Interview with Jeff Brown. Three

Interview with Jeff Brown. Three

Jeff Brown flew on a wide variety of aircraft during his career in the RAF. While flying in a Wellington they flew in a thundercloud and fell from twelve thousand feet to four thousand feet out of control.

2016

00:08:57 audio recording

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Interviewer: You see you went all the way through on this list here from Ansons, Wellingtons, Lancaster, Washington, Harvard and Meteor jets.
JB: Yeah.
Interviewer: It must have seemed a world of difference moving from piston and radial engine aircraft.
JB: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: To a jet.
JB: Very easy to fly.
Interviewer: Really?
JB: Oh yeah. Yeah. And also very easy on the ground taxiing because you had tricycle undercarriage and you were sitting more or less right on the nose you know. It wasn’t like in the Harvard with the damned great radial engine zigzagging. You just taxied straight ahead. As a matter of fact where I was at a place called Worksop the other side of Retford our dispersal was quite a long way from the runway that they used mainly so you had a long way to taxi and if you taxied slowly you could use up a gallon of fuel per minute per engine. So if you do twenty minutes or a quarter of an hour to get to the end of the runway you used a lot of fuel. So my instructor used to teach me what was called fast taxiing. You used to get on the straight part of the taxi way and open up and you were really moving. The airspeed indicator was flickering. He used to say it’s like driving a high-speed tram [laughs]
Interviewer: Well —
JB: But they were very easy to fly.
Interviewer: That amazes me because they were very rudimentary.
JB: They were.
Interviewer: They must have been. Compared with —
JB: You know.
Interviewer: Some of the complicated stuff you’d flown before.
JB: Speed. Yeah. We used to do a thing on the Harvard flying straight and level, yank the stick right back and you did like a flick stall. You just went [whoop] and you were upside down. I thought I’m up on my own in a Meteor. I didn’t do it with an instructor. I thought I wonder what a Meteor does. Do this. It was never taught to us. Doing about two hundred and fifty knots or something I pulled the stick right back and it didn’t flick over. It just sort of turned like this but carried on and I’m sure I heard the wings creaking. I thought I’d better stop this. I might break something. It wouldn’t flick over.
Interviewer: That could have shortened your career somewhat.
JB: Well, you had an ejector seat. You could have baled out.
Interviewer: Oh wow. With, with just talking about ejector seats there did you ever? I don’t suppose you ever had to eject anyway did you? Or did you? Was there training just for that part of it?
JB: During the war when we were on the Wellington we were doing a practice bombing flight. We took off from our base near Aylesbury and we flew north to somewhere about Northampton to climb up to twelve thousand feet. That was the bombing height and on the way we ran into a lot of cloud and it got a bit rough and unknown to us in this cloud was what is called a Cumulonimbus. A thunderstorm cloud and we flew into it. The turbulence was unbelievable and in those days all the interior of the aircraft was painted like this. Matt black. It just came white over with hoarfrost. You could scrape the frost off and you were thrown up, you were thrown down. We got iced up on the wings. The airspeed indicator went [whoo whoo] and broke so we’d no airspeed indicator and the pilot, those aeroplanes they had two sets of pilot controls. The pilot used to sit on the left and the bomb aimer used to sit with him on the right. They were both trying to keep the thing level and they couldn’t and he told us over the intercom he said, ‘I can’t control it. When I stop fix parachutes and stand by.’ So you wore the harness with the parachute. Two big hooks here. Your parachute pack was kept in a storage so I grabbed it, clipped it on. I’m in the rear turret. Now, to bale out from the rear turret you turned it sideways, pulled the cord and the doors opened behind you and you could just fall out backwards. So I’m ready to go and we were being chucked about, up and down. We fell I think it was from twelve thousand feet to four thousand feet totally out of control.
Interviewer: Wow.
JB: Finally we came out of the clouds and we shed some of the ice and he managed to regain control of it so he said, ‘Right. Stand down.’ But it was as near to that as jumping but we’d no airspeed indicator which was vital of course to keep you flying. But he knew from experience what settings to put on the engines that would give us sufficient airspeed so we wouldn’t stall and we flew back to our base and told them what had happened. So they said, ‘Right. We’re going to divert you.’ They diverted us to Wittering.
Interviewer: Oh no.
JB: Which was a big Air Force station.
Interviewer: By the A1, down —
JB: Yeah. And during the war that was connected across several fields to a little wartime airfield called Collyweston with what was called a pierced steel planking runway. Sheets of steel with holes in that locked together. They could lay them across soft ground as a temporary runway. They linked the two airfields to make an emergency long landing strip and they gave us precise instructions of what power settings to use and we all got down on the floor in what they called crash position just in case. And we came in and we landed on this pierced steel planking runway. Well, the noise was deafening but we landed safely. We got down. We went and had a meal whilst the ground crew fixed the aeroplane and then a couple of hours later we flew back home. But for a long time after that I was dead windy whenever we flew into any clouds [laughs] I’m thinking oh I hope we go through it soon because the Wellington was fabric covered you know. Although it was a big aeroplane when you were flying you could see the fabric on the wings rippling [laughs] So I was a bit windy. But when we changed and went on to the Lancaster of course it was all metal and it felt really solid. I wasn’t bothered after that when we flew into clouds. But it was quite an experience I can tell you.
Interviewer: Oh I bet.
JB: I thought it was my last day on this earth. I really did.
Interviewer: Jeff, I’ve no idea how the time has gone on.
JB: What is it?
Interviewer: How long we’ve been talking here. But I’ve just got to say though it’s been fabulous. You talked there about a breath of fresh air and that’s what you’ve brought our studio this afternoon.
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: We’re deeply deeply indebted to you for the time you’ve given us.
JB: Yeah.
Interviewer: And I expect if our, if our listeners are half as interested in what you’ve been saying as we are that will be magnificent.
JB: Yes.
Interviewer: I really am grateful to you, Jeff.
JB: Yeah. Well, I hope it will be acceptable.