COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
position betrayed its Hurricane ancestry and I felt immediately at
home. There were some attractive features too. The sliding teardrop
canopy gave a superb all round view. The undercarriage and flap
controls were located conveniently on the left and the gunsight had
been arranged to reflect directly on to the armoured windscreen.
On the following morning it was the real thing. The bang of a
Coffman starter and the engine coughing, hesitating, spewing sheets
of smoke and crackling into life. A marvellous sound - like a
multitude of thrashing chain drive transmissions. Taxying out,
conscious of the instruction to wind on full port rudder trim, to watch
the powerful swing to starboard...... and I was off.
What a splendid brute of an aircraft. At +7 4 and 3700 rpm the
sense of power was exhilarating. The acceleration fairly pushed you in
the back. There was quite a lot of vibration which got much worse
when the spring seat bottomed under positive 'G' - and rumour had it
that the Typhoon's natural reverberations could lead to infertility!
It was a wary introduction to the fighter of my dreams. The sheer
size and weight, and the performance, demanded respect. Aerobatics
took up a lot of sky and the spin was quite violent. But confidence
came fast, and all the time an inner voice kept urging me on:
"You're going to war with this one! Learn to fly it to the limits -
like you did with the Hurricane!"
Downwind in the circuit and the yawing effect from the
undercarriage was quite pronounced. There was a marked increase in
drag when the big twenty four cylinder engine was throttled back and
the flaps were very powerful. Steep approaches would be the order of
the day. But not this one. I came in sedately, using plenty of power,
and wheeled her on with her tail high in the air.
Within a couple of weeks I would be ready to join a squadron.
Except that I had never practised dive bombing or rocket firing. It was
obviously essential to learn as much as possible from other members
of the GSU's Typhoon flight while there was still time.
As for my fighter recce training perhaps it might help to
compensate for a lack of experience in weapon delivery. Much later,
after many months on ops, with an Armament Practice Camp behind
me, I reckoned that I had been no worse off than those who had
followed the 'normal route' to a squadron. Their OTUs had
concentrated on Typhoon conversion with typical Tighter' emphasis
and insufficient attention to target finding and ground attack.
Air to ground on the Severn ranges, down on the saltings near
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