Victor Incident – John
Saxon
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This was going to be another Blue Steel
"carry over" trial to test missile systems – they
had almost become routine. But flying in V-bombers always got the
adrenalin flowing just a little. I was a civilian working with
Elliott Brothers – an English firm now part of GEC I
believe. We were concluding the first development phase of one of
the world’s first Inertial navigation systems which was used
to guide the BlueSteel stand-off bomb. Our Handley Page Victor
B.2 aircraft was parked in the loading bay on Edinburgh air field
near Adelaide South Australia. The 6 ton 36ft long missile was
secured under the bomb bay – fully fuelled with Kerosene and High Test
Peroxide – a rather nasty mixture, and so the loading
bay was fairly well flooded with water – just in case.
We walked out
to the aircraft in a group and climbed on board – John Baker
the Pilot, and chief test pilot for AVROs. Flt Lt Jimmy Catlin
was in the right hand seat. Flt Lt Charlie Gilbert in the rear
Radar Navigator position – myself in the centre rear looking
after the Navigator systems. Flt Lt "Glen" Glendinning
in the right hand rear Air electronics officer’s seat
looking after the missile autopilot and other aircraft systems.
Finally sitting in the 6th "jump" seat was
Frank Longhurst – another civilian working for AVROs who was
there to see that Glen was doing the right things with
"their" missile. At that point in the trials the
civilian crews were beginning the gradual training and hand over
to RAF crews who were to complete the trials. We plugged in
Intercoms, oxygen, suit cooling air, and begun the seemingly
endless pre-flight checks.
Eventually everyone was satisfied and we
taxied and took off – turning to the SW to climb to our
first navigational fix point over Kangaroo Island. Now despite
being an aircraft weighing around 80 tons, the Victor was no
slouch in the climbing stakes. I have been from sea level to
50,000ft in around 8 minutes but it was probably a lot slower
rate with the BlueSteel missile loaded. Nevertheless the 10,000
ft climb points were passing rapidly until we got to around
46,000 ft I believe and then all heck broke loose. Lots of rapid
discussion and attempts to pull up from the front deck, the start
of a real roller coaster ride (pitch ups, pull overs, etc.) with
engine noise doing wonderful things. Then what seemed (from the
back) to be a wingover followed by increasingly violent positive
and negative G forces. John Baker activated the "Abandon
Aircraft" signs which also dumped cabin pressure, and Frank
(who was nominally first out of the rear door) unstrapped and hit
the roof quite violently and took no further escape action. In
the nominal escape plan I was next to get out, and I managed to
half stand and hang onto the camera bracket in front of the nav
equipment. But I could get no further towards the side door as we
were rotating fast and in what seemed to be a very steep dive.
Then after what seemed like a long time (actually about 20
seconds), there was a loud bang from the rear of the aircraft and
the rotation changed to a near vertical dive and rapid pull out,
accompanied by much creaking and groaning and dust , pencils,
pads, etc. flying in all directions. But we were back in semi
level flight at around 16,000 ft!
Here is what I believe happened. Others who
know better than I can correct me if I’m wrong. When we got
to 45,000 ft or so the right hand air speed indicating system had
a failure causing it to indicate around Mach 1.03. This sent a
"transonic" flight signal to the auto stabilisers which
initiated a pitch up manoeuvre as the Victors were not designed
to go supersonic. The pilots however compared right and left side
air speed indications and as the pitch up had started were
inclined to believe the faulty right hand system. So they too
tried to further reduce speed and ended up in a violent pitch up
to an almost inverted position followed by a rapid spin which was
impossible to control. Very luckily for us, John Baker had done
many test flights in prototype aircraft, where it had become
routine to fit breaking parachutes to lift the tail of the
aircraft into a more stable dive position, which could be
recovered relatively easily. Now this had never been attempted in
an 80 ton crescent wing Victor – but nothing much else was
working. So John pulled the tail chute which lasted a few seconds
before breaking away, but long enough to do the job and allow
some heavy stick pulling to level out before doing a submarine
imitation.
