Canberra short course leads into Victors - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

My final official duty in Pakistan was on 27 June 1970 when I attended the formal Graduation Parade of Pakistani and foreign students at Risalpur. The PAF certainly know how to mount a truly impressive parade although it was slightly bizarre hearing the band play “Abide with me” as the music to accompany the inspection of the parade by the Commander-in-Chief.

It had been planned for me to fly out of Risalpur to Bahrain on an RAF Argosy aircraft but at the last minute that was cancelled because the aircraft was required for a more important task in the Gulf. Thus, at 5am on 28 June I was picked up from my quarters at Risalpur by the High Commission Land Rover and driven to the International Airport in Rawalpindi where I was booked on PK505 to Karachi. That was the easy bit. It proved to be very difficult to get me a last-minute seat on a flight to Bahrain from Karachi but eventually, when the PIA  booking office realised I was making an onward international flight to UK, they found me a seat – presumably by bumping some other unfortunate passenger off the flight. Fortunately, the departure desks were so busy that no-one checked my passport. Had they done so they would have found that I had never legally entered Pakistan! That's another story, which I tell on this page!!

Shortly before the end of my tour in Pakistan I'd been told that my next posting would be to RAF Marham to be a 1st Pilot/Captain on one of the Victor Tanker squadrons. That suited me down to the ground. After tours instructing at Cranwell and Risalpur I did not want to get stuck in the flying training empire – as many QFIs did.

I assumed that, before going to Marham to start flying the Victor, I would be sent on a flying refresher course to get back up to speed on UK procedures. Then a problem raised its ugly head – presumably when someone in the Victor empire realised that I was a former-AEO and that I had not piloted anything larger than a Hunter fighter – and that as a student on my own advanced flying training course at Valley.

There was a long-standing rule that to be a 1st Pilot on a Victor you had to have served a full tour as a co-pilot on Victors (or Vulcans) and been recommended for a captaincy, or had served a tour of duty on the twin-jet Canberra light bomber and held, or had recently held, an instrument rating on that aircraft. I, of course, had done none of those things. It was perhaps ironic that those rules had been in force when I was serving as a personnel staff officer at HQ 3 Group in 1966. In those days, which to me seemed so long ago, it was part of my brief to ensure that only pilots who met those requirements were posted to the Victor Tanker Force.

Eventually a compromise was reached – I was not sure who had been party to the negotiations but I certainly was not. The decision was that I would be sent to RAF Cottesmore, No 231 OCU, to do a short Canberra Course. It was assumed that at the end of the course I would have earned an instrument rating and, therefore, fulfilled the qualifications for flying as a 1st pilot on Victors. It didn’t work out like that!

The Canberra course they put me on was basically a refresher course for experienced Canberra pilots and navigators who had been on ground tours. I found it most enjoyable but it immediately became clear that the navigators who would have to fly with me on my solo exercises were not happy with the prospect. Word had preceded me about my flying qualifications and background. Those who are familiar with the Canberra know that the aircraft could be very unforgiving if handled improperly – especially when flying on a single engine either for practice or in the event of an emergency. The navigators would have been much happier if I was going to go through the full introductory Canberra course - and I could empathise with that!

Many Canberra accidents were caused by asymmetric flying, real or simulated. Without going into too much detail the problem was due to the fact that the two engines were a long way apart on the wings. With one engine idling, or shut down, there was insufficient rudder power to keep the aircraft on an even keel if too much thrust was demanded from the serviceable engine – such as was likely to happen on overshooting (going around again) at low level from a missed approach. If a pilot did advance the throttle of the good engine too far, the aircraft would yaw, then roll, and then probably stall before crashing out of control into the ground. It had happened for real, and more than once, as seasoned Canberra operators knew only too well.

As a digression, the need to practice asymmetric approaches on the Canberra problem was often heatedly discussed. At this time there were no flight simulators where pilots could practice the procedures. Experienced Canberra crews often pointed out that there were more accidents caused by practising asymmetric flight than were caused by real engine failure.

There were 5 dual exercises with my instructor, Flight Lieutenant John Sadler, before I was sent off solo in the Canberra B2 with Flight Lieutenant Steve Chapman as my navigator. Steve was a very experienced Canberra navigator who had just finished a ground tour. I did my best to assure him that having spent years flying in the back of Valiants, I was well aware of the sensitivities of 'rear' crew and would never do anything dangerous. The solo sorties included high level navigation sorties to places like Wick, Woodbridge, Cranwell and Marham. To be honest they were fairly boring for me because those trips were as long as 2hrs 45 mins – with no auto-pilot. Steve, whose navigation exercises were being assessed as part of his refresher course, got quite niggly with me if I wandered off course by more than a couple of degrees. However, when I had to practice engine failures and low level missed approaches and overshoots on a single engine he was, understandably, rather quiet. We soon came to recognise and value each other’s skills and we got on well together.

The end of the course came all too soon, after just 13 hours dual and 6 hours solo flying. Towards the end I asked John Sadler when I was going to fly the Instrument Rating Test. He was surprised at my question. He said that I couldn't do the test because I had not flown the minimum number of required hours on the Canberra. I decided that I would not mention that to anyone when I got to the Victor OCU.

Thus, in spite of not having the qualifications to fly in command of a 4-jet bomber such as the Victor, I did eventually complete the Victor course and become a qualified captain and 1st pilot.

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