The Victor experienced maximums of about minus 3 and 5 G’s (more than airframe design limits), and the whole incident lasted about 60 secs with the descent from 46,000 to 16,000 in about 20 secs—vertically supersonic!
The following story was written by John Saxon and appears on his website. John Saxon was a test engineer for Elliott Automation that provided the inertial navigation system for the Blue Steel missile. He wrote two books on the Blue Steel project.
This was going to be another Blue Steel “carry over” trial to test missile systems—they had almost become routine. But flying in V-bombers always got the adrenalin flowing just a little. Saxon was a civilian working with Elliott Brothers—an English firm now part of GEC. The team was concluding the first development phase of one of the world’s first Inertial navigation systems, which were used to guide the Blue Steel stand-off bomb. Their Handley Page Victor B.2 aircraft was parked in the loading bay on Edinburgh airfield near Adelaide, South Australia. The 6-ton, 36-foot-long missile was secured under the bomb bay—fully fueled with Kerosene and high-test peroxide, a rather nasty mixture—and so the loading bay was fairly well flooded with water—just in case.
The crew walked out to the aircraft in a group and climbed on board—John Baker, the pilot and chief test pilot for AVROs. Flt Lt Jimmy Catlin was in the right-hand seat. Flt Lt Charlie Gilbert was in the rear radar navigator position—Saxon in the center rear looking after the Navigator systems. Flt Lt “Glen” Glendinning was in the right-hand rear Air electronics officer’s seat, looking after the missile autopilot and other aircraft systems. Finally sitting in the 6th “jump” seat was Frank Longhurst, another civilian working for AVROs who was there to see that Glen was doing the right things with “their” missile. At that point in the trials, the civilian crews were beginning the gradual training and handing over to RAF crews who were to complete the trials. The crew plugged in intercoms, oxygen, suit cooling air, and began the seemingly endless pre-flight checks.
Eventually, everyone was satisfied, and the aircraft taxied and took off, turning to the SW to climb to the first navigational fix point over Kangaroo Island. Despite being an aircraft weighing around 80 tons, the Victor was no slouch in the climbing stakes. The aircraft had reached from sea level to 50,000ft in around 8 minutes on previous flights, though this time the climb was probably much slower with the Blue Steel missile loaded. Nevertheless, the 10,000 ft climb points were passing rapidly until reaching around 46,000 ft when all heck broke loose. Lots of rapid discussions and attempts to pull up from the front desk, the start of a real roller coaster ride (pitch ups, pullovers, etc.) with engine noise doing wonderful things. Then what seemed to be a wingover followed by increasingly violent positive and negative G forces.
John Baker activated the “Abandon Aircraft” signs, which also dumped cabin pressure, and Frank (who was nominally first out of the rear door) unstrapped and hit the roof quite violently and took no further escape action. In the nominal escape plan, Saxon was next to get out and managed to half-stand and hang onto the camera bracket in front of the nav equipment. But there was no way forward towards the side door as the aircraft was rotating fast and in what seemed to be a very steep dive. Then after what seemed like a long time (actually about 20 seconds), there was a loud bang from the rear of the aircraft, and the rotation changed to a near-vertical dive and rapid pull-out, accompanied by much creaking and groaning and dust, pencils, pads, etc. flying in all directions. But the aircraft was back in semi-level flight at around 16,000 ft!
Here is what Saxon believes happened. Others who know better can correct if wrong. When reaching 45,000 ft or so, the right-hand airspeed indicating system had a failure, causing it to indicate around Mach 1.03. This sent a “transonic” flight signal to the auto-stabilizers, which initiated a pitch-up maneuver as the Victors were not designed to go supersonic. The pilots, however, compared right and left side airspeed indications and as the pitch-up had started, were inclined to believe the faulty right-hand system. So they too tried to further reduce speed and ended up in a violent pitch up to an almost inverted position, followed by a rapid spin, which was impossible to control.
Very luckily for the crew, John Baker had done many test flights in prototype aircraft, where it had become routine to fit braking parachutes to lift the tail of the aircraft into a more stable dive position, which could be recovered relatively easily. This had never been attempted in an 80-ton crescent-wing Victor—but nothing much else was working. So Baker pulled the tail chute, which lasted a few seconds before breaking away, but long enough to do the job and allow some heavy stick pulling to level out before doing a submarine imitation.
