Gunship Over Angola

Another innovative way to correct a bad habit was for an instructor to order any pupe who was battling with height judgement on landing, to sit on the roof of the toilet block with a plastic or wooden ruler in his left hand (representing the Harvard’s throttle lever), holding a broomstick (representing the joystick) in his right hand, and with his feet planted firmly on the horizontal sweeping section (representing the rudder pedals), thus simulating the primary controls used in landing the Harvard. The role of the toilet roof in this process was scientifically calculated, we were told, to be the precise height at which the Harvard ‘rounded out’, or levelled off, immediately before touching down. Some of the more vindictive instructors even had their pupes imitate the noise of the radial engine to add authenticity to the lesson…

I often wondered what comments would have ensued and what delusions of grandeur would have been dashed had any of our mothers and fathers observed one of these daily gaggles comprising the Air Force’s elite students, their precious sons, flying imaginary aircraft in close formation, spasmodically moving hands and feet, while making toddler-like noises, while sitting on the shithouse roof.

Nevertheless, all of this contributed to our overcoming the next obstacle, which was the one no pilot ever forgets – their first solo flight.

CFS had a long tradition in this regard. Once an instructor was satisfied that his pupe possessed sufficient ability to land the aircraft without killing himself, he would call on a more senior instructor to conduct a ‘solo check’, which would entail the solo check instructor’s accompanying the pupe on one, two or maybe even three circuits and landings. When satisfied with the pupe’s competency, the solo check instructor would tell the pupe to taxi the aircraft back to the pre-take-off holding point, near the threshold of one of the active runways (there could be up to five parallel runways in use at any one time). Upon reaching the holding point, the check pilot would get out of the rear seat, open the small baggage compartment near the tail, extract a bright red wind sock and tie this to the tail wheel of the aircraft. The check pilot’s final obligation was to give the pupe a thumbs-up, releasing the virgin soloist on his first unaccompanied take-off, circuit and landing, a momentous and unforgettable event in the life of any aviator, military or civilian.

Having recovered from my face-changing incident, and after I’d accumulated a substantial number of unloggable hours flying the good ship ‘Crapper’, Lieutenant Maree, my long-suffering instructor, in a moment of great personal weakness, deemed me ready for my own solo check and handed me over to a more senior instructor.

An interminable while later, after I’d thumped the poor old Spammy we were flying into the ground far too many times for its health or that of the check instructor, he stumbled, ashen-faced, from the plane. The next moment he wound the wind sock around the tail wheel, made a strange gesture that I interpreted as ‘Go die if you wish’ but could have meant ‘Cut the engine and go sell cars’. Without seeking any further clarification, I immediately opened the throttle, sped off down the runway and lifted off into a clear, windless winter sky.

It was only after I had raised the undercarriage and completed the rest of the after-take-off checks that I turned around and saw the empty rear seat and realised that I was alone. I started yelling and hooting like a lunatic, and stopped only briefly to radio the control tower and request my landing instructions. Coming in over the airfield’s perimeter fence on the final approach, I thought that I’d better calm down as I was almost certainly being observed through binoculars from the tower.

Following a long tradition, I was given a mud bath after my first solo flight.

Under my less-than-expert guidance (some would call it abuse) the Harvard hit the ground, bounced a few times and then settled, the speed rapidly bleeding off until I could safely turn off the runway and make my zigzagging way back to the dispersal (parking) area. I manoeuvred the aircraft into its designated parking spot on the Dunnottar flight lines, applied the brake and started the engine shutdown process.

I couldn’t help noticing that a group of my fellow pupil pilots had all gathered to the port (left) side of the Harvard and were waiting for me to disembark. For more than 50 years, pupil pilots in the SAAF had followed a time-honoured procedure when welcoming home a fellow pupe who had just completed his first solo circuit, and I was about to get my once-in-a-lifetime turn.