieth century. The machinery involved in it tested the limits of man’s ingenuity and was extremely manpower intensive. Today, submarines are almost undetectable. An air arm can spend thousands of hours trying to detect one and still fail. Nuclear war aside, in a conventional war of the twentieth century, a submarine had to get reasonably close to its target and then, somehow, acquire it and come up with a firing solution. It would, just slightly, have to expose itself. And that’s where the aircraft came in.
By simply being there, at sea with the surface ships, anti-submarine and patrol aircraft made the submariner’s job difficult. Limiting the opportunities for submarines to raise a periscope, charge batteries (if the submarine was conventional) or surface to launch missiles, the Trackers of the Royal Australian Navy, ready to drop a depth charge or homing torpedo,
