Some misdeeds with 75 Squadron at home at Ohakea in the mid 1970s

After a short posting to 42 Squadron, I was posted to 75 Sqn, called the sharp end, because of the aircraft being flown.

Again the shift from slow props to the fastest jets in the country was very interesting.

As part of the conversion course for the pilots to fly the Skyhawk, there was a series of ground lectures. Each of the SNCOs [Senior Non-Commissioned Officers] was given a section of the aircraft to lecture to the new pilots.

My specialty was the fuel system, there was a self-sealing fuel bladder/tank in the fuselage just behind the pilot and over the top of the engine.

The wings are a fuel tanks, [the outer skin of the wing is the outer skin of the tank] and normally two 300 gallon [360 US gal] drop tanks. These were handy as wheels to land on if the main undercarriage failed.

Everything was fueled through a valve under the aircraft, just behind the wings.

Everything was electronically controlled. The pilots were run through the fuel system, it’s parts and how they integrated with each other, then as a check we would start off with.

“ You are flying at ten thousand feet, you glance at the fuel gauge and it reads 750 lb, what has happened, how do you fix it”.

Depending on their answer the usual reply was to the effect “Congratulations Sir, You have just cost the taxpayers one million dollars, I hope you enjoyed your parachute decent”. Then tell them what had happened and what they were supposed to do.

Slowly the problem would be worsened until there was no way out apart from Eject.

The new C O [Commanding Officer] a W/C [wing commander] arrived to take over the squadron, he went through his course with me and the other instructors, at the end of his flying conversion course the pupil pilot takes a TA4K two-seat trainer and breaks the sound barrier out to sea, well off the coast.

He was good enough to put me into the back seat and away we went. Apart from the gauge going from 0.95 to 1.05, there is little sensation that you have broken the sound barrier.

When we returned we were both given our “Mach 1, The Speed Of Sound Is Slow” patch to wear.

About three months later as I was wandering across the hanger the W/C called me into his office, “Now”.

Instant thoughts of what had I done that he could have found out about flash through the mind as I walked over to his office.

As I walked in he said, “ Congratulations you have saved the taxpayer 1 million dollars today”.

He had had a fuel malfunction, his initial thought was “I don’t want to cost that much money, What did that sergeant say?, that’s right, he said if I turn this switch on it should recover. It did. and he was gentleman enough to tell me.

75 Sqn was in the middle of a lot of ‘Show the flag’ exercises, with Singapore, Malaya, and Australia. The USA occasionally also attended.

These I have covered in their own little segment

We also had a few funny things happen at home, one of which my son has already reported on in his post ………[It is worth a read, he was well set up] Only he and his Mum know the true results of this trick.

One of the other tasks I was given was to ensure the spare parts, fuel control units, hydraulic pumps etc had not exceeded their shelf life. All items have a period after which they go back to the overhaul facility for checking and re-lifeing. Usually two years.

We normally carried at least two of all components, the most likely to fail up to four.

There were stored in heavy cardboard boxes for protection, and placed in one of five plywood boxes for transport.

There was enough room to squeeze everything into four boxes and when space became critical to bring all the purchases home the Engine trade had an official box to use for our personal gear.

This system was also handy when someone wanted to bring home a new camera/radio that he didn’t want to declare to customs on return. There were strict limits what we were allowed to bring back into the country.

The camera suddenly became a hydraulic pump, complete with proper labels on the outside and well sealed. This was placed in the bottom of the spares box and returned to the happy owner after we had been home for a week.

We did one trip to Singapore, the planned return was in mid-November, one of my sisters in law had asked if I could get her three children sized push bikes for Christmas presents.

Because room on the return was always short I raced into town the night we arrived, bought the bikes and put them into the returning C130. There were held waiting for our return for customs clearance.

When we returned the wives and kids were allowed to mix and mingle with the returning fathers. One of my daughters was standing by me when the Customs Officer asked me what sort of bikes I meant on the form.

I had declared bikes on the form and he was checking whether they were push or motorbikes, he smiled and said to my daughter “We had better check them, we may have to take them if they are not”. She smiled up at him and said, ” I don’t care, they are for my cousins anyway”.

At this time we weren’t allowed to bring in gifts, so with a big wink at the Customs Officer I agreed,” Yes, they are for the cousins”. He must have been a father also, and with Christmas coming, probably thinking I was being crafty, he passed the bikes for entry. The cousins enjoyed their Christmas presents for many a year.

