our Station Commander that he needed a haircut! Another inspection was scheduled at a later date when it was expected that RAF Pembrey would be 'up to standard'.
The middle part of the course was devoted to the use of our gyro gun-sights and the ranging and tracking of target aircraft with them. The technique of making quarter attacks on aircraft was much practised and, at the same time, we started taking ciné film through our camera guns for later analysis. Initially these sorties were Vampire on Vampire but they soon became Vampire on a towed target drogue.
The ciné films were closely analysed and faults were obvious when they were screened. This way we developed our methods and were advised how to make improvements. It was effectively target practice without firing a shot. None of us found this aspect of our training easy but it was essential if we were to become competent fighter pilots. This, after all, was what all our flying training was for.
We were shown real wartime ciné films and these were analysed for us.7 It was valuable to be able to make comparisons. Some attacks had been fly-throughs where an enemy aircraft had flown across the path of a fighter. When these were analysed it was shown that, taking into account the rate of fire of the fighter's guns, the speed of crossing, range, and attitude of the crossing aircraft, it was possible to fly through a stream of bullets without being hit. Such bursts of fire, although understandable in the heat of battle, were largely a waste of ammunition.
The ciné film we took of our attacks on the flag (as we called a towed target drogue) were checked very carefully lest any of us tended to come in from too far astern or kept 'firing' long enough to endanger the towing aircraft. When adjudged safe we were taken up in a T11 for a dual check to make sure that we were doing all the right things. Then, and only then, were we allowed to fire live ammunition.
The method of scoring when live-firing was to have the nose of the ammunition of one's aircraft dipped in a sticky dye thus facilitating the identification of which aircraft had hit the flag. The colours used were usually red, green, blue, and plain. As a bullet passed through the material of the drogue some dye was wiped off round the bullet hole, thus the number of hits of a particular aircraft could quickly be counted by the crew retrieving the flag in the drop zone. There were also thus four live-firing sorties to each drogue-towing sortie. We were allocated a specific 'time on flag' in which to make our attacks. The pilot of the towing aircraft controlled who was firing and for how long. Scoring was measured as the number of hits expressed as a percentage of the number of rounds fired.
Having been briefed yet again as to the safety aspects of flying an armed aircraft I found myself sitting in the cockpit of Vampire 'N' November waiting to taxi out to take-off for my first live-firing sortie. As was normal for such sorties only two of my four 20mm cannon were loaded. I climbed to my briefed height and stood off from the firing range until called in by the tug pilot. I made my first attack and, as many times before, pressed the firing tit, but this time was greeted not with silence but with the thug - thug - thug - thug as both cannon discharged their rounds towards the flag. It was a sound I didn't expect. The sound of guns firing from one's aircraft was entirely different to the noise one heard from the ground. Momentarily distracted by this I narrowly missed flying into the flag and pulled round for another attack. I forget how many attacks I made that sortie but my score was 4.34%, a low average.
During one flight, after firing at the flag, I became aware of some resistance when pushing on the stick to descend whilst setting up another attack. It had a crunchy feel and then freed off. On glancing between my knees I found that a multi-pin plug on the armaments panel below the main instrument panel had come adrift
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7 Many of these same films are nowadays seen in war documentaries on television. 51