FLYING THE HARRIER - Part Two. By Arthur Gatland.

Part One had enough excitement to give me a heart attack, but Part Two has even more excitement and drama.

Get out your blood pressure tablets out, grab a stiff gin and settle down to read about real life stuff that makes Hollywood movies on the subject seem tame!

Over to you, Arthur!

MAIN BASE EXERCISES:

Back at Wildenrath, we did, of course, carry out War Games as well. We operated at times from hardened hangars hidden in the trees around the airfield.

The exercises included a simulated incoming attack on the airfield. We practised a Survival Scramble in which we aimed to have around 40 Harriers taking off within two minutes, flying off to pre-planned holding points, before returning or diverting to other bases as directed.

A quick start consisted simply of turning on a few electrical switches, self-starting the APU (auxiliary power unit) which then started the engine, and as soon as the Pegasus engine was halfway through its start sequence, the hydraulic pressure was above 2000psi and the pilot could release the park brake and there was enough engine thrust to start taxiing. With just a few essential checks completed, selecting take-off flaps and slamming the engine to full thrust, it was possible to be airborne within about 45 seconds.

Each squadron had designated take-off strips – various taxiways or the main runway, and everyone was “cleared for take-off” at the same time.

During my time flying Harriers, I had a couple of memorable incidents… the first was as part of a 4-ship of Harriers simulating attacking a train full of army tanks that was in a rail tunnel in the side of a large hill. We briefed to be careful about the rising ground ahead.

I was number 3 in sequence. Having pulled up and “tipped in” for the attack, lining up my head-up display (HUD) gunsight on the target, I encountered slipstream from the aircraft ahead and was flicked inverted (upside down).

The Harrier had a very fast rate of roll, about 400 degrees a second, and in the approximately 0.5 second to roll out I remember thinking “the hill is straight ahead, I’ll roll out and pull, and if I’m not going to clear the hill, I will eject immediately.”

In an anti-climax to this anecdote, it all worked out fine, but I was quite pleased that my automatic thought process had been survival first and worry about saving the aircraft as a lower priority!

Harrier after a birdstrike at 550 kts

HARRIER BIRD-STRIKE:

In December 1975 we had a flying exercise involving a deployment of 4 Harriers to Husum just inside Denmark. Our first planned flight involved a 3-ship low level navigation and attack flight, and my job was to be the “bounce”, that is, to act as an enemy aircraft and try to attack the 3-ship during their flight towards the target. 

This was always great fun, and gave plenty of opportunities to practice doing sneak attacks from behind hills etc. Such was the case on this day, as I sighted the three Harriers in the distance, so I increased speed to 550 knots flying at around 100 feet above the trees, and tried to carry out an attack without being spotted by hiding behind a small hill as I turned in behind them.

Unfortunately, a large bird decided to get airborne at the same time, and I suffered a large birdstrike right on the nose.  The impact caused a large hole, dented a fuel tank, obscured the front windscreen, and parts of the poor bird came right through the instrument panel and covered me in bird debris. 

I pulled up to 5,000ft and quickly checked the engine instruments for any signs of damage, but it seemed to be all OK.  A ‘minor’ concern was the position of the MDC (miniature detonating cord) which had been dislodged by the impact and was hanging down in front of my face. If a pilot uses the ejection seat, the MDC explodes the Harrier’s canopy so the ejection can be instantaneous, and not have to be delayed by a second to allow the canopy to be jettisoned clear of the aircraft, as happened with previous types. I definitely did not relish the idea of ejecting with the MDC exploding in my face, even with a full-face visor on my helmet.

I nursed the Harrier back to Husum at 250 knots and 5,000ft and landed safely. Luckily the weather was fine, and I could see enough out the small side windows to land easily.

Several weeks later, the squadron Boss, now Sir Richard Johns, called me into his office and told me that a Flight Safety Officer sitting behind a desk in headquarters had asked why I hadn’t diverted to another German military base which he worked out was about 7 miles closer.

The obvious truth was that my map was folded showing just the route to/from Husum, so I had no idea about the other airfield – and I was familiar with Husum. Thinking fast, I said “That airfield has an east/west runway, and I would have had to land into the afternoon sun with an obscured front windscreen.”  The Boss said, “I like that story, we’ll use that one.” We heard no more.  Which proves the old adage that ‘Bullsh*t baffles brains every time.’

FASSBERG EXERCISE:

Each year there were tri-nation exercises involving the USAF, the French Air Force and the RAF. At the time, Berlin was still a post-WW2 occupied city, administered by the World War 2 Allies of UK, USA and France (the Western allies who occupied West Berlin) and of course the Soviet Union who occupied East Berlin.

Access to West Berlin by rail, road and air was guaranteed by Russia under the 1945 Potsdam Agreement. The Russians tested this almost every year, and usually the response involved a British Officer, occasionally supported by one tank, driving up to the barrier and demanding access “under the terms of the Potsdam Agreement…or else…”

So far this had been successful in having the access restored – it was one of those Cold War games that both sides played. Our annual exercise involved RAF Harriers, French F-100s (later Jaguars), and USAF F-4s. We all carried out flights practising close air support of the British Army, in case we were required to provide air support if an Allied armoured column of tanks and troops was ever required to push through to Berlin.

