familiar muffled roar from behind, checking engine RPM and exhaust gas temperature within the memorised limits, condensation mist spewing from the vents around the canopy and that push in the back … rotate the nose to the lift off attitude, now climbing at 120 knots – or 220 km/hr – forty-five degrees of bank onto downwind, speed now about 140 knots with the nose cocked up above the horizon to maintain height, the controls at their accustomed ‘sloppiness’ at this low speed. Check spacing … Gin Gin’s runway centreline tracking between the ‘roundel’ on the wing and the black face of the tip tank … now for the downwind checks, ‘Speed below 150, speed brake in, landing gear down, three wheels, ‘flasher’ out, fuel quantity noted, threshold speed will be 105 …’ In no time, came the ‘base’ turn point: power back, select ‘take off’ flap, re-trim … judging the turn onto final approach then pointing at the looming ‘numbers’ on Gin Gin’s runway threshold, speed about 120, now to select ‘land flap’; this would bring the speed back to the sacred 105 knots – or 195 km/hr – at the runway, once again re-trimming to neutralise the force on the control column … the flare point … gently raise the nose, power off, hold the attitude, ‘squeak-squeak’ and the main wheels were on, hold the nose up for aerodynamic braking, but lower it gently before the nose wheel ‘falls’ onto the runway … there it was, now I was down. First jet solo!
In the meantime, a few more of 100 Pilot’s Course had failed; various combinations of ground school problems, insufficient preparation, and failure to mentally keep up with the jet had ended it all for them. But our remaining band was becoming tighter-knit. As numbers fell there was more opportunity for getting to know our course-mates a little better. Many of the ‘oddballs’ were gone, and the few of us in our late teens were inexorably growing up. Pearce was isolated to the north of Perth but most of the course had cars except me and one or two others, and on a Friday or Saturday night there was usually a ‘push’ into the huge pubs of Perth’s northern suburbs or occasionally into the city itself. During Easter leave, I found Victoria cold, old-feeling and grey with autumn after the brightness of Western Australia. I used Melbourne public transport to visit family, friends and girlfriend who was also on leave and staying with a distant relative; it felt incongruous as a trainee jet pilot using buses and trains to get about. Then the break was over, and this course that I would never forget was on again. How could I return east a failure now?
A few drinks on a Friday or Saturday – OK. But the work went on; I had no car anyway, and as a naïve nineteen-year-old with little stamina for weekend parties and late nights, I was sometimes almost alone in the accommodation block. This was a benefit, because there was little excuse not to keep on with the work except for the occasional letters to home and friends. How incongruous that is now in the age of email and mobile phones.
The second of the three ‘phases’ would introduce us to formation flying, ‘low level’ and ‘high level’ navigation, along with advanced aerobatics and high speed, high altitude flight. Instrument flying was becoming more advanced: not just controlling the Macchi but there was headwork to be done with procedures, orientation and instrument approaches. We were now just not expected to ‘fly’ the Macchi; we had to ‘operate’ it.
I found formation flying hard work. Thoroughly briefed then demonstrated by the instructors, there came a time when ‘Sir’ had to relinquish the controls to his student, just a few metres to the side and slightly aft of the leader’s tip tank, the new pilot looking for certain reference points on ‘lead’; there were three of them. To obtain the correct ‘three dimensional’ location relative to the lead aircraft, the ‘wingman’ had to line up the three points on the leader’s aircraft. No matter what the leader’s aircraft was doing, you ‘flew’ those points. This sounded reasonably simple in theory, but, in practice …
Yes, it was hot, physical work. In flight suit, Mae West, g-suit, trussed up under the inverted boat-like canopy in dazzling sunshine, the controls were never still: stick forward or back to maintain the vertical line, banking left and right to maintain the correct distance out, and then the throttle, up and down, ever adjusting, the moan of the engine rising and falling; power off to move back to the correct spot, then power on to stop the rate of movement, then power on again, not so much, to maintain position, then uh-oh, lead’s turning away from us, I have to ‘ride up’ on his extended wing as it rises, lots of power as now I’m falling behind … adjust … now I’m in the right spot, the beautiful shape of lead’s orange, white and silver Macchi back-dropped with the blue Indian Ocean kilometres below while we turn as one … but now he’s turning the other way, towards me. Off with the power as I am now on the ‘inside’ of the turn, I’ll race ahead if I’m not quick with that, trying to ride down with his wingtip as it banks, as if a rigid, invisible rod is joining us … the concentration is intense, nothing else matters except to line up those points. I now understood how entire display teams had crashed as a group, the wingmen still locked on to their leader in the final seconds of their lives. I bore the dazzle of the sun as, looking up into it on the ‘inside’ of the turn, lead turned into a silhouette, the instructor behind exhorting, ‘Come on, get back in there’.
Leadership. As the feeling of flying formation on another’s wing became a little more ‘instinctive’, though never really easy for me, being the leader of a formation threw up its own challenges. My course-mate would relinquish the ‘lead’ over the radio, now he who had been leading me was now trying to ‘hang in’ off my wing, and I was now thinking for two aircraft, keeping the turns gentle, at a constant ‘rate’ of bank so that the wingman could follow my tip tank, but there was more to it than merely being smooth. The wingman would not be looking at anywhere else in the sky, just focusing on those points on my aircraft. He would now be burning fuel at a greater rate than me with all his power changes. He could not look out for other aircraft; check that he was staying correctly in the training area; talk to air traffic control. Those were my responsibilities as leader, remembering that with a fellow ‘rookie’ off my wing, manoeuvrability would be reduced. Thinking ahead was essential. The wingman would then commence ‘station changes’ directed by his instructor in the back seat as I had done, sliding aft and across into ‘line astern’, sitting directly behind my Macchi, sitting slightly low to avoid the buffeting jet blast from my exhaust. Line astern was slightly easier to fly than ‘echelon’, so I could turn a little more tightly … ‘Need to manoeuvre? Put your mate into line astern’, the instructors would advise, the leader having the prerogative to ‘call’ the wingman into the various positions. Then ‘echelon’ on the other side, now I am giving him a few turns for practice, he’s settled down quite nicely, just bobbing up and down with the occasional ripple in the air, the helmeted, masked head in the front seat with its anonymous black visor fixated on my jet, the instructor in the back also staring, never relaxing.
It would now be time to lead the formation back to Pearce, judging my run in to the ‘initial’ point, so the turns would be gentle, calling the radio frequency changes, checking our fuel states and now, making sure he is in the correct ‘echelon’ position, as I will fly the standard ‘initial and pitch’, the run parallel to the runway at 1,000’, 300 metres, followed by hard individual breakaways onto ‘downwind’. The wingman must be placed on the other side to the direction of the pitch into the circuit. Runway now below, lined up nicely, checking for no other traffic in the circuit (I am responsible for two aircraft!), a little ‘waggle’ of my wings to indicate to the wingman, still totally focussed on my aircraft, that we are about to ‘pitch’ (he may not even know that we are abeam the runway), and then that hard bank and ‘pull’ onto downwind, throttle idle, speed brake out … now the wingman is on his own, my aircraft has abruptly whipped away to his right, he now maintains level, counts three ‘bananas’ or ‘elephants’ according to taste, and now he follows suit, pitching out to follow me in trail onto downwind. We are still a formation however, so I am responsible for clearance to land and the wingman takes ‘interval’ on me, just touching down as I vacate the runway. We taxi in to the carports as a ‘pair’. It is only after the canopy is opened and the cooling ‘tick tick’ of the engines’ metal
