British Army At Padderborn

Producing my recently acquired Private Pilot’s Licence, I asked the nice officer-in-charge whether I could, perhaps, commit aviation in their ‘plane. In spite of my dishevelled, rock ‘n’ roll appearance, he seemed delighted to accommodate me and arrangements were made.

A stern sergeant in a red beret, green fatigues and shiny black boots came to escort me to the aircraft parked on the grass strip at the other side of the field from our stage. Giving me a short safety briefing in the MPV on the way around the peri-track, he explained that, as this was a grown-up soldier’s airplane, with two propellers, driven by a pair of powerful turbine engines, I wouldn’t be able to ‘actually’ fly it, but would get about an hour aloft, sitting at the front, throwing soldiers out at 13,000 feet. Not having ‘actually’ flown anything more than a box truss for the last few months anyway, and feeling definitely ‘skill rusty’, I was definitely OK with that. Being given flying control of this heavy bird with a pack of Britain’s crack paratroops snarling behind me was furthest from my mind…

Capt. Dick Daredevil, the duty pilot, met me under the wing of the twin-engined, turbo-prop Islander jump ‘plane. He looked everything you would expect a Para pilot to look. The black moustache above a broad smile on a healthy, sun-tanned face that radiated experience and confidence. Eyes that told of Kosovan conflicts and Gulf engagements. I felt totally safe with the idea of flying with the guy wearing the red beret.

“O.K., Pat, we’re just refuelling then Dave will be along to fly you. He’s the Senior Pilot.”

So Capt. Daredevil wasn’t flying me after all, I was to be honoured with the ‘Senior Pilot’

“Don’t be worried by his leg, though,” he added with a smile, “he’s actually a really good pilot…”

Capt. Dave Rubberleg, dressed in ‘T’ shirt and dirty shorts, hobbled towards me, dragging his disabled and near useless left leg behind him, with his right arm extended before him. Assuming it to be his method of maintaining balance, I ignored his outstretched hand, before realising that he was offering a greeting. His unkempt grey hair perfectly matched his gnarled grey face. Throwing away his cigarette, he coughed his way through our brief exchange of, his vast and my lamentable, flying experience, then, hauling himself awkwardly into the left hand seat, he picked up his gammy leg, dragging it into the aircraft behind him and dropped it onto the left-hand rudder pedal. Turning, he cheerily assured me that flying this was just the same as flying the little two-seat, single engine Cessna 152 I had trained in. I strapped myself nervously and tightly into the right hand seat of the cramped cockpit as he started the engines.

Behind me, sprawled on the aircraft floor were eight or nine big-bastard Paras, eyeing both Capt. Rubberleg and myself with malevolent anxiety. “Dave doesn’t normally do us,” and “who’s that nonce with ‘im?” were among some of the hoarse-whispered exchanges I overheard.

A quick trundle along the narrow, bumpy grass strip and we were aloft, climbing steeply into the cloudless sky. Noticing the slow airspeed, I nervously enquired as to the stall speed. That is, the speed at which the aircraft stops flying; when it goes so slow that it stops being a ‘plane and suddenly generates the lift of your average grand piano being tipped out of a thirtieth floor hotel window. “I’ll show you later”, he said, “when we’ve got rid of these fat bastards at the back.” I wish I hadn’t asked and wanted to get out with the Paras.

We climbed quickly to 7,000 feet where preparations were made to throw out the first of the hapless Paras. Left side door open and left engine power reduced and feathered, the sudden loss of several bodies from the back shifted the centre of gravity, pitching the nose of the ‘plane down. “Fat bastards!” shouts Capt. Rubberleg as he pulls the nose back up and re-trims the aircraft.

Capt. Rubberleg then took his hands off the controls and lifted his gammy leg off the rudder pedals. “Here, just keep her straight and level for me, will you, whilst I fiddle with these knobs and switches. You have control.” I took the controls without thinking; then felt my sphincter tighten and mouth go dry. I was flying the bloody thing! Hadn’t anyone told him I was just supposed to be an observer? Did the Paras realise they were now being flown by a stoned hippie? I kicked a bit of rudder just to feel how responsive she was and to make sure I had control. I had.

“The trick is to keep on this heading and not get too close to the village, down there on your right,” Capt. Rubberleg mumbled as he fiddled with his bits, “‘cos the locals start complaining about noise. Oh, and don’t drift to the left, either. (He points to a vast scrubland criss-crossed with tank tracks and shell holes). That’s the shooting range and they’re playing with live mortars today. Those buggers reach 10,000 ft. before they start going back down again, y’know.” We were at 7,000 feet. He pointed to a large stone cross set into a patch of grass on the edge of the range. “That’s where a Belgian jump ‘plane ended up a few years ago. Pilot got his approach to the field wrong and one of our boys lobbed a mortar through his wing at 5,000 feet. My tip would be to stay away from that area.” I did.

