of u/s AI. R/T conditions were difficult with questionable airborne radios transmitting and receiving at only strength 1.4
Earlier, on the 11th, with another pair of CF100s I had a very busy session. In just 52 minutes they completed 4 x 90°, 1 parallel head-on, and 2 scissors PIs as well as intercepting an RAF Javelin and two other CF100s at 35,000 feet, and this when the radar was poor due to the coverage being split because of anoprop.
Javelins had just come into RAF service. I intercepted a pair of them with an NF11 in daytime, the only day session, later in the month.
From my own personal control standpoint, both November and December were poor months. I was only on the scope for nine sessions and did only 29 PIs in the entire period, and three of these were aborted. All December sessions were in the evenings when I was on surveillance watch.
Embarrassingly, one of these aborted PIs was when my own performance was being assessed and monitored by a Categorisation Board examiner, Flt.Lt. Archer, who had been one of my instructors at Middle Wallop. This was on Monday, November the 4th, following a week of nights. With him breathing down my neck I had two Canadian CF100s under control at 35,000 feet for an hour and six minutes in poor radar conditions. I messed up one of the PIs because the attacking pilot turned late onto the heading I had given him, and I failed to give him sufficient correction. The result was a tail chase. My score was 73%. I knew I could have done better.
The last Practice Interception of my Fighter Control career was on December 12th. It was a parallel head-on PI with two Canadian CF100 Canucks at 30,000 feet at night.
I have to emphasise that, whilst my control activities were very limited in some months I was, at the same time, when on watch, monitoring and supervising the activities of u/t controllers both 'live' in the cabins, and on the simulators in the Training Room. I also stood in, maybe only for a few minutes at a time, as Chief Controller while the Chief himself took a short break. I also maintained the leave chart for the watch and did the duty rosters. I have to add, regrettably, that there were watches when I suffered from migraine and was incapable of any control activities. Watchkeeping was also interrupted when I did my turns as Orderly Officer and attended a Court Martial as an Officer Under Instruction. Similarly, there were times, through pressure of work in the Armoury and its related training sessions, when these took temporary precedence over watchkeeping. I was busy also with the Mess bar and the Cinema. I valued my time off - when I could get it.
I needed a break as I was getting very tired, but my annual leave allocation had all been used up by the compassionate leave I had taken earlier in the year. During a routine medical examination the MO, Flt.Lt. Martin Clarke (in civilian life a gynaecologist from Bournemouth), suggested I take a break, but that was impossible. No-one had the power to authorise it.
On December the 18th I was promoted to Flight Lieutenant, but I didn't know it at the time. The information took a while to get to Borgentreich, by which time other things had happened.
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4 R/T transmission and reception signal strengths were graded from 5 (best) to 1 (poorest workable).
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