French F100 and RAF Harriers at Fassberg, 1974.

On 21 September 1974, I was leading a 4-ship of Harriers in transit from RAF Wildenrath to Fassberg, the air base for this exercise, located just a few miles from the East German border. We were above cloud, but only at 3000ft altitude, and my VOR navigation aid suggested we needed to head further north-east to get to Fassberg (around 050°).

I was very suspicious of this indication, and my inertial navigation indicated a required heading of 020°. I asked my number 3 aircraft what his navigation equipment said – and his gave the same indications. Of course, we erred on the more northerly heading to avoid crossing the border and arrived safely at Fassberg.

Our Intelligence officers concluded that the Russians had installed an illegal VOR station in East Germany, the same frequency and identification as the Fassberg one but stronger – hoping to lure us over the border! Very cheeky…

On Day One of the Fassberg exercise, there was an operational briefing with pilots from the RAF, USAF and French Air Force, outlining the aims for the week. It was basically a practice in air support of the army, whereby Forward Air Controllers (FACs) would brief waiting aircraft on the location of targets such as enemy tanks.

There was a discussion about the required weather limits for all aircraft to operate in the 250ft low-flying areas. The RAF limit was 750 foot cloud base and 5 kilometres visibility, but ‘any lower altitude could be accepted if the visibility was better than 5km’. In other words, pilot’s discretion. The French reported a minimum of 1500ft cloud base. The USAF representative said “our limit is 4500ft cloud base” which cause massive laughter around the room.

The question was asked “OK, that’s the book limit, but there won’t be many days that achieve that, so in practice what cloud base will you accept?” The response was that “We always observe the Rules.” One of our pilots said, “Well I guess we won’t see much of you this week then.”

Unlike the RAF and French, the USAF didn’t deploy and operate from Fassberg anyway – apparently it was too close to the East German border for their comfort.

I only saw two USAF F-4s that week, they were 10 minutes late for their “time on target” and held us up, as we were waiting our turn and orbiting at 500 feet altitude overhead the Möhne Dam (of Dambusters fame). Then they couldn’t find their IP (initial point) and asked for its latitude and longitude so they could enter it into the inertial navigation, which no one had time for! We asked if they could see us, and they confirmed that they could see us “way down there below us”. So, I said, “Follow us!” and we led them along a very obvious autobahn to a prominent bridge which was the required IP according to my map (and I’m sure theirs were the same).

SARDINIA WEAPONS TRAINING:

Once a year we spent 3-4 weeks at the NATO based at Decimomannu, Sardinia (“Dechi”) for a concentrated period of weapons firing at Frasca range. In each 4-aircraft sortie, we would each fire 4 anti-tank rockets, 4 practice bombs, and 60 rounds of 300mm cannon in 3 attacks. The automatic scoring would pass our scores back to base, and of course we took gunsight film of each attack for subsequent debriefing. Great fun!

On my last Dechi trip, I was offered the opportunity to fly to Malta with 2 other pilots for a weekend ‘jolly’. A fascinating visit. Interestingly, my sister’s father-in-law and glider pilot, Geoff White, had been a Spitfire pilot based in Malta in WW2, and it was great to be able to visit the airfields and countryside relating to his experiences.

Harriers returning to Decimomannu after a weapons sortie

HARRIER ‘VIFFing’:

In the mid-1970s, the Harrier’s so-called magic of VIFF-ing appeared in the US media. VIFF means vector-in-forward-flight, in other words moving the engine exhaust nozzles down or even forward slightly to achieve extra turn performance, and, if required, to slow down quickly to force an attacking aircraft to fly past.

As a generalisation, VIFFing was a defensive manoeuvre. If you are winning a combat, you don’t need it as much, although lowering the nozzles just 10° helped the Harrier turn slightly and allowed extra ‘short-lift’ engine thrust which could only be used for 15 seconds - but helped dramatically. 

If an enemy was behind you, the defensive action was to turn as hard as you could with full thrust. Pulling the nozzles down to 90° gave an extra 1g of turning performance momentarily, and aerodynamically the nose pitched up slightly (aiding the turn), and the speed reduced very quickly, by about 30 knots per second. Any attacking aircraft would usually overshoot, and you then reversed the turn, nozzles aft again, and accelerated almost as quickly to chase the attacker, now with the advantage on your side.

Like any air combat situation, it didn’t always work – and in two cases that were famous at the time (over Germany and the Falklands), the attacking aircraft didn’t recognise the Harrier slowing down so rapidly and flew into it. Alternatively, if the attacking pilot had good reactions, he could pull up and convert his speed to altitude, then pick how he came down on to the Harrier again. (A future blog will discuss some Hawk versus Harrier combat in 1979).

My last Decimomannu trip marked the end of my Harrier tour, and I was ‘dined out’ at La Pineta, an Italian restaurant in Cagliari, before moving to RAF Brawdy, South Wales, for my next tour as an instructor at the Tactical Weapons Unit (TWU) on Hunters and then Hawks.

My next blog will continue the story….

Harrier firing 4 SNEB pods - each with 16 anti-tank rockets