This man was full of tips and tricks. “The trick is…” he would say, or “My tip here…” he would offer, as if the key to flying this bloody great thing was merely the acquisition of a few informal bits of common sense picked up in the club house.

“EXIT! EXIT! EXIT!” bellowed Capt. Rubberleg and bodies threw themselves through the open side door. He climbed us to 13,000 feet and positioned us for the last of the jumpers to exit. Once gone, with door closed, he turned to me, pulling that gammy old leg off the rudders and said, “You were asking me about the stall speeds of this thing…you have control, let’s do it.”

I pulled back the stick slowly and somewhat reluctantly, watching the airspeed drop. The first stall and recovery was quite gentle. With no power and no flaps, it just sort of waddled about a bit, but a quick look at the Vertical Speed Indicator showed that we were descending at a rate faster than was strictly aviation. So it’s stick forward, nose down, break the stall, get flying speed and apply power. Ah, how it all comes back! Too easy!

I shouldn’t have impressed him. He immediately set the ‘plane up for a stall ‘in the approach configuration’. This means flaps down and power on. The resulting stall can be quite alarming. As I pulled back more and more on the stick the aircraft started to shudder and shake violently as we became a large airborne, yet plummeting, brick. I felt sure the bloody wings were going to drop off. The instruments in front of me were now a vibrating blur. Then the nose dropped suddenly, along with the contents of my bowels. I pushed the stick forward immediately and got the thing flying again as the smell of my fear wafted around the cockpit.

“OK, take me home. I’ll call headings, heights and speeds. You’ll be fine, just point the nose down and keep the speed out of the orange but right on the edge of the green, oh, and stick on about 30 degrees of bank.”

What you want me to do, then, I mused, is to put the ‘plane into a steep, turning power dive…I obliged.

I was soon in a 45 degree steep, descending turn, the nose of the ‘plane pointing very, very down indeed. The needle of the Air Speed Indicator flickering on the very edge of the orange bit on the dial that says “VNE” or “Velocity Never Exceed” that loosely translates as, “This aircraft will start to shake and shudder uncontrollably and will then disintegrate violently if you continue to fly it in this manner.”

So this was the ‘military style’ descent I’d heard so much about. You can’t afford to bugger about up there, you see. Some arse is quite likely to be trying to shoot you down. I try and get a fix on the mortars popping away on the spinning battlefield below, now hurtling towards me.

Now, in my usual mind-set of a low hour, pootle-about-the-skies-gingerly-avoiding-risk-in-a-slow-single-engine, this was what my old instructor would call “an unusual attitude”. It’s amazing the amount of euphemism there is in aviation terminology. ‘Unusual attitude’ is more readily understood by your average humble, private pilot as, “You’re gonna die a very sudden and violent death if you don’t do something about this RIGHT NOW!” An ‘unusual attitude’ is, thus, one to be avoided.

But now, under the supervision and express instruction of a British Army, Parachute Regiment, Senior Jump Pilot, I revelled in the ‘g’ forces pushing me hard into my seat, forcing my chin into my chest. I ignored all the instruments spinning and tumbling chaotically in front of me. Adrenalin induced, a manic grin fixed itself to my face. I was now entering the dreaded spiral dive, ever faster, ever tighter: the Kennedy killer. Time to take some of the bank off and bleed off some speed, but this is too much fun…! I’m sure Captain Dave Rubberleg will tell me when to pull out. He’s in charge. He knows what he’s doing. I watched him grin blissfully out of the window at the rapidly approaching ground.

“Now my tip here,” said Captain Dave, in a slow Yorkshire accent, pausing to consider whether it was even worth passing on the tip, as the needle on the Air Speed Indicator rapidly approached the red bit, “would be… just ease back on the power a touch and gently raise the nose. That’ll keep us all nicely part of a flying aircraft, you see, rather than a bloody great plummeting rock with no wings.”

After asking me to pull back the speed and level off at 1500 feet, I turned onto the heading he gave me and there ahead, oh joy, deep, deep joy, beyond some trees and tall pylons, was the narrow grass strip we left some thirty minutes ago.

“Now the trick here is to stay high enough to avoid those power lines, but then drop low over the trees so you don’t miss the airfield and land on the officer’s golf course beyond.” I waited for him to take control. He didn’t. He’s going to let me land the thing! I gave her just a little squirt of power to ease us over the pylons, then closed power to a trickle as we cross the trees, dropping onto the grass strip just beyond. Stick back and nose up and…yes! I greased it. Perfect!

“D’you want to do that again?” he asked as we taxi to pick up more Paras. I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off my face. As we climbed out and he gave me the controls once more, I came.

Oh, yeah. I had to do a show later that night. The annoying things you have to do to pay for playtime…