Ten Ton Run

A long time ago on an air base far far away…………………

I was working as an RAF Photographer. By “photographer” I mean a REAL photographer – not an Air Photographer. Air Photographers (Air Photographic Operators and Photographic Processing Analysts) didn’t take photographs, and they didn’t fly either. Ground Photographers (“Photo-Gs” – of which I was one) did both. Now there’s an irony!

The air base was RAF Tengah on the beautiful island of Singapore. There were a number of flying squadrons on the base. The only one worth talking about as far as I am concerned is 74 “Tiger” Squadron. The reason for my enthusiasm is that the Squadron flew Lightnings, and Lightnings, my friend, are the most exciting arse-kicking aircraft the RAF has ever flown. It was a high speed screaming interceptor. Carrying Red Top missiles, it could launch very rapidly, accelerate like a bat out of hell, gaining altitude with its tail in reheat like some space bound rocket, shoot the enemy plane out of the sky and land before you had the chance to fry an egg! Ok, I know – I’m exaggerating – forget the egg frying; I really meant make beans on toast.

Another reason for my enthusiasm was that I was given a flight in a Lightning.

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When I first arrived at Tengah, I was billeted in a barrack block close to the end (or was it the beginning?) of the runway. Very often, the Squadron would fly early morning sorties. Early in this case meaning before I considered it time to get out of bed. The aircraft would position themselves on the apron at the end (or was it the beginning?) of the runway and run-up their engines. The sound was deafening. The whole block would shake and vibrate and I would descend under the bed cloths with my fingers in my ears. Finally, they would take the brakes off, and with an even more deafening roar, storm up into the sky. Wonderful.

During my tour of duty, I was called upon to take many photographs for the Squadron, mainly for public relations purposes, while others were taken for engineering maintenance use. One task I was called upon to undertake was to photograph the wreckage and aftermath of a Lightning crash within minutes of the event. This was very sad and traumatic indeed. The pilot, who was a family man, ejected too late and was tragically killed as a result. Even so, he was a hero because he steered the aircraft away from the most populated area to spare the lives of those below. In doing so, he lost his own.

Over time, I built up a special relationship with the Squadron, and any request or opportunity to take photographs for the Squadron I treated with relish. It appeared that the feeling was mutual, as the Squadron decided to treat me to a flight in the “T-Bird” Lightning. (T = trainer, thus it had two seats). This was not to be just any old flight, but a “ten-ton” run (i.e. flying at or above 1000 mph).

I duly showed up first thing in the morning for my pre-flight training and briefing. This was not too arduous as I was assured by the pilot that he would not be pulling too many “Gs.” Even so, I did get a little edgy because he kept talking about WHEN we eject. I questioned him on this and he replied that they always take it that they might have to eject at any time, so it was the best attitude of mind to adopt for such an eventuality. Feeling a little comforted, though not entirely, I was finally kitted up and found myself walking out to the aircraft looking for all the world like something out of “Top Gun.”

I have flown many times in my life, but I have never experienced the sheer acceleration of take-off as I did in the Lightning. It was awesome, and we weren’t even in reheat. The aircraft soared into the sky as I watched the airfield rapidly recede with the roar of the engine behind me. The pilot informed me once we were over Johor Bahru that we were going to climb to operating altitude. We went to reheat. I felt a sudden kick of acceleration while the pilot sat the plane on its tail and we roared at a steep angle to 36,000 feet. Because the cockpit canopy was clear over my head as well as to the forward and sides, I could see the sky darkening as we rapidly climbed into the heavens. I had always wanted to go into space, and unless I can buy a ticket from Mr Branson, this was most likely the closest I will ever get to the experience. We made our way up the west coast of Malaya (as was) and then the pilot gently turned the aircraft around to face south. We began our “ten ton run.”

The pilot radioed the air controllers that we were coming in “fast” – an understatement. I watched the Mach Meter, the instrument which told us how fast we were going in relation to the speed of sound. We went through Mach-1 breaking the sound barrier. The aircraft seemed to give the slightest of shudders – (or was it me shuddering with excitement?) – and all was calm. It was eerily quiet, with very little sensation of speed. The Mach Meter settled on a final speed of Mach 1.58 – that’ll do me Brian!

The pilot then offered me control of the aircraft. This was necessary if I was to qualify for membership of the Ten Ton Club – you had to actually be flying the plane yourself. I carefully grabbed the joystick with my feet gently resting on the rudder pedals. “You have control” said the pilot.