So how does one feel at a time like that?
Not too great, but certainly I felt reasonably calm and I
remember I had time to think about flight insurance and
dependants! As usual when the adrenalin is pumping, everything
seemed to go into slow motion. But it was really nice to get
roughly straight and level again. It was good that we had all the
records from the inertial navigator recorders and were able to
analyse them later. The aircraft experienced maximums of about
minus 3 and plus 5 G’s (more than airframe design limits),
and the whole incident lasted about 60 secs with the descent from
46,000 to 16,000 in about 20 secs – vertically supersonic!
Several things happened
before we finally got to land. First there was a concern about
the correct airspeed as the two systems were still reading
differently. Then possible structural damage. Luckily the radio
was still working so a chase plane was requested. It was decided
to jettison the missile as it was full of highly explosive fuel
(whose temperature was rising) and even had some TNT on board for
range safety break up if it strayed outside the Woomera range
limits. Also because there was no tail parachute, if there had
been undercarriage or brake problems, a wheels up landing with a
fully fuelled BlueSteel underneath would have been very
spectacular! We started missile jettison procedures aiming for a
Military bombing range near Port Wakefield, several of the crew
had "confirm" switches for jettison, and at the last
minute the pilots called stop, and then a go (I think I was the
last to select my switch) and away it went. It turns out that the
"stop" calls were due to the pilots spotting a school
below.
There were two guards on the range where we
jettisoned and they had been told to keep a look out for a bomb
drop. No one thought to mention that it was 36 feet long, weighed
6 plus tons and was full of explosive mixtures, so they walked
out onto the sand to take a look. Apparently they "heard it
gurgling" on the way down and took off to find their hard
hats when it got rapidly larger. But it crashed relatively
harmlessly and burnt with only minor explosions between the high
and low water marks. But they certainly got a shock!
Then the first chase plane arrived. Flt Ltd
Alec Hollingsworth RAF scrambled an old Meteor out of Edinburgh
– it was great to see him! He flew tight formation passing
on airspeed readings and confirming no apparent physical damage.
There was no way we could dump the full fuel load so we had to
keep flying for at least another 90 mins or so to burn off fuel
to get to an acceptable landing weight. Due to the time remaining
the Meteor chase plane was replaced by a Canberra flown by Wing
Cdr. David Glenn which escorted us for the remainder of the
flight.
In the meantime we had a nervous 70 minutes
or so before the landing. During that 70 minutes Charlie Gilbert
introduced me to chain cigarette smoking, I think we got through
at least a pack between us in the back. Took me more than 10 more
years to kick the habit! Thanks Charlie! So eventually with much
foaming of runways, emergency vehicles everywhere and at least
one chase plane, we made a good touch down back at Edinburgh.
A
couple of aftermath items. We had a couple or more drinks in the
mess at the airfield with lots of toasts to our safe return. The
story goes that co-pilot Jimmy Catlin was well away by the time
he had to go to a church social that evening. Apparently he
strode across the dance floor to tell the vicar in a loud voice
that "I saw your boss today", before collapsing gently
at the vicar’s feet. I wasn’t there but the story has
been confirmed by others! A few days later the crew (plus
significant others) had a celebratory dinner at a local hostelry,
where this picture was taken.
Despite the large excursions outside
it’s design limits, the aircraft turned out to be in pretty
good shape and after some minor repairs went on to launch more
BlueSteels for the trials – at the Woomera range of course!
Later XL161 returned to U.K., and after a refit at the Handley
Page plant, went on to RAF squadron reconnaissance duties.
Needless to say – news of the incident
leaked out to the press, and after news of the jettison near Port
Wakefield got out – there were a few pointed questions in
Parliament about large explosive devices being flown around
populated areas. Much more fuss would be raised these days, but
in the cold war atmosphere of the times, questions soon died
away.
All in all, it was an exciting few hours!
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