Training was always a large part of life for aircrew, I’m sure it is just the same today, maybe more so. Although the aircraft is nowhere near as complex as a modern fast jet, nor was the equipment as modern, so this had its own challenges. 

H2S course RAF Lindholme Lindholme instructors, from Jimmie Robb Aeromed course, RAF Luffenham

Obviously to fly as a Navigator on the Vulcan first required that I had completed training as a Navigator before converting onto the Vulcan.  I had two and a half years as an Officer Cadet at the RAF College Cranwell in Lincolnshire, finishing in around August 1968, during which I did my basic Navigation training, as well as being taught to be an ‘Officer and a Gentleman’. The training at Cranwell was primarily on the old Varsity. Proof of completion is the certificate below, allowing a young Pilot Officer to put up his Nav Brevet.

The RAF College, Cranwell. Home for 2 1/2 years from early 1966 to August 1968. Photo J Dillon

When I came to the end of the period at Cranwell, and before going on to the next stage of my navigation training I was given the opportunity to join a submarine for five days.  I jumped at it. I joined the boat at Faslane in Scotland, I think it was called the ‘Oberon’ and we then spent five days exercising between Scotland and N Ireland.  It was quite an experience, a lot of the time was submerged and I had the chance to try a number of the crew positions.  My attempts at keeping the boat level while submerged and ‘snorkeling’ had everyone’s ears popping; if you went a bit too deep the snorkel valve flap closed, so the diesels would start to suck the air out of the boat......., well you can imagine the swear words.  They gave me a photo of the boat when I left.

Next step was RAF Stradishall for the advanced nav course on the Dominie, the RAF version of the DH125 which became a popular executive jet.  The version used for training carried two pilots, two nav students and a nav instructor.  The Dominie was a super little aircraft, but had one failing as far as the students were concerned, fuel consumption. Invariably a long navex up to the north of Scotland, often on astro, would lead to the pilot declaring that due to headwinds we would need to replan in the air to be able to get back with the requisite fuel.  Students hate trying to redo the flight plan in the air, so fervent prayers for light flight-planned winds was always part of the preflight briefing as far as I was concerned. As newly qualified Navigators it was towards the end of the Stradishall course that we were told what aircraft we were going to be flying on our first squadron tour. I was initially told that I would be going on Shackletons, which I was pleased about, but one of the students who will remain nameless kicked up a fuss and I found myself changed to Vulcans, I was not best pleased. The back end of a Vulcan, facing backwards at low-level did not feel like a good move.

The RAF had its way, as it will with young Pilot Officers, and off I then went to RAF Lindholme for some months to do the Medium Bomber Force H2S radar course. You can see what a happy bunch we five were on my course in 1969.  Greg Whitear had been on the same Cranwell course as myself, George Clark had previously been on Canberras, but I can’t remember the background of Tainsh or Gallagher.

My Radar Bombing course at RAF Lindholme, 1969

Jimmie Robb (3rd from left front row) sent me this photo of our erstwhile instructors. They smile more than those of us on our course photo! Stan Lambert is 5th from left, rear row. Stan was killed in the Malta crash.

Jimmie volunteered this photo that he had sent to his son. I’m saying nothing about the shorts!

The H2S course involved a great deal of classroom work, the flying/practical side of the course was much better, but was done in old four engined Handley Page Hastings aircraft. These were old piston engined transport aircraft with the H2S in a radome under the belly and with radar ‘stations’ for two students if I remember correctly.  Looking at my Logbook it involved some 21 flights, 4 of them had been flown twice because of aircraft malfunctions, with some 98 hours air time.

The photo above is of a Hastings, but without the radome underneath for the H2S. This is a Transport Command aircraft at Duxford, those used for the NBS training were Strike Command.  Photo by Paul Nann from his website.

The photo above shows the Hastings, and the radome underneath is quite prominent.  This held the large H2S scanner. If I remember correctly the interior was laid out so that two Radar students had a ‘station’.  The photo was sent to me by John Eggleton who was one of the instructors when I was at Lindholme.  The photo came originally from Handley Page.

I’m pleased to say that at the end of the course I won the prize for the best radar bombing through the period of the course. With true service logic the winner would normally go to 543 Squadron who flew Victor Reconnaissance aircraft (not bombers), a bit of a ‘plum’ slot. With one flight to go to the end of the course, Gallagher was in the lead and got the 543 posting. I came through on the last flight to pip him to the trophy, but too late to get the 543 posting. Sod’s Law.

After Lindholme it was off to RAF Finningley to the Vulcan Operational Conversion Unit (OCU).  It was at this point that I joined what I believed would be my first crew, and we trained together with a view to completing the course and going off to a Squadron as a crew. It didn’t happen that way, as the trainee Captain failed the final flight check so I went off to fill a vacant nav Radar position on Dick Haven’s crew on 44 Squadron, then a few months later joined Ernie Bishop’s crew for a full tour on 27 Sqn.

Crew training has probably moved on a lot since I started in 1969, and aircraft now are much faster and tend to pull a lot of ‘G’.  The Vulcan was not that fast, nor did it pull much ‘G’ unless you were on a ‘display’ crew. However, it did fly at height, up to 50,000ft and above, and one of the potential problems with this is Emergency Decompression. At height this will lead to hypoxia if you do not get on to oxygen pretty smartish, it will cause a rapid temperature drop to way below freezing, and it will require the crew to go into ‘pressure breathing’ until the aircraft is recovered to a more reasonable altitude, below 10,000ft.  I won’t bother trying to describe ‘pressure breathing’, suffice to say that it is uncomfortable and requires a lot of tightening of stomach muscles to control the diaphragm while breathing.

To get some experience of this the crew would go off to RAF North Luffenham (in those days) to the RAF Aero Med centre.  Here they would do some lectures and then go ‘in the chamber’ to undergo a rapid decompression and pressure breathing exercise.

On the left is a record of my trips there and as the third one down shows, the chamber was rapidly decompressed from an equivalent altitude of 27,000ft to 56,000ft in 3 seconds. Although on this exercise we were not rendered hypoxic, that was something that was done on the basic navigation training. When you go hypoxic you start to lose your thinking skills, but you are not aware that it is happening, and then you blackout.  The exercise normally stopped just short of the blackout stage.

An amusing part of the decompression chamber (for us) was the effect that this has on gases in the body, their wish to escape, and large quantities of Ruddles Ale at the pub in Wing the night before.  You never wanted to be the second crew in the chamber.  I say no more.

Another course that was completed during the OCU phase was the Sea Survival, really a day on how to use the individual and large crew liferafts. I’ve put this on a separate page.