The Skyhawks formed a display flying team, called ‘Kiwi Red’ they would practice their maneuvers and when they thought they were good they would do the display over Ohakea.

When they had finished and taxied back to the Sqn dispersal the ground grew would hold up score cards, from 1 to 9, depending what they thought the score was.

The Officer Commanding [the Boss] would ask why someone had scored that mark and they thought that we were their hardest judges.

For those interested, some of these displays are on youtube under ‘Kiwi Red’’. In one of the videos, the Skyhawk shows its capability to refuel another one in flight, using a ‘Buddy Store’. The joined pair then do some ‘barrel rolls’, NZ was the only country where the pilots were silly enough to do this maneuver.

When the Skyhawks first arrived we had a small jet engine APU[Auxiliary Power Unit] in a ‘teardrop’ shaped pod. These had their own battery for starting and drove a small jet-powered generator to power the Skyhawk.

They were designed could fit onto the bomb racks below the wings, and make it possible for a Skyhawk to take its own re-start equipment with it when it left the base.

There was a hold down steering handle that released the brake on the front wheel, the two rear wheels had no brakes. By holding the steering handle down the jet engine would push the whole pod forward, this made it very easy to move.

While in the USA doing their training the Sqn members had watched, particularly the Marines, sitting on top of the pod, holding the steering arm down with their boots, and riding from one airplane to the next.

We were never allowed to do this because some of the Marines had been injured when they were having races to see how fast they could go and someone's boot slipped.

Instant front wheel lockup, and a couple of hundred pounds of machinery rolling all over the body sprawled out before it.

Very shortly after I joined the Sqn they were all withdrawn and the APU jet engine installed in a four-wheel trolley and the exhaust deflected vertically, so we had to pull them around after that.

The decision to train all the other trades to do engine starts and low power ground runs was started in 1976. Some defects were only apparent with the engine running and the cockpit wasn’t big enough for two people to squash into.

The actual start is very simple, there are no batteries on board, and an APU plugged into the power system and starter to provide the necessary air for the starter were all that was required. For all ground runs a set of air intake screens were fitted to stop ingestion of any debris.

The APU is started and plugged in, power is turned on and all the gauges start to register, the air fed connected to the starter. A one finger sign is given to the ground crewman looking after the APU, He turns the air on into the starter, at fifteen percent power/revolutions the throttle handle is moved outward, closing a microswitch that turns on the ignition, and moved around a horn in the slot the throttle travels into park. 70% power.

At sixty percent the APU is turned off and stopped, the engine will increase speed to seventy percent power automatically. This is where the other trades would do their checks and ground runs.

If the throttle is advanced to about seventy-five percent power the thrust overcomes the nose oleo [leg] and the nose of the aircraft will suddenly drop about six feet without any warning.

Being in the Engine trade, we were used to this happening and delighted in the looks of concern when we were teaching the other trades what would happen.

We weren’t supposed to go above eighty percent power on the flight line as the brakes wouldn’t hold the aircraft still above ninety percent.

If the power was increased and the aircraft slid, it would wear flat spots from the bottom of the tyre.

The tyres were pumped up to, from memory, four hundred psi, with nitrogen.To hold that force in control there were about twenty-six layers of fabric built into each tyre.

If the pilots did aircraft carrier type landings,[land with a thump] a set of tyres would last about four to five landings, if they landed gently, just greased them on, a set would last ten to twelve landings, I think the record was fifteen landings on a pair of main tyres.

To aid stopping a drag chute was deployed from just below the exhaust exit. When the airplane slowed enough this was dropped and picked up by ‘Little Flick’ a Land Rover manned by the fire section especially for this task. [In season they also picked up all the mushrooms that grew on the grass sections of the airfield as well].

One of the Senior Engineering Officers, early in the period we had Skyhawks, designed a set of chocks so we could do ground runs without the need of a tie down point. When I joined the Sqn the new Engineering Officer wanted to try them to see how effective they were.

They took a truck to carry out them to the ground run area, six to eight strong men to move them around and align with the aircraft wheels.

On tar seal they started to slide at ninety-five percent power, on concrete they would hold at full power until the ledge of concrete they were up against broke off, then they slid until they found another protuberance.

We put them back in the hanger to gather dust, with a note to the effect of how useful they were.

During the winter months, it was interesting to watch the neighboring farmers cows, they would watch us going to the run-up area, and they would all crowd the dividing fence.

