QF32 Read online

  Despite these potential failures, helicopter flying is great fun, and the best helicopter pilots are the ones trained to recognise the danger signs, and who are sensible enough to minimise the risks.

  I remained at 5 Squadron for another six months to earn my operational command status before shipping out for the Sinai and the MFO.

  *

  I met a great girl while I was in Canberra. My friend Georgie Hyles had asked me to serve champagne at a fundraiser she was hosting for the premiere of the movie Phar Lap. At the end of the successful evening, the other 30 helpers and I decided to go to dinner at the Red Door restaurant just down the road.

  ‘Can I please get a lift with someone?’ I called out. My prized Datsun 260Z was being extensively repaired after I had hit two kangaroos on the main road leading out of town (luckily I missed the other three).

  A beautiful girl with a beaming smile and waist-long hair replied, ‘I’ll take you.’ It was such a long walk to Coral Ford’s car that by the time we arrived at the restaurant the other 28 friends had been turned away.

  ‘We can’t take 28 people this late at night,’ the waitress complained.

  ‘Well, do you have a table for two?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure . . .’

  And the rest is history!

  *

  Flying choppers taught me how to fly an aircraft at and beyond its limits – and not get too stressed. I had two memorable ­experiences.

  My first loss-of-control experience occurred during a re­fuelling exercise. I was piloting one of two Iroquois flying in formation along Victoria’s coastline, returning from a deployment, and was carrying extra fuel in long-range bladders inside the cabin. Our main fuel tank was getting low so I decided to land on the beach so we could transfer the fuel from the bladder into the main tanks. We were still quite heavy, but the engine was operating at about 35 psi, well below the maximum power limit of 50 psi. I made my approach into wind over an ocean estuary towards the beach. All was going well until we entered an unexpected strong downdraft that increased our descent rate. We were now descending so fast that we would hit the water short of the beach if I made no correction. I increased the power, but there was no dramatic improvement. We were still descending too fast. So I did the last thing I could do, other than overstress the engine and gearbox and face a few days stranded on a coastal beach awaiting a maintenance rescue team. I increased the power to the limit – 50 psi – and held it exactly at that limit. We all braced and waited. The rate of descent slowed, but not enough. The Iroquois skids entered the salt water and then the aircraft belly settled into the water – only six inches down, but enough to lighten the weight and stop the descent. After what I thought was about ten seconds, the downdraft abated and the aircraft slowly recovered and pulled itself out of the water, enabling us to hover safely across to the beach.

  We survived, but I was not happy. Back in Canberra, I went straight to the commanding officer and explained what had happened.

  ‘What did I do wrong and how could I have handled it better?’ I asked him.

  ‘You did nothing wrong, Dick,’ he said. ‘Every helicopter pilot loses control of their helicopter sooner or later. It was just your turn that day. Don’t worry about it.’

  My second ‘limited power’ experience occurred during an army exercise in the tropics of northern Queensland. To take off, we had to ascend vertically inside a narrow circular clearing ringed by 100 foot–high trees before we could transition forward. We had risen about 75 feet up when we noticed our rate of climb decreasing and the power creeping up to 50 psi – our limit. We had no excess engine power and we were contained within the circle of trees.

  I had to act quickly. We could not risk descending back down to the ground because we were close to the trees and the rotors might generate a dangerous vortex that would exacerbate the situation and might even have us ‘settling with power’ (an alternative expression for crash). There was no time to waste – I pushed the right pedal forward. This reduced the power to the tail rotor, so the tail rotor now had insufficient thrust to keep the helicopter pointing straight ahead, with the effect that the engine torque started rotating us clockwise. This was not a pleasant situation. However, reducing the power absorbed by the tail rotor enabled more power to be directed to the main rotor, to lift us up and away from the trees. We started spinning right, but we also started to climb. We corkscrewed our way up and out of the trees and to safety. It was a very uncomfortable experience; much like sitting in a car that is being spun about its tow bar.

