Pete Gornall writes ….
I was in Air Traffic Control in 1953 at the tender age of 18 and it was the most exciting period I can remember being at the hub of the airfield surrounded by all the excitement. Having said that I have not yet seen any reference to the OC Flying W/Com Pete Wallace who had his initials painted in vivid orange on the rear (both sides) of his Meteor
F8. He was a very flamboyant character who performed the most amazing aerobatics when he was returning
usually late from some conference or other. He would suddenly appear over the boundary hedges and then go into a vertical climb before giving a display of aerobatics the like of which I have not seen since. His personal call sign was Mansard. On Coronation Day 2 June 1953 the Duxford wing supplied the Coronation fly-past. They all lined up with 64 squadron (Nourish) and 65 squadron (Placid) and then his very cultured voice called “Mansard wing rolling”.
The whole wing took off in immaculate formation. It was very momentous for me and has stuck in my mind ever
since. This in itself is surprising because I had epilepsy some years ago which completely wiped out large chunks of my memory and I often wonder if I’ve just dreamed all this up. The factual bits such as the names of the squadrons, the OC Flying and whether Duxford provided the Coronation fly-past are easy enough to check. Whether my hero worship of W/C Pete Wallace is justified is obviously a matter of opinion.
A Cast-iron stomach? by Les Millgate
I don’t know the date, I can’t find it in my Logbook, but the memory of it is still vivid.
Sitting in the 64 Sqn. Crew Room, someone answered the phone, and called me over – “You can probably help.” “I’m the Station Barber,” explained the voice, “and I’m ringing to see if there’s any chance of a flight.” So I told him he was in luck – I was waiting to do an airtest on our two-seater Mark 7 Meteor, and if he could get to the Sqn. in 15 minutes, he could come along for the ride.
When he turned up, in reply to my questions, he told me he’d never flown before, and he would “love to do aerobatics.” A bit of a quandary, this, because obviously a ‘virgin’ flyer might not take too well to aeros, so I explained I’d take it easy initially, and we’d see how it went. I made sure he was suitably equipped with the necessary in case it didn’t go too well, dolled him up in a spare flying suit, found him a helmet, and out we went to the flightline.
Chatting away, he was a pleasant young lad, and was actually a barber in civvy life, and in a rare display of common-sense the RAF had given him this job for his National Service – and, yes, he was passionate about wanting to do aeros.
At the aircraft I briefed him about the parachute (no bang seat in the 7!), a general briefing about the a/c, what we were going to do – and off we went.
He seemed quite happy, so I first tried a gentle Barrel Roll, positive G all the way round – “That was lovely, Sir, what was that called?” came from the back seat. Told him what it was called, decided he was OK with gentle aeros, so next did a loop, pulling minimum G – heard “That was lovely, Sir, what was that called?” again. Good, he was not feeling queasy, was enjoying it.
So – Slow Roll, same reaction, then a four-point Hesitation Roll, each time getting the same delighted reaction from the back. A Stall Turn to the left went well, and was received with the by now usual reaction – my passenger was thoroughly enjoying his first flight.
I knew this aircraft well: being the Sqn. Instrument Rating Examiner, I flew it frequently, annually renewing the pilots’ Instrument Flying Ratings, so I knew the aircraft was somehow bent, and would not Stall Turn to the right.
Plenty of time to spare still, so I thought I would really try to get it to go to the right. Climbed up to 20,000 feet, accelerated in a shallow dive, pulled up into a vertical climb, and as the speed was dropping towards zero, hard right rudder, full throttle left engine, throttled back the right engine, and waited.
So did the aircraft.
By now we were stationary, hanging vertically in the air, nose pointing slightly right, but resolutely refusing to rotate further. The aircraft juddered, fell onto its back, and went into an inverted spin.
My first thought was “Goodness me!”, or words to that effect. Second thought was “We’ve just been told not to spin the Meteor”.
Third thought was “Certainly not an inverted spin.” I don’t know if I was uttering soothing words to my passenger – if I was saying anything at all: just working hard to stop spinning. Whatever it was I did – I still don’t know – it was successful: we came out of the inverted spin, but promptly flipped into a “normal” spin, right way up.
Now it was the standard spin recovery: stick hard forward, opposite rudder from spin direction, and Lo! and behold, ended up diving away, pulling out at about 10,000 feet. I was about to ask how my passenger was, when I heard – yes – “That was lovely, Sir, what was that called?”
Don’t know what I answered: I should have replied “A complete cock-up” - we just flew back to Duxford, me still sweating slightly, trembling at the knees.
On the ground my cast-iron stomached passenger was profusely grateful for his first flight – with aerobatics – and went off to do his hair-cutting. ……….. I had a strong coffee in the crewroom!
Les Millgate
Great story Les, did you by chance ever give flying lessons to W/Co Wallace? Ed.
