Pen Portraits: what happened next
Pen portraits of post-graduation life, as submitted to the 69th Association newsletter over the period 1994 - 2011
Richard Hladik - engines
1954 to early 1957. To ASF. 238 OCU Colerne. Cpl - T4 & T5 Brigands. Buckmasters and Balliols (don't remember seeing a 'Centaurus' at Halton!) with the occasional Valetta T3, Varsity, Meteor 7, 8 and 11. Saw my one and only Swift landing at a great rate of knots en-route for 49MU and Melksham, and all this before I saw my first RN Mk 1 Anson and a TTS Tempest - was I in a time warp? Starting the Brigand up was rather like the Mossies on 'Airfields' - substituting singed eyelids for fright - standing in the u/c bay, all clanking, banging and smoking arc moving in all directions all at once.
Plenty of opportunity for going on air tests, but I noticed that none of the bods who had been in NEAF or FEAF with B1 Brigands ever went flying - later on I found out why. The Buckmasters were fast and had side by side seating with dual controls - strapping on a pilot-type parachute was good for the ego. Gordon Hocking arrived one day from St Athan and went to one of the Balliol flights. A short spell on one of the Balliol flights and then found myself 'detached' from 228 OCU at Leeming (where the hell is that?) back to Colerne to support the last T4 Brigands.
Early 1957. On the day before petrol rationing ended and armed with wads of petrol coupons set course for Leeming. Gordon and other lazy bods also moving north filled my Austin 7 with their heavier kit while they took the train. OCU ASF on Meteor 11 inspections, then Engine Change Team. Javelin 5's arrive - become engine change expert overnight and I've only just taken off the tail pen-nib fairing and I haven't heard about 'Frame 32' or 'Poles-Restraining, 12 foot' yet - and no chance of a Sapphire course because I'm on PWR's!
A swarm of SNCO's from 33 Sqdn suddenly appear in the hanger and demand to be told how to do a Javelin engine change - the Service at its best! Occasional OCU Valetta C1/T3/T4 and Stn Flt Chipmunk. Social scene in Darlington, Redcar and around too good for my pocket -however a weekend spent crack-checking cartridge starter bowls left my hands so dirt-engrained that for two weeks I did not leave camp.
On a Meteor 11 run-up, the night crew had signed for bleeding the new engine fuel system but apparently didn't do so - everything that we were told would happen did happen - big flames, resonance, high JPT. On looking out of the cockpit an even bigger dour Yorkshire F/Sgt was looking in, tearing hair from his football size head and bellowing, "There goes my pension". Memories of very early Monday morning trains at Kings Cross to Northallerton, the workman's bus to Ainderby Steeple and then across wet fields with about 30 others hopefully making it for breakfast (on reflection, it seems like a jail break in reverse).
Dec 1957 - Dec 1959. To Aden by Comet - am, icicles dangling from my nose at Clyffe Pypard, and then pm, sweating cobs in Aden - what a shock to the system! Then it was up to Bahrain for the next 12 months, courtesy of Eagle Airways on 23rd Dec. The guy I replaced flew to UK that night by Comet on the last remaining seat - one of the toilet seats! Next 12 months on Duty Crew, 24 hours on, 24 hours off, with it broken up by a few Pembroke engine changes (1417 Flt, later 152 Sqdn) around the Gulf area as far away as Muscat (Biet-Al Falage). This was improvisation at its best - APs not needed.
At Bahrain in 1958 we handled everything and anything that flew of a military nature plus helping out on civil arc - even Dan Air's York G-ANTK, now at Duxford, did not escape me! I have photographic evidence of me on a carb change on the starboard inner (incidentally it is the best preserved aircraft that I have taken a 'GS' to). One 'self-checked' oneself out on Hastings, Beverleys, Valettas - Meteors FR9s were no problem - got the other engine NCO (a Ch Tech) to give me a check out on Canberra and Shackleton. My favourites were 3 ex RN Firefly T4s for the Indian Navy which got stranded over Xmas 1958 and had to be run each day, and the Sea Furies - again a Centaurus- going through for the Burmese Air Force: one morning early after seeing another batch off, two managed to collide head on while taxying down the runway during the morning rush hour - what a coupling!
One day while running a Pembroke I looked out and saw a Canberra coming straight at me - very fast - it having landed without brakes! - bang went the Canberra's nav hatch - I hit the mag switches and scarpered pronto. Ran a Venom one day with the sun behind me and suddenly it all went dark - I turned round and saw the tarmac peeled back high above me the width of the aircraft - now what to do?
By Hastings to Aden for my Cpl/Tech board, see some old faces and back on a Comet 2. In Oman having an early brekky with the SAS near the foot of the Jebel Akdhar Mountain, watched from my ringside seat as Sea Hawks from the carrier Bulwark rocketed the baddies followed by Shackletons dropping seriously heavy metal somewhere near the baddies.
I stayed in Bahrain for another 12 months as now I had the coldest air-conditioned bunk in the but and my bunkmate, a scouse, had lots of Lonnie Donnegan records. Back to UK with Eagle Airways on a DC6 into Blackbushe.
