This Tale is a continuation of the interview of World War II pilot Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell DFC. At the age of 103, Colin recalls with perfect clarity what it was like to fly his De Havilland DH 98 Mosquito bomber into action as part of a Pathfinder Squadron. This Tale is the second part of the interview with Colin, the opportunity for which I have to thank my old friend Bob Judson. Having had a high ranking career in the RAF, Bob is now a consultant in the field of psychological, life and executive coaching and has a podcast, Leading 4 Life, which explores leadership in the stories of his own life and those told by his many illustrious guests, such as Colin. Bob was kind enough to allow me to share in this opportunity to interview Colin. If you want to take advantage of Bob’s services or listen to his free podcast then check out his website, here: https://www.leading4life.co.uk/ and his great podcast here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2227500

The Nissen Hut was wartime emergency accommodation with a single coal burning heater. It was notoriously cold in the winter.

A No 608 Squadron Mosquito, B Baker March, takes off from RAF Downham Market

Bomber Command aircrew mission briefings

RAF Bombers attacking Berlin with Pathfinder flares below them

Most of Colin’s bombing attacks were made as individual aircraft

Colin Bell talking to us during his interview

Hanover under attack from US forces during a daylight raid

Germani Anti Aircraft Artillery

A Mosquito formation

A period description of how OBOE functioned

The bar of the Crown Hotel Downham Market

A Focke Wolf FW190A similar to the type that employed the Wild Boar tactic

Jimmy Stewart who flew the B17 and B24 in operational missions and became a Brigadier General in the USAF

Colin stands beside one of the few remaining Mosquitos

Images shown under a Creative Commons Licence with thanks to Mark Vickers, Colin Bell, the RAF, Bert Verhoeff, the Australian War Memorial collection, the IWM, RAF Bomber Command, German Federal Archives, the USAF and the USAAF.

You are sitting in your airliner and the handsome, pretty or in a non-binary sense cute, elegant, lovely or in a non exclusive way charming, fine, interesting or personable flight attendant is standing in front of you to demonstrate the safety features of your aircraft. Hopefully if you enjoy the airline pilot guy enough to be listening to this you might have more than just a passing interest in what safety equipment there is onboard the average big, well equipped, airliner.

Most airlines show the gender-specific pronouns that are typically used to refer to people in the way they identify

Door Arming controls

Girt Bar system that can be found on older style aircraft

Steph beside ‘her’ emergency exit

Slide use in theory and in practice

Disobeying safety instructions can lead to increased danger and possible loss of life

The early days of air travel

Jack Grant, an Australian, who invented the modern inflatable slide and won the Cumberland trophy

Aircraft safety equipment

Halon (halo-genated hydrocarbons) are the world’s best fire extinguishing chemicals but banned from manufacture

Safety cards through the history of aviation

Images are used under a Creative Commons licence with thanks to Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd, Airbus, Oleg Bkhambri (Voltmetro), Boeing, Dr Steph, Marc-Antony Payne, Qantas Airways Ltd, John Collier, the Library of Congress, The Museum of Civil Aviation and SOC.

It is rare to have the opportunity to meet one of the brave young men who flew and fought in the Second World War so I was delighted to be able to talk to Flight Lieutenant Colin Bell DFC. At the age of 103, Colin recalls with perfect clarity what it was like to fly his De Havilland DH 98 Mosquito bomber into action as part of a Pathfinder Squadron.  This Tale is just the first part of the interview with Colin, the opportunity for which I have to thank my old friend Bob Judson.  Having had a high ranking career in the RAF, Bob is now a consultant in the field of psychological, life and executive coaching and has a podcast, Leading 4 Life, which explores leadership in the stories of his own life and those told by his many illustrious guests, such as Colin.  Bob was kind enough to allow me to share in this opportunity to interview Colin.  If you want to take advantage of Bob’s services or listen to his free podcast then check out his website, here: https://www.leading4life.co.uk/ and his great podcast here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2227500

Flt Lt Colin Bell DFC RAF

The lonely and dangerous job of a tail gunner

The PT17 Stearman

The Vultee BT-13A Valiant

The North American AT-6 Texan trainer AKA the Harvard.