  I look back on these experiences now with two thoughts. First, I am not pleased that the events occurred at all. I’d always prefer never to face those types of situations, but pilots don’t have the luxury not to address the dangers that confront them. If you want to be the best pilot, you have to be prepared for the unexpected. Secondly, I am grateful the RAAF taught us how to operate our aircraft to, and sometimes beyond, the limits to extract ourselves from such incidents, and to keep our cool in the process.

  Twelve months after my conversion to helicopters I was on my way to the Sinai and the MFO. I was based at the MFO’s North Base at El Gorah, Egypt, about 20 kilometres from the Israeli border and 40 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea. Twelve contingents contributed to the MFO’s massive patrol operations in the Sinai, from Norway, Fiji, the United States, France, Colombia, Australia and New Zealand. The French contingent provided twin-engine Transall fixed-wing aircraft. The Australian and New Zealand contingents provided armour-plated Iroquois helicopters to fly the MFO in their orange coveralls around the Sinai Desert, allowing them to check the provisions of the peace accords between Israel and Egypt were carried out.

  The Sinai is a 60,000 square–kilometre minefield. Since the First World War, different occupying forces had laid about 21 million anti-tank and anti-personnel mines in minefields across the desert. If the minefields were mapped, the maps had been lost. The safety fences that delineated the minefields were stolen by the Bedouins, who then sold them for scrap metal. Mosaic grids containing hundreds of mines get exposed, then slowly buried, then exposed again with the vicissitudes of the drifting sand dunes blown by desert winds and sandstorms.

  I knew that if I put an Iroquois down on an anti-tank mine we would all be dead. If people jumped from the helicopter onto an anti-personnel mine, the last thing they would hear would be the ‘click’ as the small arming rod is pushed down to arm the mine. When pressure on the rod is released – boom – they would be dead.

  The mines we could see were fine; it was the buried ones, even the half-rusted anti-tank mines, that were the problem. Six months before I arrived at El Gorah, the troops found an anti-personnel mine just 1 foot to the side of the entrance path to our briefing room. So we kept to the roads and trodden paths, and never ventured into uncleared areas.

  The government was trying to clear the Sinai of mines. The mines-clearance teams used huge, armoured bulldozers with revolving drums with chains attached. As the drums spun in front of the bulldozer, the chains thrashed the ground and ­triggered the mines.

  The local Bedouin handled the threat differently: they either knew where the local fields were or, when they traversed unknown terrain, the women were dispatched out front, to be followed by the camels and then the men. That puts a different spin on ‘women and children first’!

  Flying in the Sinai was exciting. We flew mostly at low level so we didn’t advertise our position. The images are still clear in my mind: the Valley of Moses, across sandy ridges dotted with mines, and along the Mediterranean coast, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, the carcasses of bombed, missiled and burnt-out wrecks and tanks still littering the landscape. The Israelis tethered a blimp at 25,000 feet that supported very capable look-down radar, watching every inch of the Israeli landscape to ground level. We would be intercepted by Israeli F-4 Phantom jets launched from underground runways if we strayed more than a few feet into Israeli territory.

  During the sandstorm season, visibi
lity sometimes reduced to 30 metres, posing a massive risk to operations. We couldn’t fly above or around the sand, so we flew through it. The sand-blasted turbine blades degraded so fast that the operational engine life would be reduced by 70 per cent. Navigating was very challenging in 30 metres’ visibility. You couldn’t distinguish the road from the sandy desert; it was easy to get lost. The safest option was to find a truck going your way and then lock yourself 50 feet above and behind it. The trucks got used to this and knew we were navigating by counting the trees until the next turn.

