A bit about the day, and a tenth man who flew
with
us but has NOT signed the photo.
Martin Barraclough had the
idea, The Royal Aero Club sponsored us with
moral support.
Dennis Hartas agreed to lead us. Being a BEA pilot and familiar with
the
London control zone and the most experienced Tiger pilot amongst us
there was no contest for that job. I decided to take the centre slot.
Because Neil, Peter and I were at the time well practised together in
Tiger formation aeros we knew the exaggerated effect of late power and
height correction in Tigers. If the three of us held position at all
times, the nine had a good chance of remaining a diamond! The day
before the flight we set up several aircraft on the ground in the
flying attitude, trestles under the tails, and sat everyone in their
place to to ingrain the visual angles in their memories.
We had time for a brief practice flight for some but the most
remarkable performance was by John
Thomson who turned up at Redhill by chance on the day, not having been
around previously and oblivious of the project. He took the place of
Barry Tempest who had been unable to get there. The weather was too bad
for Barry even to follow the 'iron beam' railway line from Headcorn.
Yes, it was that bad. I had 15
minutes only to brief John on how to fly a Tiger in formation in a
Diamond Nine - he only had a few hours on Tigers. But John had done
about
20 hours close formation with me in Turbs round France (the subject of
an
amusing article penned by him at the time in the Royal Aero Club
Gazette). He had RAF Cranwell training and had won the Sword of Honour.
I knew he could do it.
We decided the cloud base and visibility was too bad to fly to Hatfield
in any other way than packed together in the diamond nine we had
planned for the fly-past. and sure enough we soon found ourselves
suddenly in cloud. Dennis held steady and tried to lower us out but
soon
realised it was better to keep going as at least there was little or no
turbulence. We continued that way till close to Hatfield, and although
there were moments before that when the ground reappeared not one of us
knew or cared, so riveted was our attention on keeping close formation
for fear of losing sight of the man next to us.
Approaching Hatfield Dennis rocked his wings. I signalled my wingmen
and
box we would be throttling back and we separated the nine into a vic of
5 and a box-four. These each morphed into echelons for a break and
landing and the grass. All went well until Tony Haig Thomas,
positioning quite correctly, was unaware of an ILS aerial hiding on the
grass to his right while he was watching the Tiger ahead just to his
left. Both Tony's Tiger and the Hatfield Instrument Landing
System were rendered instantly unserviceable
So there we were, with 8 Tigers to do a diamond nine fly-past. Frantic
telephoning located another Tiger at nearby Panshangar. John Blake and
Ken Smith flew over in the Piper SuperCub to see if it could join us. I
gave my Tiger to one of the others and prepared to fly in the
replacement when it arrived. John and .Ken got lost on the way back
from Panshangar but the Tiger arrived flown by its owner who had only
purchased it very shortly beforehand and had limited experience. There
was not even time to get him out of the cockpit. All
the other aircraft had engines running, waiting to taxi. So I jumped in
the front and we rolled. I soon discovered the throttle friction
nut in the rear cockpit was done up really tight. We had no
intercom and
he could not hear me. I had to develop a novel throttle moving
technique as well as work out new alignment markers from the front
cockpit - all very different!
We flew straight to the Cathedral and came overhead on the
precise minute planned. Those of the family and congregation briefed to
expect us can be seen in the photo outside. Knowing the time it takes
to get people through a Cathedral doorway almost as much credit has to
be given to the formation organisers on the ground as in the air.
The
noise of the 9 engines from the middle of that formation (we were not
wearing bone-domes or earphones) was tremendous and memorable. When we
got back to
Hatfield, I helped the owner of the borrowed Tiger out and apologised
for not have been able to tell him what we had been about to do, or
indeed speak to him at all to ask his permission to fly it or even say
'I have control'. He was just a young chap my age or younger who, I
learned later, had
just got a PPL. He had probably never flown anywhere near
another aircraft in his life. All he said for the next minute or
so was
"Wow!". Apart from an ear-to-ear grin that was all we ever got
out of him before he disappeared, running somewhere, I assume looking
back it was to the loo. I often wonder
what happened to him. I now think we ought to try and find out who he
was. He really is entitled to have his signature on that photo.