“I have control” I confirmed.

For the next couple of minutes or so I endeavoured to keep the plane straight and level. At this speed, you didn’t want to make any sudden manoeuvres – “fly by wire” was still some way in the future. Presently, the pilot, probably not wanting to push his luck any further, resumed control of the aircraft.

“I have control” he said.

“You have control”, I confirmed, letting go of the joystick.

He explained to me that we would have to lose speed quickly. To achieve this, he took the plane into an “upwards dive”, levelling out at 42,000 feet – nearly in orbit! He then made a series of manoeuvres and finally lined us up with the runway beginning a steep decent towards Tengah.

“You are slightly high on your glide path, adjust our rate of descent.” I heard over the radio. I assumed this was the air controllers out on the hill at Bukit Gombak talking us down. As the airfield loomed larger, the pilot decided to push his luck again, and invited me to pull the black and yellow striped handle to release the drag-chute. This was a special parachute which deployed from the back of the plane once you had touched down to assist in getting the aircraft’s speed down to the point where it could be safely taxied back to the dispersal.

“Whatever you do – DON’T pull it until I say” he instructed. Even with my limited knowledge of aviation skills, the dangers were not lost on me if I should pull it before we had actually touched down!

It has been said that landing a Lightning is more a controlled crash than a normal landing. The end of the runway came up to meet us at frightening speed, and then I was aware of the sudden jolt and screech of tyres on tarmac as we made contact with terra firma.

“NOW!” came the instruction through my head set. I snapped the handle back obediently, and breathed a sigh of relief as I felt the additional negative acceleration induced by the drag-chute.

Some years later, the flight now a distant memory, I photographed a Conversion course group for Phantom pilots who were converting to flying the Tornado.

After the shoot, as I started to walk away, a voice called out to me. I swung around, and there was the pilot who took me up all those years ago. It was wonderful to meet him again, and chat over happy times. In Singapore, he was a young Flying Officer. He was now a Squadron leader.

The Lightning was a wonderful aircraft. I mourn its’ passing.

Whoops!!!

Many years ago when I was a young airman in Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force, I found myself serving as a photographer at RAF Tengah in Singapore.

One day we had a visit from an Air Marshal. An Air Marshal is an officer of “Air Rank” You can always tell officers of Air Rank because they have the word “Air” at the start of their rank title, a slight give away. In addition, they have lots of “scrambled egg” on the peaks of their hats. They also get paid a hell of a lot more money than most people – consequently they tend to smile a lot, especially when visiting the bank. On this particular occasion I was tasked to take publicity photographs of one such esteemed guest.

At the time, I used a Rolleiflex T twin lens reflex camera. Sometimes I would use my own camera which was a Mamiyaflex C3. The RAF hadn’t discovered colour photography at the time, so my camera was loaded with Kodak Tri-X Pan black and white film. The great thing about this film was that it didn’t matter how badly you cocked up on the exposure, you always seemed to get a good print come what may.

My modus operandi for photographing such visits was to follow the visitor and his entourage fairly closely behind with my camera and flash (Mecablitz 502) raised close to my eye with my finger twitching lightly on the button ready to fire off a shot the moment anything which looked remotely like a half decent picture presented itself in the viewfinder. If I saw they were heading into a certain room I might leap ahead and get a “head on” as they came in the door. This was also a good position to be in if the visitor was glad-handing the incumbent peasant workers, because the alternative was a wonderful photograph of people’s backs. Such shots might be useful today for the highly pretentious “art-house” (fart-house) fine art market, but not good enough for the “Tengah Times” or the RAF News.

The visiting group walked into a hanger. I seem to remember it was the hanger of 74 “Tiger” Squadron, which flew Lightnings, the most fantastic aircraft ever. I am a little biased towards Lightnings because I had a flight in one – but that’s another story. Anyway, I was not terribly familiar with the various rooms hugging the walls of the hanger, so I followed on, taking photographs until I had fired off the twelfth shot on the roll, which meant it was time to pause, and change the film. Keeping an eye on the visiting group and their escorting officers, I noticed they disappeared into a side-room just across the hanger. Hurrying to catch up, I made my way to the doorway with my camera up to my eye ready to take the next picture. I entered the room. In from of me I was confronted by the sight of the Air Marshal et al, relieving themselves at the urinal!

