Onward and Upward

Chapter 3

  The next day, on my list of ‘things to do’ was ‘Air Engineer Officer’, I needed one to set up and run the maintenance side of things, and we had quickly whittled the fairly short list of three, down to a ‘short list’ of three. In the preamble that Maria had sent out it was explained that they would be doing most of the talking at the interview. They would have one hour, maximum, to explain what other specialist Officers they would need, how many Supervisors (and of what trades), and how many maintainers they required. Then they had to lay out a maintenance plan for keeping sixteen, sorry seventeen Hunters serviceable and available for at least eight air shows in the first season, and most likely considerably more thereafter, and finally what background support did they envisage that they would need.

  The first one in was Swiss, ex Swiss Air Force. He had a hooked nose, beady eyes and looked at me as though he had just found me on the bottom of his shoe; it was nothing personal, I think he looked at everybody like that. Then the interview started to go downhill. First he opened his mouth, big mistake, and then he started speaking. He had never worked on Hunters before, but he told us that a good Officer didn’t need to know anything about the pieces of machinery under his control, that is what he had his under-Officers for. Then why do we need you, you dillywhat! (and please don’t call my aircraft ‘machinery’, they are very sensitive).He would need at least five additional Officers, an Airframes specialist (German, they were the best), an Engine specialist (American, they were the best), an Electrical specialist (either Dutch or Norwegian, there was not much to choose between them), and an Instruments specialist (of course he had to be Swiss), he? Supervisors would of course be supervised closely by the Officers, and the mechanics would call all Officers and Supervisors ‘Sir’. I’m sure that was really important - I think not. Then he laid out his master plan for the servicing, Eisenhower’s plan for the D day landings had to have been simpler, and finally he needed a fully trained workshop staff to maintain all the equipment, but I wouldn’t need to get a crash tender, with him in charge of servicing no aircraft would dare to crash.

  The second one must have been a distant relative of the first one (I really do pick them!!!). She had never ‘actually’ worked on Hunters, but she imagined they would be quite simple, mechanics wise, after the RAF Galaxy’s and Tri Stars that she had in her repertoire. The Officers that she would require were (1) Airframe (2) Propulsion (3) Hydraulics (4) Pneumatics (5) Radar (?) (6) Radio (7) Electrical (8) Ordnance (9) Ground Equipment --- Ok we get the idea, I didn’t realise that I had to purchase a 747 just to transport the Maintenance Officers around in. Supervisors, of course the same as the Officers, plus high and low pressure fuel system specialists, engine strip down specialists, testing specialists and ‘specialist’ specialists to supervise all work carried out on the flying controls by specialist mechanics. Then she got onto her requirement for mechanics, I would soon need more 747’s than Hunters. Her servicing schedule if anything was more complicated than the first one. ‘But please be assured that no one will be allowed to even touch an aircraft that doesn’t have the highest civilian and military qualifications’.

  David’s ‘tiffy’ (spit) saying leapt to my mind ‘they may be able to tell you the square root of a jar of pickles, but they can’t actually open one’. Under her guidelines Topsy wouldn’t even be allowed to sweep the hangar deck. She would of course expect full ‘behind the scenes’ support, along with at least three MAN fire tenders with around the clock crews (aerobatics in the pitch dark must be a spectacular sight never to be seen), and of course safety nets at the ends of each and every runway. With the amount of brake pads that we had just come across I doubted if we would ever have a brake failure, and even if we did, the runways were so long at El Campo that the aircraft would just trundle to a stop long before they reached the end of them.

  Our third candidate was a rolly-polly of a man with a ruddy complexion and a ready smile. He didn’t want a mass of technical Officers; just one deputy. All he wanted were a few supervisors and an abundant supply of mechanics, and he didn’t have a clue about fire engines, good start John.

  Lieutenant Commander John Dumphy Royal Navy (retired) rolled into the interview room, confidently shook our hands and asked us two things,

  1. Can I take my jacket off, ‘it’s sweltering in here’ and

  2. ‘Please call me John’.