The Bristol Blenheim

The de Havilland DH98 Mosquito

Colin with Bob (left) and myself (right) at the RAF Club in front of a painting of the Mosquito gifted to Colin and then presented to the RAF Club to display.

All images are shown with permission or under the Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, the IWM, the USAAF, the National Museum of the USAF and Fotoafdrukken Koninklijke Luchtmacht.

I’m moving things on a bit in my logbook tales as it seems to be taking forever to get to the end so here’s the next one. I’d found a temporary job with the aircraft manufacturer British Aerospace flying Tornados and Hawks but now I was getting invitations to interview for jobs with a number of airlines. After months of drought, the flood gates seem to have opened and after wishing for just one offer I now had the opportunity to chose who I would go to. First, however, I needed to get through the interviews.

A Monarch A300

A Cathay Pacific Tristar

Virgin Megastores worldwide

RB’s Manor House and the album cover for Tubular Bells

Richard Branson starts his own airline, Virgin Atlantic

Northwest Airlines put in a substantial order for Airbus A340s which were then flown by Virgin Atlantic

The BAe Hawk delivery team

One of the RMAS Hawk 108s

In formation and we’re off to Malaysia

First stop Nice

Then on to Tanagra

Luxor

Dubai

Mumbai

A little ‘hot start’ in Bangkok

Images under creative commons licence with thanks to RHL images, Virgin, Jaco Ten, Northwest Airlines History Centre,

My logbook tales continue and after 5 months without an income the bucket of shekels I had to keep us afloat was starting to run dry… I could see glimpses of the bottom. Luckily the mortgage on our modest 2 up, 2 down, 250 year old, Scottish stone, terraced cottage at Leuchars wasn’t excessive and we had pared our living expenses down to the bone.  The sniff of some flying work for British Aerospace down at their factory at Warton, however, was very, very welcome.

RAF Warton during construction in 1938

The TSR2 and Panavia Tornado, both built at Warton

The Eurofighter Typhoon, soon to begin construction at Warton

The F3 Tornado in weather

The BAe Hawk

The Joint Tactical Information Display System

An F3 Tornado with a towed decoy

A Monarch Airways Airbus A300

Images shown under a Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, the MOD, British Aerospace, British Aircraft Corporation, the USAF, the USN,  DoD and Monarch Airways.

Stories from my logbook continue with the last few weeks of my service career, which were a blur of form signing, return of equipment, formal dinners, informal parties, speeches and gifts, all accompanied by feelings of regret and excitement at to what my future held. I flew my last flight in an F3 leading a 3 ship out over the Scottish highlands and then, after everyone had landed, I beat up the squadron low and fast. I then planned to do a low, slow pass with a full burner pull-up into the vertical…

My full burner climb ended ignominiously when one reheat failed to light!

The mecca of all things truckie! Brize Norton.

The horrors of learning Morse Code!

The Campaign Against Aviation

The PA34 of British Aerospace which I flew at Prestwick

Finally, the proud holder of an ATPL

At last, the sniff of a job!

Images shown under creative commons licence with thanks to the MOD, the RAF, the CAA, Chris Lofting and BAe Systems.

Log book stories still abound but I’m now on the last volume of my small collection of RAF Form 414s.  Unbeknown to me back then, my time in the Air Force was fast coming to a close. When I was offered the job on the Tornado it was on the understanding that I would serve an additional year to amortise the cost of training and I was now in coming up to the completion of my term of service, 19 years or aged 38 which ever was longer.  If I signed on again it would be to age 55.  What’s more, I needed to make up my mind as the RAF wanted 18 months of notice of my decision… would I stay or leave.

