log pad. I called Shawbury but they were clamped down, so a landing was impossible, as was a QGH without an ASI at any airfield. My one hope was that base was still open and the visibility there was still good enough for a visual approach and landing. The weather was still thick when I turned early for base. With the ASI still obviously unserviceable I headed home, checking my position all the while with more VHF/DF fixes. The weather cleared over the Bristol Channel giving me a visual fix and I altered course slightly towards base. I contacted the Tower and told them my position and my lack of an ASI, which, by this time, had decided to rest on the pin at zero. They cleared the circuit for me in advance so that I had priority to take whatever action I needed if I thought my approach speed warranted drastic correction. On joining the circuit, and judging speed by experience alone, I did my pre-landing vital actions, lowered the wheels and, as there was no undue noise to indicate that I was going too fast, lowered the flaps, but left the air brakes in. My aim was to land a little fast rather than stall on finals. Ahead of me, by the runway threshold was a fire engine and ambulance - waiting for me - a lovely thought. I did land fast, but without any bother.
That hour-long experience was better than any instrument rating or final handling test. I had proved something to myself if not to anyone else.
From a flying point of view I was now regarded as a capable jet pilot and was qualified also to carry out a daily inspection on Vampires Marks 5 and 9. Such would be necessary if ever I had to land away and stay overnight.
The next few days involved waiting for ground school exam results. No-one, of those of us who had started the course and who had got to this stage, failed. There had, however, been several students chopped earlier on, either through being unable to cope with high altitude or having failed a progress test.
During this slack period, while we were waiting for our next postings, we happened to be sitting outside our Flight hut enjoying the sunshine when word came on the grapevine that a Vampire was in trouble. The pilot had joined the circuit to land but only two undercarriage legs had come down; one of the main legs stayed up. He flew past the Tower for visual inspections and advice two or three times. He then went away to pull some high 'G' to see if that would work. It didn't. Then, with fuel getting low, he elected to retract the two legs that were down and flew past the Tower again to make sure they were actually up. Going round again, this time to land, on finals he cut his engine and landed gently on his belly on the grass and slithered to a halt. Surprisingly little damage was done to the aircraft, save from some scuffing on the underside. The wings had stayed level and the flaps weren't damaged. It was said that it would be flying again within a week. Had a landing been attempted with only two wheels down it would almost certainly have ground looped, maybe several times and even broken up and been a write-off, and the pilot would probably have been injured, or worse.
I should add that, to bale out of a single-seat Vampire, one was supposed to roll it inverted, jettison the canopy, undo one's seat straps, and drop out. It was said that to attempt to climb out of the cockpit with the aircraft upright, the chances of being cut in two by the tailplane were far too high to be acceptable. Fortunately I never had to do either, although it came close once or twice. I fitted into the 22" wide cockpit very snugly, as if wearing the aircraft on my back, and I intended to keep it that way.
On July 9th I flew in a Vampire T11 with Master Pilot Culverwell specifically on an aircraft familiarisation exercise. We all had such flights. They were designed properly to familiarise us with the type as it was unlikely that we would fly Meteors again and future dual flying would almost certainly be in T11s. It was my last flight from Merryfield. 46