By Capt Nick
The View from Our Side of the Cockpit Door
Form 414, my RAF Logbook continues with me leaving Australia and the Hornet unhappily in my rear vision mirror as I was heading back to Blighty and a cold winter in Lincolnshire. No 229 Operational Conversion Unit was the training...
After I landed my aircraft I clambered out of the Hornet with the cold realisation that I might have flown my last sortie. The spinning sensation had ceased and the sortie had gone beautifully, it was almost as if it...
The year is 1957 and the space race is underway. The major powers around the world, mainly the Soviet Union and the United States, are all striving to develop the technology that will allow them to reach outer space. The Soviet...
Let me take you back to the dim distant past and Captain Jeff’s start with his legacy airline, ACME, I mean Delta, no ACME, Delta, Acta, Delme… oh whatever. His career started, not in the Captain’s seat but somewhere in the...
Two of the Saratoga’s F14 Tomcats were tasked to defend the carrier against a simulated attack during Exercise Display Determination 87. The leader of this small formation included a senior pilot and skipper of a newly arrived Junior Grade Lieutenant...
Part 2 of my interview with my mate Matt, steely eyed rocket man extraordinaire. Goonhilly Gyros and spacecraft in Telstar The interior of Telstar The magnitude of space junk around the world The first live TV pictures transmitted via satellite Images under Creative Commons licence with...
At first glance he looks to be a rather scruffy and unkempt elderly chap but behind the heavy glasses there are two twinkling eyes that reveal more than you can imagine. Indeed, appearances can be deceiving as this retired RAF...
In the tale, the Applegate Memorandum, I described the difficult birth that McDonnell Douglas had with the DC-10 when it’s safety record was permanently marred by a cargo door design flaw that plagued its introduction. Sadly, this wasn’t the only...
I left you last time after we had returned with our Hornets from New Zealand having had a very productive and interesting few weeks working with the Kiwi A4 Skyhawks. We soon settled back into our Squadron HQ at RAAF...
The conclusion of a chat over a pint with Wood Duck, the Royal Australian Air Force Air Attache to the Australian High Commission in London. Images of No 2 OCU when it was equipped with the FA18 The handover of No 2...
As a fighter pilot on the newly formed 77 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force, now equipped with brand new FA/18s, we had many experienced pilots but before long we also acquired pilots on their first operational type. One such pilot...
So you want to be an airline pilot? You want to travel the world, visit strange and exotic countries and immerse yourself in the wonders of foreign cultures? You want to make a good living, bring up a family and...
I trust that you will recall the stories from my RAF Logbook which had reached the point of my first Hornet deployment to New Zealand to work with the Kiwi A4 Skyhawks of No 75 Squadron Royal New Zealand Air...
The Right Hand Traffic Rule stated that an aircraft which was flying within the United Kingdom in sight of the ground and following a road, railway, canal or coastline, or any other line of landmarks shall keep such line of...
Traditionally the phrase Brass Monkeys goes hand in hand with weather so cold that only a naughty sounding description like, “It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey,” will suffice. If, however, you were the crew member...
Life on 77 Squadron had settled down to a routine, if it ever really could on a fighter squadron. There was certainly plenty of variety to our flying. In one month I flew some practice bombing attacks, both day and night,...
Marvin and Rebecca's first two flights of the day were cancelled due to high winds at Newark so they both waited in the crew room until their company dispatch released them for flight 3407 at 6pm, 4 and a half...
With thanks to listener Sam Dawson who has such interesting relatives and to Betty Goerke, the author of a book about Baz Bagby, A Broken Propeller. I am pleased to present the story of Sam Dawson's Great Uncle Baz. Stunt pilot...
The continuation of my log book tales, otherwise known as RAF Form 414, and we are up to Volume 20. Apart from other asides, this tale deals with my accidental overflight of a very secret satellite surveillance base run by...
The DC-10 was McDonnell Douglas's first commercial airliner project since the merger between McDonnell Aircraft Corporation and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. It started life on the drawing boards as a 4 engined, double decked, wide body airliner that could...
Telling the tale of my flying career, I left you at the end of my F/A18 conversion course as we reformed the No 77 Royal Australian Air Force Squadron with their brand new Hornets. So far our one and only...
Hawaii became the most recent state to join the union in 1959 and is now the third wealthiest. Following it’s annexation, Hawaii became an important naval base for the US Navy so it is hardly surprising that they should be...
It was the 13th of May 1912, a Monday, when a Flanders F3 Monoplane took off from Brooklands in Surrey, a county of England. The pilot was the aviation pioneer Edward Victor Beauchamp Fisher and his passenger the American millionaire...
The 12 days of Christmas are generally thought to run from the 26th of December to the 6th of January and is an important period of religious celebration or for those of us who observe Christmas in a more secular...
Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier was one of two men who left the earth's surface and flew in Montgolfier's balloon for the very first time. He also designed a type of balloon that was given his name that flew using a...