The F3 Tornado

He used a mixture of chicken entrails, throwing bones and gazing into his crystal balls to tell me my fortune

With their glory days behind them the young guns often treated Specialist Aircrew with scant respect and as their skills grew tired and their experience became tarnished with age they sometimes had little to offer but old war stories

The KC135 equipped for probe and drogue refuelling

RAF weather colour codes

My ATPL study books

An F3 equipped for QRA

The result of a midair collision

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Ronnie Macdonald, Mike Freer, Trougnouf, US DOD, Mike McBey, Defence Imagery, the RAF, the MOD, the RAF Air Historic branch, the IWM, J Thomas, Midjourney and Adrian Pingstone.

In the words of it’s benefactor, “It has been described as the most exclusive Club in the world, but the entrance fee is something most men would not care to pay and the conditions of membership are arduous in the extreme.” Other clubs that sprang up during the World Wars are more a measure of the bravado, luck or good fortune of its members to make use of an aircraft’s emergency survival equipment but the club I will tell you about today is one that honoured the grim stubbornness of its members to overcome the pain and disfigurement of their injuries with stoical good (if rather dark) humour.  The Guinea Pig Club.

The badge of the Guinea Pig Club

McIndoe

McIndoe and his patients

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, East Grinstead museum, the Library of Congress, the RCAF, the IWM, the RAF Benevolent fund and the Queen Victoria hospital.

My logbook tales continue with my tour on Tremblers flying the F3 Tornado which had got off to a difficult start when our compliment of brand new aircraft were shipped off to other squadrons and, in return, we received the dregs of the RAF’s Tornado ADVs.  They certainly weren’t in the best of condition and I began to think I was fated when I was forced to divert following a generator failure and X-drive clutch failure on an air test but then I was looking forward to leading a detachment down to Coningsby to fight F-16s over the North Sea in the Air Combat Manoeuvring range for a week.

The British Aerospace North Sea ACMI served UK and European Air Forces

Tremblers formate on the RAF’s new E3D Airborne Early Warning aircraft.

An F3 Tornado fires an AIM 9 Sidewinder missile

A piper plays at sunset

A 100 Squadron Hawk trainer

An F3 on approach

The K2 Victor Air to Air Refuelling tanker trailing all 3 hoses

Italian firemen hose down a Tornado canopy as it was too hot to close properly

The F3’s single Mauser 27mm cannon

The golfer Tom Kite playing for the USA in the Dunhill Cup at St Andrews

The Royal and Ancient golf club at St Andrews beside the 1st tee and the 18th green. In front is the historic bridge built for herders over the Swilken Burn

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, the R&A golf club, BAe, Mike Freer and Optograph.

It’s the summer of 1971 and Helen Reddy is singing about hiking down to the canyon store to buy a bottle wine and having such a good time.  I have no doubt that the nine prominent Salt Lake members of the Fishy Trout and Drinking Society returning from their deep sea fishing trip were feeling equally relaxed as they boarded their flight back home from Los Angeles. They were getting onto a Hughes Airwest DC-9, Flight 706, the forerunner of Capt Jeff’s beloved Mad Dog and Angry Puppy, belonging to a new regional airline purchased and renamed by Howard Hughes.  A little before them, a U.S. Marine Corps F-4B Phantom II, Bureau Number 151 458, departed Mountain Home Air Force Base in southwest Idaho, bound for Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada…. and so the story starts!

A Hughes Airwest DC-9

A U.S. Marine Corps F-4J Phantom II,

An ANA B-727

A JAF Japanese built F-86F Sabre

The B-727 and F86 tracks

The flight paths of the DC-9 and the Marine F-4

The F4’s position as would be seen from the DC-9 cockpit

The DC-9’s position from the F4 front cockpit

The eye’s Fovea Centralis, the small area of the eye’s retina that can detect fine detail

Various TCAS displays

Images under a Creative Commons licence with thanks to Richard Silagi, the U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation, Michael Bernhard, Hunini, the NTSB, the USN and U.S. Defense Imagery.