“I don’t think we’ll bother with any photographs in here, photographer” said the Air Marshal somewhat startled.

Maybe he thought I was taking the piss. Even so, I was certainly not pulling his plonker!

Rain Again

Today it rained. It didn't just rain - it REALLY rained. I was sat feeding my face with a couple of cheese toasties at lunch time when I heard a strange rushing, gushing, wind beating pitter patter noise. I looked out of the window. I could hardly see anything for rain lashing down at high speed with a gale blowing so hard my large potted plants were blowing over and the gazebo was tilting at a crazy angle.

Now I have to say that this kind of down-pour use to be very rare in this country. Today's torrent was reminiscent of what I used to experience when I was living in Singapore. Over there, the ground used to steam afterwards - no doubt still does! I am coming rapidly to the conclusion that the climate in this country is creeping ever closer to a tropical one. The summer ends later, the spring starts earlier, the winters are milder (what's snow?), and we are seeing more and more rats and other vermin which the cold used to kill off.

Being completely selfish, I don't really mind all this because given the choice between being warm or being cold I would always choose to be warm. I'm wearing a pullover now, and it's not cold! Even so, the temperature increase is only one aspect of climate change. We are going to see a lot more flooding and violent storms as the years go by. Because of the positive feedback contained in some of the climate change mechanisms, this process is going to gradually accelerate over time, and the insurance companies won't be able to keep pace and people won't be able to afford the premiums. Am I depressing you?

As for me, I shall continue to go and sit in a sauna and steam room, until the climate has changed so that I don't have to!

Smoked out

Thank goodness the smoking ban is almost upon us. This is the best bit of legislation we've had in this country for ages. As you may have guessed, I don't smoke. That has not always been the case. However, as an ex and now non-smoker, I find smoking more repulsive than ever. My mother was a heavy smoker. She stopped several years ago because if she'd carried on it would have killed her. She can hardly breathe now. Just getting up from a chair makes her more out of breath than I get after running several miles. My father-in-law was a heavy smoker. He died of lung cancer in a follow-through from throat cancer. As an ex-smoker, I know how compulsive and addictive it can be. Because of this, I cannot blame people who find it hard to give up, although in my own case I managed to stop by simply not buying any more. Society is very contradictory in its approach to smoking. I walked into my local Tesco's today to see prominently displayed on the counter packs of giving up smoking kits - which was good. The only trouble was that cigarettes were being sold from the shelves behind. So what's your message Tesco's? - do you want people to stop or not!! Seems a bit like the Salvation Army selling beer to me. I travel to Scotland two or three times a year. Since they've had the smoking ban, going into a busy pub has been a much more pleasurable experience, to say nothing of not leaving with my clothes stinking of smoke any more. I have a bee in my bonnet about people who smoke in cars. I find it utterly ridiculous that I could be fined for eating an apple or taking a drink while I am driving, but it is perfectly OK to drive around with a red hot tipped tube in your hand venting smoke all over the car. If you accidentally drop it you could easily have a panic situation and loose control of the car, let alone the distraction of lighting up while you are supposed to be concentrating on your driving. The law is an ass! Another concern is the increase in the number of butts we are likley to find littering our streets as everyone who wants to smoke will have to go outside. Of course, they won't use the bins. Smokers don't because they don't see dropping a tab end on the street and stepping on it as littering - which, of course, it is. I hate litter. I love Singapore, however. My wife and I had a holiday in Singapore three years ago. It was so clean. There were very strict anti littering laws as well as anti smoking laws (not to mention anti-chewing gum laws!) which were all rigorously enforced. Harsh punishment awaits anyone who litters or smokes in the wrong place in Singapore. This country, by comparison, is a filthy tip and it makes me sick. We need much tougher laws and more rigorous law enforcement to purify our society. I am sick of politically correct do-gooders who think we should treat everyone with kid gloves and try and understand the criminals. What the criminals need to understand is that we as a society have had enough and want to see these scum bags locked up for a term which means what it says - no early release. Perhaps its also time we brought back the death penalty, especially where terrorism is concerned. There - see what you've done! I started talking about smoking and ended up with the death sentence. Come to think of it, aren't smokers sentencing themselves to death anyway???

