is a ‘pass’ and another flight in the syllabus is over.
The instrument flying became very involved. Instrument flying, that is in cloud or at night, was simulated in the CT-4 by a rudimentary visor worn over the helmet that gave its wearer enough of a field of view ahead to see the instrument panel, not much out of the windscreen, but there was always some peripheral vision. Several of our course were now having serious problems with their instrument flying, and suffered that cruel ‘X’ through the course photograph on the walls of the Operations Room and the various offices. On one occasion, through a distressing oversight one course-mate would spot the X through his face on a photograph before he was informed of his failure.
In the Macchi, instrument flying sorties were flown with the instructor in the front seat and the student occupying the rear. The instructor had to be able to see straight ahead out of the aircraft for landing and importantly, the student in the rear could be fully enclosed by the instrument flying ‘hood’. It was, in fact, a tent. Not a skerrick of a view outside remained. The student’s world was dirty white canvas, the grey metal of the cockpit interior and the instrument panel. There could be no cheating. ‘Under the hood’ in the Macchi was serious instrument flying. Conflicting senses from one’s inner ear could not be resolved by a quick, sneaky peek out. Ninety per cent of the pilot’s attention was locked on to the Macchi’s big attitude indicator, the ‘A.I’, a mechanical gyro-stabilised world, with its numbered graduations that showed bank and pitch. And now there were more than rudimentary manoeuvres required; there were ‘unusual attitude’ recoveries, advanced instrument approaches and exercises and even take-offs conducted by the student blind ‘under the hood’, carefully referring to the equally large horizontal situation indicator (HSI), directly under the AI, which showed quite an accurate compass heading.
TACAN was a system widely used in the western military air forces. It was a ground radio ‘beacon’, usually located on a military base, that radiated coded signals that enabled a special system in the aircraft to calculate its ‘bearing’ (compass direction) and distance in nautical miles, from that beacon. This was displayed to Macchi pilots on the HSI, a ‘bar’ indicating the selected ‘radial’ (bearing) from the beacon, superimposed on the compass, and a little counter that showed the distance away. We were taught to fly TACAN approaches, ‘homing’ onto the beacon and descending to certain altitudes as directed by the special approach chart to a minimum altitude, at which the instructor would do one of two things: call ‘taking over’ and landing the aircraft, usually for a ‘touch and go’ and further approach, or he would say nothing. O.K., I’m not ‘visual’ with the runway … ‘Going round, Sir’, I would call: on with the power, locked onto the AI for that vital climb attitude (we are very close to the ground), gear (wheels) up, flaps up, full power makes the nose want to pitch up, so trim … fly the required ‘missed approach’ course on the compass, quick, start levelling off, we’re nearly at the stipulated altitude, re-trim, ‘Call Pearce Approach on Stud 3’ would come from the air traffic controller through my earphones, acknowledge … change frequency … call ‘Approach’ … then, more often as not, ‘OK, another approach’ from the instructor, perhaps another TACAN, a more rudimentary teardrop-shaped ‘NDB’ approach or a precision ‘GCA’ until the Macchi’s fuel would be getting low and it was time to land.
The Non Directional Beacon (NDB) was a primitive ‘homing’ device. The pilot tuned the beacon’s frequency and then a needle superimposed on a compass card on his instrument panel pointed to it; the needle often quivered and wandered as the NDB’s radio frequency, essentially the same as medium-wave public radio, was subject to various forms of interferences and inaccuracies. The NDB provided no distance information, however the pilot could tell if he was directly overhead the beacon. The instrument’s needle would swing and circle drunkenly as the aircraft passed through the ‘cone of confusion’ above the NDB antenna. It would then wobble and eventually stabilise to show the direction back to the aid. It was vital to recognise the ‘overhead’, then to position the Macchi correctly ‘outbound’ from the beacon on the correct course, commencing a descent to an intermediate altitude, then after minute or two, turn ‘inbound’ to intercept the correct bearing toward the beacon, descending to the published Minimum Descent Altitude, carefully maintaining height and bearing. Most NDB approaches, and some TACAN approaches, were teardrop shaped and the NDB approach enabled the pilot, homing to the simple and inexpensive Non Directional Beacon, to penetrate a cloud layer to fly directly in to land or to ‘circle’ a few hundred metres above the ground, to line up with the correct landing direction.
GCA stood for ‘Ground Controlled Approach’, and I relished these. All I had to do was follow instructions and fly accurately. A specially qualified military air traffic controller would peer at two extremely accurate radar screens that presented the Macchi’s ‘blip’ in both bearing and height down a three-degree ‘glide slope’ down to the runway’s threshold. Giving tiny corrections over the radio to the pilot, it was the classic ‘talk down’, a constant voice in the earphones: ‘Viper 36 turn left 185, commence rate of descent, coming onto centreline, heading 182, slightly increase that rate of descent, on glide path, heading 185, slightly reduce that rate of descent …’ The corrections became smaller and smaller as we flew down an imaginary ‘funnel’ to the runway, then, ‘Approaching decision height, look ahead and land visually’. If you had flown accurately the jet would end up some 200 feet, sixty metres, above the ground with the runway directly ahead. Once again, there would be either, ‘taking over’ from the instructor, or that silence, meaning ‘Make a missed approach’. A GCA was always a welcome relief from the other approaches with their mental gymnastics of bearings, radials and distances.
The navigation exercises were becoming more than just visually flying triangular routes at some 8,000 feet – or 2,400 metres – above Western Australia’s ‘wheat belt’, tracking from dry lake to town to dry lake then back to Pearce. There were high and low ‘navexes’ to be planned, flown and assessed, the high ones flown at high level, some 9,000 metres, up in airliner territory. There was no airliner’s autopilot for us, and accurate flying was more demanding in the thin air with less engine power while we homed to radio beacons dotted around the Western Australian countryside. There could later be a ‘visual’ segment to a huge dry lake, sometimes obscured by a cloud deck far below, so an accurate heading and airspeed had to be flown until the next position ‘fix’. The Macchi used slightly less fuel at high altitude, but the quantity gauge still had to be watched carefully and the feed from the tip tanks monitored, with the fuel amount remaining plotted carefully on a small paper graph. Then perhaps an instrument approach through the clouds back at Pearce: this time it’s ‘for real’ from the front cockpit, breaking out of the cloud to find Pearce’s runway, fortunately for me, generally where it was supposed to be, ahead in the windscreen. Various aspects of the course that were previously separated were coalescing into one picture: a navigation exercise becoming an instrument flying routine at the end; ‘operating’ the aircraft. Ability at this was, as ever, closely followed by the instructors, debriefed, and later written up in the ‘hate sheets’ (reports on the students).
In the same vein, formation flying was becoming more advanced, especially when leading one’s wingman back to base through cloud for an instrument approach as a ‘pair’, or as the wingman, absolutely focused on the leader’s jet with ragged grey wisps of cloud flitting by, feeling weird and contradictory sensations through my inner ear. Lose sight of him for an instant and it would be a rapid ‘break away’ from his last known position – two aircraft in close proximity in cloud is a hazardous situation.
‘Low level’ navexes were flown over the countryside just 200 feet, 60 metres, off the ground with a carefully prepared and folded large scale map in one gloved hand held up high, tick marks along the marked course indicating time markers, and a stopwatch running on the gun sight platform right there in the windscreen. It was hot at low level in the Macchi, the sweat ignored while I tried to stay ‘on track and on time’, craning for landmarks, but still marvelling at the speed, 240 knots, four nautical miles or seven kilometres per minute, while farms, cattle, dry lakes and scrub slid underneath, the Macchi bumping and wallowing
