Valerius, 57 - 15 июня 2011 11:00

[I]After regaining my bearings, a little composure and simply by observation, making sure that the Comet had been warned away, I decided I should attempt a landing on the duty runway and direction. I was trying to combine all my limited flying experience into a few minutes of DIY flight ‘training’ on a Lightning. It wasn’t easy, but I must admit that some of the elementary rudiments of my proper flying training and flight theory were coming in useful. I needed to get the feel of the aircraft, if I was to get it back on the ground. My first approach was ridiculous, I could tell that my speed, height, rate of descent, even alignment wasn’t correct and my best plot was to go round again. This time making sure that my throttles would be well below reheat position. A second approach was no better, I had some aspects better, but as the duty runway 25 is on the lip of an escarpment, with a valley floor beyond, my rate of descent took me below runway height and I found myself adding power to get back to the right level. More power also meant more speed and I was trying to get to something like 150 knots for landing, but the uncoordinated attempt was becoming a mess so I abandoned it, took myself away on a very wide circuit of Lyneham and decided to land in the opposite direction. This I thought would give me more time to get the ‘feel’ right and if I made a mess of the landing, I would overrun the runway and just drop (crash) into the valley beyond. In that direction, with a messed up landing, I would have no fear of crashing into Lyneham village.

The long final leg of this approach gave me the thinking time that I needed and I gradually got the feel that speed, alignment, rate of descent, height and approach angle were better. I plonked it down at about the right position off the runway threshold, but just forgot that I was in a nose wheel aircraft and emulated my best three wheelers in a Chipmunk or Harvard. The result was that I crunched the rubber block which encases the brake parachute cables. However, I had got down, but I then had to stop. I obviously knew the Lightning had a brake parachute, but where was the ‘chute lever, button or knob? There, I found it marked Brake Chute and I pulled it and I could then look ahead and concentrate on keeping straight and somewhere near the centre line. I hung on to the brake lever, I wasn’t slowing as much as I would like, so I just kept up my hand pressure on the brakes. I had about 100 yards of runway left when I stopped and even then, I didn’t know that the brake parachute had dropped off as soon as it was deployed, because the cable had been severed as a result of my super tail wheel three pointer.

[B]Events Immediately after the Flight[/B]

XM 135 was towed back to the hangar and I was taken to see the medical officer who gave me some pills to calm my nerves. I felt reasonably calm because I had almost killed myself on five occasions in that 12 minute flight, yet I had miraculously survived. What is more, I would see my wife and young family again. Two or three times in that same 12 minutes, I thought I would never ever see them again. My only priority was to save my own skin, I was not thinking about the non insured loss of a Lightning Mk 1A aircraft. The minor damage to the aircraft was repaired with a new set of brake shoes and a new rubber chute block. As a memento, I have kept that rubber block, one day it might be returned to XM135 at Duxford.

[B]The Fault[/B]

Although the tests I did and the ensuing flight did not immediately provide a reason for the initial electrical fault, my electrical staff, with additional assistance from English Electric, Salmesbury eventually did. Apparently, in early versions of the Lightning, there was to be a ground test button fitted into the standby inverter circuit. It was never fitted to the Mk1A but the wires were left in the looms. It was one of these redundant wires which shorted on to the UHF radio as it moved on its trunnions when the aircraft nudged forward on take off. Who would have thought I should risk my life to find it, in the way I did?

[B]Events Subsequent to the Flight[/B]

There was a subsequent Inquiry to find out what had happened and why and to make recommendations for it never to happen again. As I was the Commanding Officer of the Unit, I was responsible for my own as well as the service actions of all my staff. I was not acting against any orders in the Flight Order Book which I religiously kept up to date. But those orders did not cater for engineering officers doing investigative type checks on Lightning’s. They were later amended. After the Unit Inquiry I had to go up in front of the Commander-in-Chief. That was when I thought my career would be placed in jeopardy. I even thought that my coveted ‘wings’ would be taken from me; I had no idea how the incident was being regarded by Command or indeed Air Ministry. But, as I stood in front of Air Marshal Sir Kenneth Porter, he read the proceedings, asked me if I agreed with his view that "With the limited flying experience that I had, the test would have been better left to an experienced and current Lightning test pilot." I agreed of course. He then told me to remove my hat, sit down and proceeded to tell me some of his unfortunate flying incidents in Mesopotamia in the Middle East. I was thankful that nothing more was to become of the incident and that I still had a job to do back at 33 Maintenance Unit, Lyneham.

I coped with all the official communications regarding the incident, but what I was unprepared for was the release of the story to the public. I had had very little experience of working with the press, certainly none with radio, TV, national and world press. I had no training in how to deal with their quest for news. My Command Headquarters suggested I went away on leave before press releases were made by Air Ministry. This I did and took my family off camping to Jesola, in Italy. Imagine my complete surprise when, on the first day of camp, on my way to find some ice, someone shouted “Hello Taffy, I’ve just been reading about your Lightning flight!!” The world seemed a very small place. On returning to the U.K. I was overwhelmed to find that the incident was still front line news. People wanted to write articles in newspapers, books, magazines, interviews on TV and radio and underhand attempts to hear my account of what had happened. Having admitted that I had made an unwise decision to do the ground tests, I decided that the unwanted publicity that I had attracted was in no way going to be for financial gain. I steadfastly refused offers although for a two page article in the Sunday Express, I requested the editors to make a contribution to the R.A.F. Benevolent Fund. Despite prompts, no moneys were ever handed over and I became very disillusioned with all publicity media. Some friends thought I had gained reward for an article in ‘Mayfair’; it was written without my knowledge and authority, but, because it was factually correct, I had no redress from the Press Complaints Board. Nonetheless, I was extremely annoyed.

Some years after the incident, my hidden fears of high speed flight came to the surface and I had to spend two periods in hospital. I had not come to terms with the emotional side of the event. To return to my wife and family after five close encounters with death, was indeed a miraculous experience, but I had not been honest with myself, to accept it as such, so I needed psychiatric help. I could recall the technicalities of the flight without any hang-ups, but was unwilling to talk about that emotional side of the ordeal until I was placed under medical drugs and to bring those emotions to the surface. That was a rewarding experience and it gave me a much better understanding of people who might need that same kind of help, after similar unfortunate occurrences.

[B]Forty Years On[/B]

I am now retired and living with my wife in Cheshire. Apart from being an active DIY plumber, carpenter, electrician handyman, my main pastime is involvement with family history. My inadvertent flight is still very vivid and in writing this personal account, I needed little prompting. Over the intervening years, I have received many letters and reminders from people whom I did not know, all praising my efforts to return myself and aircraft back to the ground safely. Yes, I have basked in some glory, when accounts of what happened, have been retold in social gatherings. I have never sought publicity, but whenever it became impossible to suppress, I have had to live with it. I enjoyed my career in the Royal Air Force, but not because of XM135!

Best regards

Taffy Holden"[/I]

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