  John Dumphy started his Naval career as a common or garden ‘baby sailor’, and after completing his initial training at Arbroath in Scotland he was drafted even higher up the map, to Lossiemouth, in those days it was HMS Fulmar, a Royal Naval Air Station (and on paper the second busiest airfield in the UK), and his first squadron was 764 Naval Air Squadron; which operated Hawker Hunter GA11’s and T8’s. Junior Naval Air Mechanic 2nd class (Airframes and Engines) Dumphy JP progressed happily along his chosen path and went on to work on Buccaneers, both on shore and on board a ‘real’ aircraft carrier (it had steam catapults). When he returned to HMS Condor (Arbroath) for his Leading Air Mechanic A/E’s course the powers that be spotted a rising star, and gave him the opportunity of going on the next four year Mech’s Course. Mechanicians (Mech’s) when fully trained were basically Tiffy’s (spit), but with dirty hands. As they had once upon a time been ‘real’ mechanics they were exempted from the spitting. When he had completed his classroom and workshop training it was back up to Lossiemouth again, but this time it was to 738 NAS which also operated Hunters, to round off his training, but now as an Air Mec 2nd class, equivalent to a Petty Officer, a Senior Rate (supervisor). When he had done some more ‘sea time’, this time with Wessex helicopters he went in front of the Promotion Board to be promoted to AM1 (Air Mechanician 1st class), equivalent to a Chief Petty Officer but the ‘powers that be’ yet again spotted something, and in short shrift he was heading south to become an Air Engineering Officer, starting as a lowly Sub Lieutenant on a helicopter trials Squadron. (Topsy, when asked ‘why didn’t you go through for Officer?’ would reply ‘I would rather be king of the crap, than crap of the kings’ – I think that there is logic in there somewhere). As John had come from the ‘lower deck’ it wasn’t likely that he would be allowed to take the Air Engineering World by storm, but he did progress surprisingly well. He had the natural talent of being liked and respected by both his peers and subordinates alike, and so he finally ended his naval career as the Senior Air Engineering Officer of the ‘small ships flights’ parent Squadron at Portland. On leaving the Navy he exchanged his blue suite for another blue one, but this one had pin stripes in it, and went to work for Airworks (at one time being Topsy’s boss), being responsible for the maintenance of among other types of aircraft, their Hunters. Was he so arrogant as to believe that only he and his deputy could manage the maintainers, nope, apparently I was going to have at least sixteen very clever pilots sat around most of the working day playing cards, and among them would be PhD’s and Diplomas in abundance. As it was going to be their backsides that were going to be sitting in those aircraft, wasn’t it obvious that they would have a vested interest in making sure that they were airworthy? Good point John. Next Mechanics, apart from a few Electricians, Radio Mechanics and bomb heads (wait I know the answer to that one, Armourers) he would require an ample supply of Airframe/Engine Mechanics. He would of course require supervisors of each trade, plus some Mech’s (what about a spit or two, I asked) in the background, but what he really needed was the ample supply of Air Mechanics. Not only one for each aircraft as Plane Captains (so called, to instil a sense of pride/ownership in them), but others servicing the ground equipment, manning the stores/tool control cage and looking after the oils and fuel bowsers (‘oops, I had forgot about them’), but he didn’t want them scrubbing and cleaning, except of course the aircraft. They would be his back-up support team to cover sicknesses and other emergencies.

  ‘What about all the other jobs related to operating the aircraft’ I asked, ‘the safety equipment, photography, paint spraying, anti-corrosion etc’?


  ‘Multi-tasking’ he said, for example having two Armourer Supervisors and two Armourers sat around all day on the off chance that an ejection seat might need to be removed was a bit of a waste of time and money, let them be sub trained into looking after the Safety Equipment and Flying Clothing.

  ‘Isn’t that a specialist trade in itself’? I asked.

  ‘Yes’ he agreed ‘but only if we are going to pack our own parachutes’. What he wanted was a small mobile force that could, with the correct training, carry out the first line (up front) jobs of other trades. A pre-packed parachute could be removed from the ejection seat by a cross trained armourer, who would then do the periodic routine ‘visual’ inspections on it. If he found a problem then it would be sent off to the manufacturers for ‘sorting’, and a replacement one quickly drawn from the stores and fitted in its place. Simple, and no time lost. He wanted the same thing with the Plane Captains. If an aircraft landed with a problem with its engine he did not want a queue of specialists trying to fix it for the next week and a half, he wanted the Plane Captain, (and a couple of the other Captains whose aircraft were serviceable and ‘tucked away in the shed), along with an electrician, a Grubber (Airframes/Engine) and Greenie (Electrical) Supervisor ready and waiting. They would quickly whip the tail assembly off, remove the engine (which would be sent back to Rolls Royce, or whoever got the contract for servicing them) and replace it with one that had been quietly sitting in the corner of the hangar. They would then slide the tail assembly back on, and after a second independent grubber had double checked the engine and flying control connections, a cross trained mechanic/tractor driver would tow it outside, under the supervision of any Supervisor (not just a specialist Aircraft Handler that had been sitting around waiting) and the Grubber Supervisor (or even the Plane Captain if he’d had the extra training) would then ground run the new engine to check it out (but not when I am asleep - thank you very much). After the paperwork had been completed it would be the first aircraft towed onto the line the following morning so that its regular pilot could quickly take it up for a check test flight, and all things being equal it would be ready for normal operations along with the rest of the teams’ aircraft, no training or display programmes would be interrupted, and ‘no’ he didn’t know how many fire engines I would need, but he knew a man that did; Chalky White. He had met up with him at lunch time, ‘that man had more professional expertise in relation to fire engines and salvage trucks in his little finger, than any engineer has in his (or her) whole body’.

  I had seen how an independent ‘rather large’ small ships flight had efficiently operated when I’d had 411 & 412 embarked on the Lady S for the rescue, so as I sat there I didn’t know what Teddy was thinking, but for me, John had just blown the competition clean out of the water, welcome on board Mr Chief Air Engineer.

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