sought an interview with my Flight Commander and signed up for a Short Service (8 year) Commission, subject to my Acting Commission being confirmed on passing out. When I next chanced to meet Sqn.Ldr. Irish he told me that I had made a very wise choice and that he was pleased that I had done so. Well, as someone said, "He would be, wouldn't he!"
With the course drawing to a close our ground school training now included dinghy drills, the use of Lindholme rescue gear, and information as to the use of an airborne lifeboat should any of us ever have the misfortune to ditch in the sea. There was also much instrument practice on the Link Trainer with instruction and training in the use of SBA and other landing aids.21 This latter proved of great value in preparation for my final Instrument Rating test, for which, on passing I became the proud holder of my 'White Card' Instrument Rating.
By this stage in the course the walls of my room had become adorned with reminders and lists of data critical to my passing exams. Compass bearings and reciprocals, quadrantal heights, the Morse Code, Vital Actions and emergency procedures of use whilst flying, equivalent ranks in the Army, Navy and Air Force, the new NATO phonetic alphabet, meteorological symbols used in the station circles on weather charts, compass deviation and variation, navigation formulae, signals square signs, and much else.22 All were read and re-read to the point when they became thoroughly ingrained in my memory. Other students did their swotting from books and couldn't always find the right pages. Everything I wasn't sure of got written down and pasted on my walls.
For some strange reason I took, and passed, the Final Navigation test before doing a solo cross-country, during which exercise I had to land away at a strange airfield. Landing away had always bothered me. Whilst I could find my way to a place in the air I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find my way around a maze of taxiways on a strange airfield. As it happened I was tasked with flying to RAF Feltwell in Norfolk via York and then back to base via Shepton Mallet in Somerset. The first leg took 2 hours and 55 minutes, one hour of which was instrument flying in thick cloud and heavy rain which poured in and trickled down the instrument panel to form a pool near my feet. On arriving near Feltwell and contacting the Tower for a VHF/DF bearing I was told that I had overflown the airfield, but I hadn't seen it.23 I overflew it three more times, each time at a lower altitude, before I saw it. The reason why? - It was a grass airfield and half of it was covered with snow making it look like two medium sized farmers' fields; the camp site I took to be a small village. There were no taxiways to worry about and I was able to taxi to the area where I was marshalled into place. Another lesson learned, and I got a bit of ribbing when I checked in to Air Traffic Control prior to refuelling. As it so happened the ground crew who started the engines for me by kneeling on the wing, as was standard practice, whilst winding the inertia starter handle, on being unready for the engine firing up, were blown off by the propellor wash and rolled holusbolus across the hard-standing, narrowly missing damaging the tailplane on the way past. Not having learned the lesson the same thing happened when starting the second engine. The R/T from the Tower was not very complimentary following this even though it wasn't my fault. The homeward leg was in much better weather, taking 2 hours and 5 minutes, including 25 minutes IF.
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21 SBA = Standard Beam Approach, a system of radio beacons and transmitters creating a pattern of dots and dashes by which the pilot of an aircraft fitted only with R/T could find his way to the runway threshold of a suitably equipped airfield for landing in conditions of low visibility. Wellesbourne Mountford did not have this equipment.
22 Until now we had been using the old 'Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog' version and had quickly to change to the 'Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta' version which most of us, at the outset, found difficult to get used to.
23 A bearing taken from my R/T transmission. This could be in the form of a track to be made good or a back bearing (the reciprocal of the former).
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