When we started they all turned their backs to us and spread out in a fan where the hot exhaust air was blowing.

When we stopped they all went back to munching on the grass again, they were obviously after the heat and the noise didn’t deter them in the slightest.

The noise was such that with foam earplugs and grade five ear defenders on there were places, particularly in the rear aft engine bay, where we were only allowed to spend two minutes within five feet of the airframe. The noise was supposed to affect the kidneys somehow and helps to explain why now the TV is turned up so loud.

Refueling was a dream, just attach a ‘turn on, turn off’ attachment on the end of the fuel hose from the tanker, select which tanks you wanted to be refueled, and remove the attachment when the job was done. So much easier than all the other aircraft I had worked on.

During Base parades, we would have the Sqn Colours on display and marched around the parade ground. A Sqn Colour is carried by a Pilot/Flying Officer, escorted by two Sergeants with naked bayonets and a W/O [Warrant Officer] armed with a drawn sword.

75 Sqn being the oldest Sqn in the RNZAF had the honour of having all the other Sqn’s Colours being dipped to it when we marched by. The only Colour that 75 Sqn dips to is the Queens Colour of the RNZAF.

It may seem silly, but it feels great escorting your colour and having the other Sqn’s colours dipping to you as you march past. Also, we were last onto the Parade ground and the first off.

The dispatch of a Skyhawk is different from other aircraft that the RNZAF flew in that, having come from the US Navy/Marines the pilot would do his walk around pre-flight checks, climb inside and start the engine. The ground crew would then do a ‘Sniff” check, a walk around looking and closing access doors and removing all the safety pins.

When the walk around had been completed the safety pins were held up in a particular sequence to show the pilot that they had all been removed. When the pilot was happy he would taxi to the runway and take off.

For a while the pilots weren’t happy with the dispatches they were getting from Whenuapai, this was largely because they didn’t have much to do with the Skyhawk.

I was tasked with going to Whenuapai and teaching them what to do. Nothing to teach them with, but still, teach them.

I was strapped into the back seat of a two-seater, we took off and climbed to Lake Taupo, put the nose down and raced to Whenuapai. 18 minutes later we were in the circuit ready to land.

I explained the problems to the 5 Sqn guys, they explained their lack of practice back to me and we agreed that we had achieved nothing.

The dispatch was better than I expected and I think impressed the pilot as well. He commented that I should have done that a long time ago.

We took off and he asked me if I had ever been low flying? as usual, you never admit to anything.

There is a planned low flying route in a different lane every day of the week. In this lane, the service aircraft are allowed to fly as low as 50 feet. Each lane passes over bare country, only annoying stock and the occasional farmer on his tractor.

He said, “The low-flying route for today starts here”. put the nose down and we came home at 50 feet. We went over a lake and he lowered even more and said to look in the overhead mirrors. I could see the wake in the water as we sped by.

Shortly after the pilot said we were going to do a dive bomb attack on Vinegar Hill Bridge, a bridge over the Rangitikei River about 50 miles upstream from Bulls/Ohakea.

Suddenly we were pointing straight up, climbing straight into the sun, I hoped he could see because I couldn’t see a thing. Next second we were pointing straight down towards the bridge. The pilot was making all the good ack ack noises as we approached the bridge.

Next second we were climbing again, as we climbed out four other Skyhawks were doing a similar attack on the bridge, at the same time four Strikemasters appeared, also attacking the bridge.

Neither Sqn had told the other their plans, and we were a totally unplanned event. Since then communication between the Sqns has improved.

The following week somebody decided I should go through the decompression chamber in Auckland so I would be allowed fly above 10,000 feet.

About ten to twelve of were assembled at the altitude training school in the morning, given a briefing on what was going to happen, what to expect and how to manage it. We went to lunch and the mess must have been told what was happening, we had baked beans. The slogan is true, "don’t be mean with the beans mum, beans mean gas".

We then went into the chamber, we were taken up to 40,000 feet, and one at a time we took our oxygen masks off and started adding two to the number we had just written down, then adding two to the number we had just written down.

An instructor was there and when he thought you had had enough he would put your oxygen mask back on and you could see what you had written.

The first couple were right then they went all over the place, as the brain lost oxygen, we thought we were doing good at the time, but that is the effect lack of oxygen has.

We were slowly returned to sea level again and sent on our way home. Once you had been through the chamber the number of backseat rides you were offered increased markedly.

This was also useful on my next Sqn as the same certificate applied.