By John Laming 

With more than 23,500 flying hours, John Laming is an exceptionally experienced pilot, however it hadn’t always been plain sailing particularly flying Avro Lincolns in the late 50s. In this excerpt, John’s flying instructor, Sid Gooding, shows how problematic the Lincoln could be.

From the height of my seat above ground level, I spotted what appeared to be the burnt out wreckage of an aircraft near the western boundary of the airport. The only recognizable part was the twin fin and rudders, which identified it as a Lincoln. Initially I thought it must have been a wreck used by the fire crew for practice.

After engine shut down, we unloaded our parachutes, mae wests and navigation bags and clambered down the ladder from the front escape hatch. The gunners and radio operators had an easier exit via the rear entry door. The humidity made us sweat profusely, but as there were no crew showers in those days, we simply stepped out of our sodden green flying suits into our khaki drab uniforms smelling like polecats. The Poms would have been proud of us!

Before we went for a debriefing, I asked Sid about the wreckage I had seen on the airfield boundary. He said that it was all his own work, having pranged the aircraft during an asymmetric overshoot two weeks earlier. Considering his war experience and my personnel observations of his undoubted skills as a Lincoln pilot, I was most surprised at this revelation. I asked him what had happened.

It appears he was demonstrating an asymmetric landing with the port outer feathered. The crew consisted of Sid as the qualified flying instructor (QFI), another pilot who was undergoing conversion to type, and a signaller. There was a ten knot crosswind from the right, and during the flare the aircraft began to drift left off the runway. The Lincoln was a bitch of an aircraft to land in crosswinds, as are most tailwheel types. The long nose of the Lincoln Mk 31 also obscured the runway view from the cockpit.

In the event, Sid was unable to stop the Lincoln from drifting off the runway edge and decided to go around rather than risk undercarriage damage from sideways drift. He applied full power on the three remaining engines. This caused a strong yaw towards the feathered number one propeller. It was a classic Vmca situation, and with the full right rudder applied Sid was unable to stop the aircraft from turning left. At that stage the Lincoln was flying ten feet above the airfield in ground effect, but in a huge circle. Thirty seconds later the left wing tip clipped a small power pole near the airfield perimeter. The aircraft spun around and crashed with the remaining engines in full throttle. Apart from the signaller who broke his nose against the radio panel, there were no injuries and the crew fled the scene. A minute later, the Lincoln caught fire and despite the efforts of the fire crew the aircraft was totally destroyed.

A few years later, the squadron lost another Lincoln in a similar accident. The aircraft was landing with the No. 1 engine feathered for a practice asymmetric landing. The pilot under training misjudged the round height, causing the aircraft to bounce heavily. The check pilot who was not a QFI, took over control and applied power to the three remaining engines in an attempt to cushion the landing. Unfortunately the bounce was high, and the aircraft yawed left from the asymmetric power. The instructor, who was an experienced wartime pilot lost control and the aircraft crashed just short of the civil terminal.

The crew escaped with only slight injuries, but the Lincoln caught fire and was destroyed. Following the accident, the RAAF banned all practice asymmetric landings with feathered propellers, a policy that has remained in force 36 years later. In contrast, civilian operators in Australia continue to carry out practice feathered landings, with the result that over the years there have been many accidents in training.

Sadly, an ex-Lincoln pilot who served with No 10 Squadron during my time, was killed when a civilian Lockheed Hudson that he was flying at Lae in New Guinea crashed into the sea on short final. The pilot was carrying out a practice feathered landing, when he got low and slow. The aircraft got out of control and that was the end of him.

I flew many hours in the next nine months and with a variety of captains. Some were airman aircrew, the rest were commissioned officers. I was usually crewed with a chap named Flight Lieutenant Jack B. Thomas, universally known as JBT. To his face we called him ‘Sir’ of course. JBT was very formal to his crew which consisted mainly of sergeants like myself. He had over 5000 hours and had been awarded the Air Force Cross (AFC) for flying under dangerous conditions rescue operations in New Guinea. A volcano called Mount Lamington had erupted without warning, killing several hundred natives. The RAAF mounted a big evacuation service in which JBT flew Dakotas.

Jack Thomas was one of the smoothest pilots I have flown with. He made text book landings in all weathers and I learnt so much just by watching his technique. His technique at three point landings on the Lincoln was sheer magic. I have tried to emulate his skills over many years, and perhaps some have sunk in. JBT was given the task of training me to command standard on the Lincoln, a task for which he deserved a bar to his AFC!  However, after several hours of dual instruction, I was given a final check with the CO Handlebars Handbury who sent me off on my first command trip. The second pilot on board was Sergeant Geoff Banfield, who was a member of my pilot’s course at Point Cook. I did a few touch and goes, and afterwards was delighted to be invited by the CO for a drink at the hallowed Officers Mess. It was a nice touch by old Handlebars and I have never forgotten it.

