1992 - 1996
RAF St. Mawgan - Engineering Records
Now that my future seem to be settled, I set about finding out what my job entailed and one of the first things to do was to travel to RAF Finningley to get some first hand knowledge of the RAF’s Search & Rescue (SAR) maintenance operation and to help prepare, in any small way that I could for the transfer about which the personnel at Finningley were not happy.
One little experience that I had during that visit had nothing to do with work but with a visit to a former friend. I was driving an RAF supplied car and because of that, was supposed to stick, as far as possible, to specified routes. Obviously as I was in Derbyshire I was well off route and, as I drove back towards Sheffield, a set of headlights appeared rapidly in my rear view mirror and then started flashing. There were no blue lights so I did my best to ignore them and carried on driving. I was certainly worried about what the car might be up to but fortunately, apart from flashing, he, or she, did not try to overtake or do anything else for a number of miles and when I reached the lit area on the outskirts of Sheffield, the car just disappeared, much to my relief.
My job was to be in charge of Engineering Records, Engineering Control and the Forms and Publications Store. There was a staff of two civilians in the Forms store and a small staff in both of the other two sections. Engineering Control worked 24 hours and was manned by Chief Technicians. of varying trades.
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Westland Wessex - XR520
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Engineering Records was staffed by a combination of technical and statistical personnel. My main job was to plan the maintenance of the SAR fleet, which, at the time, consisted of 22 Squadron Westland Wessex and 202 Squadron Westland Sea King aircraft.
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Westland Sea King - XZ585
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These aircraft were scattered around the United Kingdom from as far north as RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland, south as far as RAF Manston in Kent and west to RAF Valley on Anglesey. Both aircraft shown in the photographs were part of the SAR Fleet whilst I was in charge of maintenance planning.
One job that did devolve to me was the Station Commander’s briefing, which was held each morning. This was to let the Station’s senior officers know what the serviceability state of the aircraft was and of any particular supply problems. This job had been done by the staff of Engineering Control, who were in the best position to know all the answers, however one chap stood up one day and announced the number of aircraft which were serviceable and then, unwisely, said: “The rest are f***ed”. The Station Commander took a very dim view of this and I got the job.
Part of my job was to attend the Helicopter Planning Meetings held about every three months at the MOD in London. At the time there was an 07.30 flight from Newquay to Heathrow, and assuming that everything was on time there was just about time to get to the MOD Main Building in time for a 10.00 start. This meeting seemed to be mostly for Wing Commanders and Squadron Leaders and some civilians. I was the lone representative from the ranks but I did prove useful on a number of occasions because of my role in organising the maintenance at St. Mawgan for both Sea King and Wessex aircraft. One of the most difficult problems was the maintenance of the two Sea King aircraft based in the Falkland Islands. They were transported by sea, which took a considerable time. When disembarked, the aircraft had to be met by a crew who put it into a flying condition and it was then flown back to St. Mawgan for maintenance. Bearing in mind the timescales, the meeting did occasionally forget what was involved and what was possible, which was where I came in.
One incident, not involving work, happened whilst I was away at one of these meetings. Maria used a particular type of make-up, which was available in only a few places in the country. One of these places was Harrods and so I would drop off on my way back to Heathrow, pick up some make-up and continue my journey. On this occasion, I got to the counter and asked for what I wanted, but when I went to pay - no wallet. Panic ensued. Fortunately my air ticket was in my jacket pocket but unfortunately I did not have enough cash in my purse with which to buy my tube ticket. Very fortunately for me, the lady at the make-up counter believed my hard luck story and gave me 50p so that I could complete my journey, still wondering who had my wallet. Having reported all my cards as being lost, I found out on the next day that I had dropped my wallet in the MOD Main Building on my way in to the meeting. It would have been much easier if someone had contacted me before I left the building but at least I got everything back safely. Subsequently I did write to Harrods with my very grateful thanks. There are some lovely people around thank goodness.
As far as planning was concerned, I spent a lot of time trying to assess how many hours each aircraft would fly and how well, or badly, the aircraft currently undergoing maintenance were progressing. With regard to the latter, I spent a lot of time negotiating with the Flight Sergeant in charge of the Maintenance Hangar. I believe that between us we did a good job and kept maintenance ‘extensions’ to the minimum.
There was one very sad occurrence in the SAR fleet whilst I held this post and that was the loss of Wessex XR524. It crashed into a lake in North Wales after a Tail Rotor Drive failure. Unfortunately the aircraft had four Air Cadets on board at the time and three of them did not survive. The crew and one of the cadets were able to escape. There is a BBC News report on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDj6oYaYrR8, which gives all the details. As far as we were concerned, as soon as the crash was noted, we had to impound all the available documents that we kept in Engineering Records so that they were available for the Crash Investigators. A very sad day indeed.
I was coming towards the end of my time in the RAF and I had no idea what I was going to do after I left but in late 1995, I received a phone call from the Flight Sergeant in the Maintenance Hangar which was to influence any decision that I was about to make. Apparently he had been talking to the Chief Engineer, Keith ROBINSON, of a unit from RNAS Culdrose called th Fleet Requirement and Air Direction Unit (FRADU). Keith had come up to St. Mawgan, because one of their aircraft had landed with a fault. Whilst chatting, the need for a Quality Assurance man on FRADU had cropped up and my name had come up as a possibility. I rang Keith and arranged to travel to Culdrose the following morning for an interview. The interview was quite bizarre and the early questions went something like this:
Keith: “What do you know about Hunting Aviation?”
Me: “Nothing.”
Keith: “What do you know about FRADU?”
Me: “Nothing.”
Keith: What do you know about Hawk aircraft?”
Me: “Next to nothing.”
Anyway, the interview continued and Keith seemed to like me. Afterwards, he told me that he had someone else to interview but he would let me know. A couple of days later, just before Christmas 1995 he rang me and told me that I could have the job if I could get myself on a Quality Auditor’s Course. I was lucky here because when I searched around, the RAF had a suitable course at Halton. Thus I more or less started and ended my Service career at Halton. I acquired my ‘Internal Quality Auditor’s Certificate’ on 23rd February 1996 and started work the following week.
Thus came to an end, my 37 years and 10 months service with the Royal Air Force.
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