Consequences Unforeseen

Oceana Naval Air Station, Virginia - 1970

Oceana Naval Air Station, Virginia - 1970

Warmer than hell itself…

When he first saw the aircraft in the flesh and close up, he was shocked to say the least.

It was huge, ugly, beautiful and menacing – all at the same time! It looked like a hawk brooding on an already empty nest. It appeared to be alert and predatory but somehow forgiving to the eye. There could be no surprise that all its chicks had flown the nest. This was one terrifying mother!

What’s more, hunkered down on its legs, beak aggressively thrust forward and tail tilted downwards, it gave the impression of a bird of prey about to take flight. Hell it looked like it was ALREADY in flight!

It was massive! (or gave the impression of being massive).

He was used to the General Electric Lightning - small, dainty and forgiving to the eye. This bastard on the other hand looked like it would take the arms of Hercules to control it. He realised right there and then that this was one bird that needed love, affection and a devotion beyond anything he had experienced so far.

Oceana Naval Air Station at Virginia Beach was to be his home for the next several months as he transitioned from the Lightning to this thing called the F4 Phantom.

The Royal Air Force in its infinite wisdom (“or stupidity,” he thought) had accepted several of these beasts to become its air to air interception device based at Leuchars in Scotland. Bill Douglas was sacrificed to this bird of prey for reasons he cared little about.

Oceana Naval Air Station at Virginia Beach, the US of A. He felt like a dog with two tails. He'd been flying Lightnings for 9 months now and he was considered to be (much to his pleasure but not surprise) the best young pilot as yet identified for the role of air interception.

Aircraft seemed to become part of him, not the other way round, and this had been true from basic training through rigorous combat instruction. He had taken survival training in his stride as well. So much so, that the SAS 22 Regiment responsible for his training nicknamed him “the Soldier”. Praise indeed for an “Airforce pussy” coming as it did from these men hardened by years on the Brecon Beacons. Life in the wilderness held no surprises for him. His grand old uncle John had made sure the land would always be his friend and the animals wherever he ventured would know a kindred spirit. In the air, his instructors could not believe that he had never flown before his first flight in the Chipmonk.

Everything seemed to be first nature to him and the transition to the Jet Provost and subsequently to the Lightning had been taken in his stride.

The only problem the powers that be could discern was his complete lack of reverence for authority and his constant desire to push the envelope to its tearing point.

Now here he was thousands of miles away in a climate approaching 100 degrees faranheight about to embark on the ride of his life in a bird like no other on this earth. All this and the plentiful species of American “birds” of the human kind who seemed to be only too keen to get to know him and his strange accent better and closer than he had any right to have expected. Competition among the pilots was keen - in the air, and on the ground and in the sack!

The cockpit was a mess! A mass of instruments few of which seemed to be in the place he would expect them to be. Buttons and switches by the hundreds it seemed.

Compared to the Lightning this was a like a jigsaw puzzle but a puzzle that required complete and utter familiarisation so that its use in flight was nothing less than instinctive. Indeed in the next 48 hours he went from stuttering novice to blindfolded excellence.