As I mentioned earlier, the squadron had a Mustang. Its number was A68-113. It was used for target towing. Shortly after I arrived at Townsville, I was shirt-fronted by a bad-tempered Warrant Officer pilot called Motterham. His nickname was ‘Blowtop’, and he certainly had a short fuse. Blowtop was a Lincoln captain who had several hundred hours on Mustangs. Most of these were obtained at Tocumwal in NSW, which was a vast storage depot for war-surplus aircraft. His job was to carry out short flight tests on the hundred or so Mustangs which were lined up on the tarmac and which needed to be kept in flying condition.

On arrival at No 10 Squadron Blowtop flew the Mustang on target towing duties, and in fact was the only Mustang qualified pilot on the squadron until I arrived on the scene. He told me to lay off HIS Mustang or risk getting thumped. I took this seriously as he was known to be a fighting drunk.

Fortunately, the Officer Commanding North East Area Headquarters was also qualified on a Mustang. He was Group Captain Paddy Heffernan and Paddy was one of the finest officers I have ever met. He was a stocky man who walked with a marked limp, a legacy of a mid air collision in a Wellington bomber, of which we was the only survivor.

He had no objections if I flew the Mustang, but if I pranged it he said he would break my neck. Clearly this Mustang was a health hazard.

Notwithstanding the threats by Blowtop, I flew the Mustang many times and never scratched the paint once. In the Fifties, battle of Britain week was celebrated each September by show-the-flag displays at most RAAF bases. At Townsville, the squadron would despatch Lincolns to beat-up country towns and generally make lots of noise.

It was decided to have a formation fly-past over our own base at Townsville where several thousand spectators were expected. The formation consisted of three Lincolns, the Dakota flown by Paddy Heffernan, the Mustang flown by Blowtop and the Wirraway flown by Sergeant Jim Chataway. Jim took a signaller called Curly Greig, in the back seat of the Wirraway.

Paddy was having trouble keeping up with the Lincolns and, in turn, Jim was tapping hitherto unknown reserves of power from the Wirraway to keep up with Paddy. The Lincoln leader realised that the rest of the formation was lagging, and throttled back. Paddy was a bit slow to pick this, and nearly clobbered the tail of the nearest Lincoln. His wild manoeuvring upset Jim who had only a few seconds earlier caught up with Paddy from behind. His comment on the intercom to Curly in the back seat of the Wirraway was words the effect of which were, “what is the stupid old bastard doing now?” Unfortunately Jim pressed the wrong radio switch, which meant that his remarks to Curly went over the airwaves, instead of the intercom. Paddy Heffernan heard every word but, ever the gentleman, he made no comment.

My part in the display was to fly the Mustang on mock combat against a Lincoln. Warrant Officer Frank Slater was the Lincoln pilot. Frank had flown as a flight engineer on Catalina amphibians, but had re-mustered as a pilot. He was a popular chap who had won the George Medal for bravery. The Catalina in which he was flying crashed during a single engine landing at Georgetown in North Queensland. The aircraft caught fire and Frank was responsible for saving the life of the pilot who was trapped in the burning wreckage.

Frank got airborne in the Lincoln and I followed him down the runway in the Mustang. There had been no rehearsal of the display – it was just a case of mock dog fights with lots of noise and low flying. Frank honked down over the runway at 200 knots in the Lincoln and I got onto his tail as he pulled up into a classic corkscrew manoeuvre. This involves a steep climbing turn at full throttle followed by a hard reversal diving turn and was a wartime escape manoeuvre used by British bombers when attacked by German fighters. It used up a lot of sky but also made the bomber a difficult target to fire at.

I knew from personal experience it took strength to wind-on full aileron at high speed in the Lincoln. After all, the aircraft did not have powered controls. There was an ace up the sleeve which could be used as a last resort against an attacker. The bomber pilot would haul into a tight turn, with the fighter following and hoping for a deflection shot. At the last second the bomber pilot would snap back both throttles on one side causing the bomber to spin around tightly. Hopefully, the fighter pilot would overshoot the target. The bomber pilot would go back to full power on all four engines and await the next attack. Meanwhile the air gunners would attempt to shoot down the attacker as he closed in again.

This is what Frank did in his Lincoln. Although I was able to follow his first corkscrew without much trouble, when he did the double engine pull back trick, I lost him completely. After several more skirmishes, I was mortified to find Frank turning tighter than I was. He was flying his Lincoln like a fighter, and within a couple of right turns he was sitting on my tail. He wasn’t playing fair and it became very embarrassing for a budding Red Barron like myself.

By now all this twisting and turning had drawn us further away from the airport and the voice of the RAAF controller in the tower came through my headset reminding us that this display was for the benefit of the spectators – not just for Frank and I. The last part of our display consisted of Frank bringing the Lincoln low over the crowd at 200 feet with myself 100 yards behind and slightly below. The noise of five Rolls Royce Merlins at full power must have been incredible. If you could bottle that noise now it would be worth a thousand memories to the German population who were on the receiving end during the war over Europe and the British who watched the Spitfires and Hurricanes during the Battle of Britain.

This is an excerpt taken from John Laming’s book, ‘Tall Tails of the South Pacific’ available at www.lulu.com