Chucking It About
Entry posted by caldrail
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On another website I came across some collected video footage from the Korean War, mostly concerned with communist aviation. It was interesting to watch. I don't know a great deal about that conflict and this was the early days of the jet fighter, who were still fighting with WW2 tactics lacking sophisticated radar and 'beyond-visual-range' missiles.
Now what comes across is the speed involved, which really shoudln't suprise anyone, but when you consider that at this time the Sound Barrier really was an obstacle for aeroplanes, an unseen phenomenon that caused aircraft to break up, the fact these pilots were flying as close to it as they could and risk enemy fire is worthy of note.
Of course sometimes a pilot was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got hiit. The footage showed plenty of jets exploding under fire, and this was when ejector seats were semi-experimetal items that weren't necessarily safe to use.
Having sat in aeroplanes during aerobatics I'm well aware of the forces generated by tight manoevers. The first time you encounter it the sensation of your head weighing three times as much as usual is a little uncomfortable. With some experience, you would soon get used to that, but the most interesting thing I saw in that the Korean War footage was an in-cockpit view of a russian pilot, rolling his Mig 15 enthusiastically and remaining blissfully calm throughout. He keeps glancing left and right but stays ridiculously unfazed by the forces generated by his aerobatics. Was that a propaganda shot?
My First Aerobatics
One of the great perks of joining the Air Cadets was the chance to fly in real aeroplanes once or twice a year. We flew from Filton, the same airfield that the British Concorde protoype flew from, and I have to say, that was one big concrete runway. Or at least it was on a British scale. The red, white, and black De Havilland Chipmunk trainers, the very same used by the Royal Air Force at that time, were lined up near the hut where we got our briefings for the day. We all entered the hut staring across at those aeroplanes waiting for us.
Being military machines, parachutes were required. The 'seat' type we had to use were uncomfortable and awkward, making you look like a ninety year old duck as you walked back and forth with a large pillow slung under your bottom. I hated them.
It was winter when we turned up to fly that day. No snow, but it was cold. It was also my misfortune to be the first cadet to fly, so in front of the others and bearing the brunt of childish humour, I waddled to the waiting plane. The mechanic told me to wait. We weren't allowed to sit in the aircraft whilst the engine was started. So I stood there, eager and totally naive about the aspects of flying aeroplanes that I was about to discover.
The first was windchill. In the propellor wash the wind was frighteningly and extremely cold, way beyond the ambient temperature. By the time I had clambered up the wing and intop the rear cockpit, I was utterly frozen. The mechanic helped me strap in and he seemed completely unaffected by that arctic wind. The engine noise was considerable, warbling away at just above idle, but I remember the vibration most of all. The machine felt alive and that was a curious sensation.
Once everything was in place the pilot taxied out to the runway and introduced himself over the intercom in a sort of parody of the sort of thing you hear in airliners. "So sit back and enjoy the ride..." He finished with. Yeah, okay, when I recover from frostbite...
The surge of power and the acceleration down the runway is something the novice doesn't expect. The ground fell away, and I was flying, watching Bristol recede beneath me through the slightly distorting perspex canopy. Out over the Severn Estuary, the suspension bridge off to my right, and I was starting to enjoy being up here.
"Right then," Said the pilot in clipped RAF english, "Four thousand feet, no-one about, barrel roll to the left.. Here we go..."
Huh? What? Hey, what's happening? My world was gyrating. The sensation of being upside down at that height was alarming.
"Now to the right..." He said. Oh no. Not again...
"Now we'll try a loop. Gain a little speed, fuill throttle, up we go..."
I'm strapped into an aeroplane with a homicidal sadist! My head wobbles around hilariously under its own volition. I feel helpless.
"Now a spin. Nose up, power off, wait for the airspeed to reduce...." A loud whine is hesitantly filling my ears. That's the stall warner. Suddenly the right wing drops and the aeroplane noses down in a mad spiral. "Recover... Now spin the other way...."
It was a thirty minute flight. That's all you get. I emerged from the cockpit back at the hut bravely smiling, weak at the knees, totally shaken but thankfully not stirred, and very much the wiser about aerobatics than my childhood fantasies of spitfires and messerschmitts over the Channel.
See you next year then.
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