Each year upwards of 2 million of the faithful make the journey to follow the path of the profit Muhammad to a number of holy sites before their pilgrimage rites are considered complete. Muslims from around the world make this...
They were the pioneers who trod the territory beyond the sound barrier… a place no man had ever been before and which had killed many who attempted the journey. The rocket powered, winged bullet first flew only 42 years after...
It's time for another of my flying logbook tales and it’s May 1987 and I’m on the Australian FA18 No 2 Operational Conversion Unit at RAAF Williamtown starting the final phase on course 1 of 87 before moving onto No...
A tribute to Sherman Smoot, friend of the APG Show, who died doing what he loved best... flying. Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Capt Nick Anderson.
The First World War battle of the Somme continues, to this day, to fascinate and appal in equal measures. Much has been written about the ground war the first day of which saw the greatest number of British casualties than...
Robin Olds was a hard drinking, hard working man who led from the front in a way that inspired his men to become a great fighting force. He only became frustrated when he saw mistakes being made by those above...
A recent news programme caught my eye when I realised it involved our great friends at the Farnborough Aviation Sciences Trust museum. It reminded me of the group of sadistic so-called doctors who populated the Institute of Aviation Medicine and...
The story of my military flying career continues with the new challenge of flying the FA/18 Hornet round the beautiful skies of Australia. The official crest of No 77 Sqn RAAF with its Grumpy Monkey The 77 Sqn Mirages The helmet fitting An FA/18A...
Featured in a Scientific magazine which offered a first look inside the USAF's new jet fighter, the F-89 Scorpion was to have an interesting history which involved the Battle of Palmdale and a top secret Canadian UFO! A Scientific Magazine cutaway...
Arguably one of the most talented and innovative aircraft developers of his time, John Knudsen Northrop had long sought an aircraft design that could start a revolution… a craft with minimum drag and a level of lift unachievable in any...
It was an unpopular aircraft because, well… a lot of aircrew were superstitious. They were renown for carrying lucky charms, doing things a certain way and never daring to change the habit because it worked for them last time. Their...
The conclusion of one of the hardest flying courses in the Royal Air Force, the QWI course. What faced us was the culmination of all our efforts over the past months of flying in the form of a week of...
The 1920’s and 30’s were times of radical societal changes, particularly in the freedoms that women then demanded. The suffragette movement, the contributions made by women in the first world war and other dramatic events had clearly shown that forward...
An air hostess calmly walked through the crashing airliner telling the passengers, “Please fasten your safety-belts. Keep your seats.” Then she returned to the galley near the tail, sat herself down… and waited. One of the passengers had seen oil...
Whilst we are discussing quaint idioms, many of us trust that old American adage, “If it looks good, it’ll fly good” attributed to both Neil Armstrong and Bill Lear and is something that all pilots understand. There is something about...
The aircraft was named ‘Flagship District of Columbia’ and was only the 12th Boeing 707 ever made. It was delivered to American Airlines in February 1959 so at the time America was taking its first steps into the void of...
The Royal Air Force’s Pilots Flying Logbook is a sturdy publication, cloth bound in blue with gold printing on the cover, on the inside of which are the instructions for use. Para 1, sub para (a) it states that the...
Last week we chatted about historic incidents that led to aircraft upsets. This week we talk to a newly qualified airline pilot who is undergoing advanced Upset and Recovery Training at a British training school. We also speak to the...
With the arrival of jet powered airliners, commercial pilots entered a new world of high altitude flying in large swept wing aircraft at velocities approaching the speed of sound. They were often unprepared for the challenge and before long unexpected...
In the world of Slavic folk tales there are giants in Ukraine but as aviators the ones we are interested are the giants that the fabled aircraft designer Oleg Antonov designed. This is his story. The OKA1 glider Antonov at the Leningrad...
It’s logbook time again and you may recall that I was as freshly a minted A1 QFI as there could be and I had just left the training world to return to the front line on my old Squadron, the...
It was a grand sight to see another German aircraft there, a Junkers W33 with its distinctive corrugated metal skin and stylish enclosed cockpit, a far cry from his own flimsy machine. The German pilots greeted each other and marvelled...
Instead of a cargo of bored business men and excited holiday makers, this aged DC-10 was carrying 12,000 gallons, thats 45,000 ltrs of bright red liquid in a huge tank attached to the centre of the fuselage. This is the...
On the last tale, Sidewinders and Sparrows we talked a little about the history of rockets and missiles but it’s a big subject so this week I thought I’d expand on the theme a little and as I'm going to...
Despite their obvious differences, Sidewinders and Sparrows often went together because they aren’t just the names of flying creatures and slithering serpents… they are weapons of war. The Sidewinder House Sparrows The Rapier missile system Chinese Fire Arrows The Tipu Sultan's artillery rockets The RS-28 rockets...
