The 81st Entry
RAF Halton Aircraft Apprentices
Sept 1955 - July 1958

ISSUE No.21 - NOVEMBER 2009
81st ENTRY NEWSLETTER
Editor: Mike Stanley

RAF St. Mawgan, (Feb 1963 to Sept 1964) part 2. by 681267 Cpl/T Alan Lowther (Armourer) .

Duty Crew seemed to come round with monotonous regularity and mostly the weeks duty was fairly quiet, apart from the odd visiting aircraft and maybe having to launch the SAR Shackleton which then involved preparing another aircraft. Being part of 2nd Line aircraft maintenance involved dealing with all of the visiting aircraft during normal working hours that required an armament presence. We had a major weather diversion of Vulcans from Waddington/Scampton in early ‘64, six in all.

Two of these were carrying Blue Steel that had to be kept warm all night and, of course, all the aircraft had to be refuelled. St. Mawgan only had one bowser for refuelling Vulcans so it was an all night job.

I did phone the Bomber Command dispersal unit to see if we could borrow their bowsers only to be told ‘No, we might get a dispersal’.

My reply to that was that we seem to have them all here anyway but they wouldn’t help. Anyway we got it all done, the Vulcan Crew Chiefs were very helpful, and fell into bed at around 5 am.

About this time St. Mawgan was also being used for civil airline flights. A wooden hut close to the duty crew accommodation served as the arrivals and departures ‘lounge’ and passengers arrived/departed by the road on the north side of the airfield. As I remember it, at this time there were about two flights a week. Anyway, the Vulcans were parked in the spectacle pans off the taxiway that ran parallel to this road. Came the time for departure and all went well until the last one, parked on the pan closest to the civilian departure lounge, ran one set of main wheels off the edge of the pan onto the grass. The wheels immediately sank about two feet into the grass and the pilot applied full power on all four engines that had the desired effect and got the wheels back on the concrete. The jet blast however was directed at the civilian departure hut, which was totally demolished and deposited in the field on the other side of the road. The aircraft undercarriage (having been used like a plough) was covered in solid mud and the aircraft was shut down. The Captain was not a happy bunny, the aircraft was towed away and put half in 22 Sqdn hangar (it was too big to get it all in) and a party came down from Waddington to sort out the undercarriage. As for it going off the pan, well, they tried to blame the marshaller but in the end I don’t think that he (a J/T) was given any punishment as he had two wing men as well and neither had given any signal to stop. A couple of days later and the aircraft was fixed and departed for Waddington.

We had a close call with one of the Mk 3s when the extended radar dustbin hit the sea during a routine flight, at the time we had an ATC Squadron on summer camp and some of them were on board. Apart from the dustbin being destroyed and the aircraft collecting a large amount of seawater there was no other damage and no injuries.

We had frequent attachments from foreign Air Forces to carry out exercises with our aircraft. The Canadians brought over their Argus (based on the Britannia), which had a very well laid out interior although the crews said it was a bit rough to fly in at low level being stiff-winged and designed for high altitude flight. We also had a visit from the Dutch with their P2V7 Neptunes on a month’s detachment.

This detachment ended on a sad note as, on the morning of their departure, one of their ground crew walked into the propeller of his aircraft. What made it worse was that we had had a party for them the night before and it was the guy’s birthday that day.

Occasionally the Shackletons would do running crew changes on the dispersal and there was a laid down procedure for this. The aircraft would taxi in and open the bomb bay doors, the departing crew would come out of the forward exit then walk rearward through the bomb bay. We had one fatal accident when a departing crew member walked sideways from the exit and straight into the inboard propellers.

Trials were carried out on a Mk3 for the upgrade to the Phase 3 standard. The aircraft was fully loaded with carriers and 1000 lb bombs etc to make it up to the required take-off weight and the interior was full of electronic boxes connected to strain gauges from the wings engines etc. The aircraft couldn’t fly in the rain and had to be put in the hangar every night but the trials were a success and the Phase 3 was introduced some time later with the two jet engines in the inboard nacelles.

We also had a working party from 71 MU Bicester who were doing main plane changes on 37 Sqdn Shackletons that were flown in from Aden.

In line with the recommendation from Fl/Lt Robinson (Hong Kong) I again applied for aircrew and went to Hornchurch for the second time. Got through it all again with the same result – offered navigator again which I turned down. A notice came out on SROs inviting applications to convert to the FAA as they were short of armourers. I applied but that came to nothing. Next step was to apply for Air Engineer, which I did. Eventually I was turned down and the reason given was that they didn’t think I would be able to cope with the additional trade knowledge required.

Strange that , considering that we had the same basic as Airframes, plus electrics, pneumatics and hydraulics. Anyway, 1964 was drawing on and I was told that I was to be detached to RAF Chivenor for 3 months as part of a Work Study exercise along with a couple of other armourers. This was the Chivenor of wooden huts and Hunters and proved to be an interesting detachment.

To be continued……..