  I had a few scares during my stay. The Israelis accidentally bombed a Fijian lookout post (with a practice round), creating a flurry of activity for a day. On another occasion I was forced to make a precautionary landing in the desert one hour from El Gorah after an engine gave the warning signs it was about to fail. Five of us were stuck in this vast, empty desert, sitting in a dead Huey awaiting a rescue flight from El Gorah. It was dry and hot when, out of the mirage on the horizon, appeared a solitary Bedouin mounted on his camel, slowly tracking towards us. It took the Arab ten minutes to reach us, whereby he dismounted to set up a campfire and make us a cup of coffee. Bedouin coffee, for the uninitiated, is a black, tart amalgam served in a mug half filled with sugar syrup. Five Australians sat with our local host around the fire sipping coffee together. It was a priceless experience.

  The final scare occurred during my last flight at El Gorah. Often the most dangerous flight a military pilot makes is their last flight for the posting: rules get broken, luck is stretched. I warned the other pilot, before the flight, that I wasn’t going to do any fly-pasts or scare anyone. I just wanted this to be a safe, uneventful flight before I returned to Australia to fly F-111s. Luck was against me. Ten minutes after take-off the hydraulics that powered the flight controls failed. That meant the controls became very heavy, much like a car without power steering. It wasn’t a life-threatening situation but I had to keep a cool head and not panic. We made a gentle and steady approach using slow and deliberate control inputs, and I survived my Sinai posting with an unblemished record.

  A few other incidents of note occurred. The Fijians handled base security. While they were friendly to us, they were brutal to their own people. Whenever Fijian soldiers got out of line, they’d be taken out behind the buildings and beaten senseless. While I was there I became friends with Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni (Steve) Rabuka, the commanding officer of the Fijians. He was a tall, powerful, proud and friendly man, and when he discovered I was a former ADC to the governor-general he gave me a calendar featuring him shaking hands with Sir Ninian Stephen. A few months later, Steve’s father suddenly died at home in Fiji. Steve tried to leave to attend the funeral but the Fijian military command wouldn’t release him. Steve went anyway. Relations between him and the military never recovered and, a short time later, I heard there was a bloodless coup in Suva. Sitiveni Rabuka would declare Fiji a Republic and sever ties with the British Monarchy.

  *

  The desert does strange things to people. For me, it brought out my romantic side. We had three weeks’ leave over the duration of the deployment and I decided to plan my time off constructively by courting Coral. After we’d met in Canberra, where she was working for the directors of the construction company building the new Parliament House, Coral accepted an opportunity to work as a cost controller in the oil industry in Norway. I called her before my leave and asked if she’d like to come down and spend a couple of weeks over Christmas in the Sinai Peninsula. She thought about it for a few seconds, then agreed.

  Coral and I were both a bit nervous about our desert reunion. From our brief time together in Canberra we knew our relationship was special but for various reasons we hadn’t spent a lot of time together before she left Australia for Norway. So as I drove to Tel Aviv Airport to collect Coral, I was concerned that after a year away, I might not recognise her. Would she still look the same? Did she still have beautiful waist-long hair and a beaming smile? Funnily enough Coral later told me that she had experienced similar reservations.

  I remember the joy of instantly recognising Coral as she drifted out of the airport terminal. We locked eyes and the thirteen months of separation instantly vaporised. I had booked a great room in the best hotel in Jerusalem for our arrival early on Christmas Eve. After checking in at the hotel, I was shocked, when upon opening the door to our room, to discover two small single beds widely separated in front of us, not the king-size bed I had specifically requested. Of course I could not admit to Coral that the two single beds were a mistake but to my great surprise and delight Coral said: ‘Quick! Let’s push the beds together!’

  We had two wonderfully romantic days celebrating Christmas in Jerusalem.

  Life insurance was automatically provided to everyone at El Gorah, so when Coral arrived at the base she was able to participate in MFO activities. Once we had Coral briefed and in a flying suit, she joined us in the crew room and was welcome to accompany us on our operations. She sat in the jump seats flying with the French and the Aussies and Kiwis. Her best trip in the Transall was a low-level flight at 100 feet up along the Valley of Moses, the valley where legend has it that Moses tapped his stick against a rock and caused water to flow.