The crew members’ reactions varied. They felt reasonably calm, though Saxon later reflected that there had been time to think about flight insurance and dependants. As usual, when the adrenaline is pumping, everything seemed to go into slow motion. But it was really nice to get roughly straight and level again. The team had all the records from the inertial navigator recorders and were able to analyze them later. The aircraft experienced maximums of about minus 3 and plus 5 G’s (more than airframe design limits), and the whole incident lasted about 60 secs with the descent from 46,000 to 16,000 in about 20 secs—vertically supersonic!
Several things happened before the crew finally got to land. First, there was a concern about the correct airspeed as the two systems were still reading differently. Then possible structural damage. Luckily, the radio was still working, so a chase plane was requested. It was decided to jettison the missile as it was full of highly explosive fuel (whose temperature was rising) and even had some TNT on board for range safety break up if it strayed outside the Woomera range limits. Also, because there was no tail parachute, if there had been undercarriage or brake problems, a wheels-up landing with a fully fueled Blue Steel underneath would have been very spectacular! The crew started missile jettison procedures, aiming for a Military bombing range near Port Wakefield, with several of the crew having “confirmed” switches for jettison. At the last minute, the pilots called to stop, and then gave the go-ahead again (Saxon believes he was the last to select his switch), and away it went. It turns out that the “stop” calls were due to the pilots spotting a school below.
There were two guards on the range where the missile was jettisoned and they had been told to keep a lookout for a bomb drop. No one thought to mention that it was 36 feet long, weighed 6 plus tons, and was full of explosive mixtures, so they walked out onto the sand to take a look. Apparently, they “heard it gurgling” on the way down and took off to find their hard hats when it got rapidly larger. But it crashed relatively harmlessly and burnt with only minor explosions between the high and low watermarks. But they certainly got a shock!
Then the first chase plane arrived. Flt Lt Alec Hollingsworth RAF scrambled an old Meteor out of Edinburgh—it was great to see. It flew tight formation, passing on airspeed readings and confirming no apparent physical damage. There was no way to dump the full fuel load, so the aircraft had to keep flying for at least another 90 mins or so to burn off fuel to get to an acceptable landing weight. Due to the time remaining the Meteor chase plane was replaced by a Canberra flown by Wing Cdr. David Glenn, who escorted the Victor for the remainder of the flight.
In the meantime, the crew had a nervous 70 minutes or so before landing. During that time, Charlie Gilbert introduced Saxon to chain cigarette smoking—the two went through at least a pack between them in the back. It took Saxon more than 10 more years to kick the habit! So eventually, with much foaming of runways, emergency vehicles everywhere, and at least one chase plane, the aircraft made a good touchdown back at Edinburgh.
A couple of aftermath items: The crew had a couple or more drinks in the mess at the airfield with lots of toasts to their safe return. The story goes that co-pilot Jimmy Catlin was well away by the time he had to go to a church social that evening. Apparently, he strode across the dance floor to tell the vicar in a loud voice that “I saw your boss today”, before collapsing gently at the vicar’s feet. Saxon wasn’t there but the story has been confirmed by others! A few days later the crew (plus significant others) had a celebratory dinner at a local hostelry, where a photo was taken.
Despite the large excursions outside its design limits, the aircraft turned out to be in pretty good shape, and after some minor repairs, it went on to launch more Blue Steels for the trials – at the Woomera range, of course! Later, XL161 returned to the U.K., and after a refit at the Handley Page plant, went on to RAF squadron reconnaissance duties.
Needless to say, news of the incident leaked out to the press, and after news of the jettison near Port Wakefield got out, there were a few pointed questions in Parliament about large explosive devices being flown around populated areas. Much more fuss would be raised these days, but in the cold war atmosphere of the times, questions soon died away.
All in all, it was an exciting few hours for the crew!
You can download both of John Saxon’s books in PDF format. 1999 one by clicking here and 2001 here.
Photo by JzG and Arpingstone via Wikipedia and U.S. Navy