Wet Weekend in Singapore

I am very fortunate in that I live in a low rainfall part of the country - Cambridgeshire. I am also fortunate that my house is in a part of town which is safe from flooding. The news reports of the past couple of days featuring the terrible floods (terrible by British standards, though not so by Bangladeshi) further help to emphasize how lucky I am. We have a river, the Ouse, and it floods quite frequently. Thankfully, there are ample flood meadows for it to expand into where I live, but in other areas close by, like St Ives and Earith, flooding can be severe.
When I was a young airman serving a "torturous" two year tour in Singapore, I experienced my first real flood. We had a party one night (must have been Friday - we weren't at work for the next couple of days) in town at "The Dutch Club". I still have a photograph of myself at this party wearing a cream jacket and looking like I was "one over the eight". When we went to the party, everything was normal. Then it started to rain. We partied on, but the rain got steadily heavier, and then torrential - and didn't stop for several hours. When we tried to leave the club in the early hours of the morning, we didn't step down into the street as the street was now a river. The RAF sent out trucks to rescue us, as that was the only way any of us were going to get anywhere, unless we took up residence at the Dutch Club - or swam. I decided to take up a friend's offer of going back with him and his wife to their flat, rather than returning to my barrack room. As we slowly made our way along the river-road peering out of the back of the truck, I was amused to see an old man walking along up to his waist in water and holding an umbrella over his head!
My weekend at my friend's flat was, needless to say a lot more enjoyable, and comfortable than if I'd gone back to barracks. There was no chance of him being flooded out, as he lived in a 15th storey flat in an 18 storey tower. Thankfully, the flood drainage ditches did their job, and soon the floods turned to wet roads which steamed in the hot sun. It was time to go. I got a pick-up taxi back to camp, grateful for my friend's hospitality.

Dances with Spiders

Aren't spiders wonderful? Some people love them, some people hate them. I am somewhere between the two, but leaning more towards the latter. I've never had a problem with money spiders - they're too small and supposed to bring you good fortune. I did have a problem with a big black spider which came racing up my bed sheets when I was a child after I had just gone to bed. I was reading one of my favourite comic books before putting the light out. The moment I caught sight of this uninvited guest, something primordial inside of me screamed in abject terror and I was out of that bed a lot quicker than I got into it! My dad, hearing my hapless cries of distress finally came up and flattened it under the heel of a shoe. I slept very uneasily that night!

Some years later, I photographed the fellow pictured on the right. Although you can't tell from the photo, its about half the size of an adult hand, green body with yellow markings and red spots. He's (or she's - do spiders have gender???) a tree spider I photographed from a respectable distance with a telephoto lens. Even then, I couldn't stop shaking. At the time he was suspended on his web which was spread between two trees near to where I was living in Singapore. They can give you a nasty bite, though I am told they are not fatal. A few days after this shot was taken, a friend of mine, not seeing the web, ran through the centre of it and spotted the spider when it was perched on the middle of his chest. He panicked when he saw it, and the spider very quickly met an untimely end! On another occasion, I was standing under a tree, when one of these same spiders dropped out of the branches and landed on my right shoulder. I felt it land, but my friend (the one just mentioned) told me to stand still and don't move. I didn't know at this stage it was a tree spider sat on my shoulder! If I had, I probably wouldn't be here now writing about it - I'd be dead with shock!! He then grapped a thick magazine, rolled it up, and zapped it off my shoulder. On yet another occasion, again in Singapore, I was sat on the toilet at the "Halfway House" Restaurant and Bar at Bukit Timah. I was sat very peacefully, when something black caught my peripheral vision. Turning my head to look at the wall beside me was a big black, hairy, fat bodied man-eating shit a brick spider! Well, I can tell you, I have never left a toilet in such a panic and at such speed in my life! In 2004, I took my wife on holiday to Singapore. Asking a local where all the spiders were - I hadn't spotted one, he told me there wasn't any! Somewhat surprised I asked him why, and he told me that some years previous, the government had taken a decision to spray the island to destroy all the crawlie nasties! No doubt, this was a ruse to attract more visitors to the island, including arachnaphobics! Sometimes money is more important than wildlife!

A couple of weeks ago, my wife asked me to clean out the garden shed - I get all the good jobs. Garden sheds are notorious for housing various varieties of our arachnid friends, and this fact probably had something to do with my wife asking me to do it! Well, I can tell you the place was crawling with them. I vacuumed them all up with our old cylinder vacuum cleaner. The bag was writhing with spiders when I deposited it in the wheelie bin. The shed was devoid of spiders. Long may it be so - but I doubt it!