  Having an intrepid spirit of adventure, Coral volunteered to be the target for winching practice. Winching activities are actually quite dangerous. In the case of an engine failure during the winch, there’s no way to ensure the winchee is not killed by the descending fuselage or the rotating rotor blades. We would never be able to take these risks in Australia, but the MFO was a civilian exercise with insurance, so we had some fun. I flew Coral deep into the desert on a navigation exercise, low-flying to a random destination among the sand dunes. From a 120-foot hover, Coral was winched out and down onto the sand. We flew away, then low-level navigated our way back to her and winched her into the cabin. Coral was nervous but excited when she got back in the chopper. Ten minutes standing alone on the sand amid 21 million landmines was sufficient time to reflect on all the stories she had heard in the crew room.

  For the last part of Coral’s visit we took off for a week cruising up the Nile. I exceeded the limit of my American Express card trying to give her the best time possible on my meagre pay. I spent a year paying off that holiday, but it was the best investment I ever made.

  Our fate would be decided at the conclusion of the MFO posting, when I took a few weeks’ leave to visit Coral in Norway before returning to Australia. Our relationship was still basking in the glow of the Sinai–Egypt holiday, but it was Coral’s friend Harry Konterud who sealed our fate. When he heard of my imminent arrival at Oslo, Harry organised accommodation for Coral and me for a week, then drove us to a small wooden log cabin with a wood fire high in the Norwegian mountains. It was a week we will always be grateful to Harry for organising and one we’ll never forget. I had fallen in love with Coral and we married about eighteen months later. Marrying her was the best decision I ever made.

  *

  My six-month posting to the MFO was coming to a close and I was returning to Australia. So I did what I had always wanted to do but had so far failed to achieve. I applied for F-111s again. And finally I received the posting I’d been waiting for.

  CHAPTER 7

  Twenty Minutes of Fame

  My interest in F-111s had not waned over the seven years since my three-week visit to 6 Squadron in 1978, although I knew I needed a few bridging courses to transition from slow rotary aircraft to fast jets. I completed a jet familiarisation course at East Sale, Victoria, and then moved to Williamtown, north of Sydney, where I completed the introductory fighter course, learning basic fighter combat manoeuvres and the techniques fighter pilots would use to shoot my F-111 down.

  I spent four months in Macchi jets learning the basics of fighter manoeuvres, combat flying, air-to-ground gunnery and bombing. After passing this course a pilot was deemed ready for F-111s.

  Coral returned from Norway at about this time, and I remember thi
s period as one of the happiest times I had in the RAAF. Each day after work, Coral would collect me from the base in the Datsun 260Z, and on the way home we would stop to have a jog and body surf along the 50 kilometre–long, 1 kilometre–wide Stockton Beach. We lived in an apartment on the shores of Nelson Bay; I can still remember having breakfast watching pods of dolphins swimming by.

  I couldn’t start an F-111 course until the previous F-111 conversions course had been completed, so I remained at 76 Squadron, Williamtown, in a holding pattern flying Fleet Support operations until 6 Squadron could receive me. During Fleet Support operations we flew formation air attacks against the Royal Australian Navy’s ships off Nowra, practised our air combat manoeuvre (dogfighting) skills and joined in a few joint-service exercises.

  Even though I was pursuing my dream of flying F-111s, I was becoming restless. I was growing tired of the ego-driven, macho and aggressive briefings/debriefings that epitomised jet-jock life. Missions were won or lost in the post-flight debrief with shouting matches about ‘who “foxed” who’ and who was out of place by a few metres. I didn’t like this environment. Fighter pilots need super egos to match their fearlessness and aggression to take on high-risk missions, but my years flying transport operations had conditioned me to the pleasures of working in teams with other pilots and passengers. I didn’t enjoy flying alone with no one to talk to, and I didn’t want to finish my flying career in one- or two-pilot aircraft.