1966: To Abingdon. Into prop bay for two weeks, then on to 47 Sqdn and Beverleys - Centauri again - never stopped work and with the time spent 'down the route' and on detachment could well have counted as another overseas tour!
Sen/Tech - Sgt. Slight mishap in Feb '63 - PM Hospital Halton and later Headley Court - now that's an experience and a place to enjoy life if you are not too graunched up and your bits and pieces are still attached by bolts or naturally to the big bit in the middle. In the Sgts Mess on dance nights, it was hide your sticks behind the curtains, grab the nearest female before balance lost and hope it is not the Sgt WAAF PTI turned Phvsio, who when she finds out you are not on your sticks will pass the word and you will be exercising hard in front of the class next morning.
On Derby Day that year, we piled into Bedford buses and off to the races - the next day the MT Sgt couldn't understand how the roof of our bus was pitted like stiletto heels on a dance floor or worse! Nor could we! Back to Abingdon and 47/53 Sqdn then shortly afterwards into Tech Ops as a Controller. Andovers start to arrive and later I leave the Service.
1967 - 1968: Marshalls of Cambridge (as it was) Assistant Hanger Supt - grand title, little money, lots of hours. Hercules paint and mod programme for RAF, also DC7C, Viscount, Canberra, Britannia and Comet (civil) overhaul, Belfast paint. Three months airfield construction work. Good experience all round.
1968 - 1977: Transmeridian Air Cargo/British Air Ferries - Assist to C/E, then Planning Eng and Chief Plan Eng for airline operating ex Pan-Am DC7Cs (that Wright Turbo Compound was something else), Corvairs, Dove, DC3, CL44s, and DC8s. In the early days of the DC7Cs, was a weekend warrior putting down the pen and going off down the route with toolbox - just like the Bev days again. Flew into Brize Norton one sunny day in a DC-3 - the Duty Cpl said, "What kind of a/c is this then?" Found time to act as flight engineer for ferry flight, UK to USA, in a B29J owned by Davit Tallichet, a US restaurant millionaire.
1977 - early 1979: Iran Air, based in Tehran - Maintenance Procedures Writer. Apart from writing how to de-ice a/c in the depths of winter in China and the USA, wrote everyone's job spec from the MD Eng and Maint to the bog cleaners, based on Pan American Airways manuals. I was lucky to meet on my first day an ex 66th Pakistani(Eng) who was a 4-ringed inspector. The locals had a system where the older ex-pats kept a watching eye on the new lads - rather like the Stazi.
Notched up my first revolution and found out how I reacted to being tear gassed - and that was inside a bank on Xmas Eve! A/C were Boeing 707, 727, 737, 747, and A330. Took my US FAA mechanic licences (for which I was paid more) in Frankfurt and New York, just like a trade test US style - lucky Iran Air had a route to New York and staff paid just 8% of the economy fare. Wife and I left Tehran on BAs first flight out after the revolution - we were "escorted" from the terminal to the a/c at gun-point - at the other end of the barrel was a member of the PLO - great cheers when we left Iranian airspace heading for Kuwait (that's sometime before Saddam got there!).
1979 - early 1983: Gulf Air Light Aircraft Div / Oman Aviation, Seeb, Oman. Maintenance Manager. Unfortunately when I arrived the management structure had changed and I was not really wanted by the new C Eng. A/c were F 27, Skyvan, Islander, Beech 200, and Twin Otter - what a heap of corrosion! Had to visit Britten-Norman on the Isle of Wight and met Dicky' Dove (69th Engines) who was Production Line Foreman there. Ended up as TSO Purchasing and Supplies - Aircraft. Very pleasant time here especially as I was able to revisit sites I had been to when fixing engines around Oman in the late 50s.
1983 - Jan '84: Long holiday, including moving warbirds and the like around UK from museum to museum including Hendon. Feb '84 - Aug '89: Back at Marshalls as contract Tech Author on RAF Tristar conversion programme.
The B-17 "Memphis Belle" at Duxford, 2014August '89: Again found time to crew a B-17G (looking like the F model) from the UK to the US and again owned by D Tallichet. This was after making the film 'Memphis Belle' at Duxford. On arrival in the USA went to Cedar Rapids, met up with the B-29J again and did a hard day's night getting it ready for a 3 hour hop to Buffalo, New York the next day to be ready for an air display. We rebuilt an engine turbocharger that evening in the open with no special tools, but I did have an overhaul manual with me! My eyes were on this thing all the way for the next 3 hrs when it started to glow all the wrong colours, plus the starboard undercarriage leg which would not fully retract into the wing. That's another story they say.
Sept '89: Offer I could not refuse - Daimler-Benz Aerospace, MTU Munich: Design Engineer in Repair Engineering, Military and Civil engines. Today we are Daimler/Chrysler and I now cover new production problems as well as repair and engine build. Learnt to ski here and with the Alps plainly visible from our floor it is like a magnet - I can see from the top floor to Switzerland and Salzburg in Austria.
Family are in England but come out here for holidays, summer and winter, and I can normally be home for 5-6 days every 3-4 weeks. So it's not too bad, except I'm still having to work to push my two daughters through university.
- RAF Halton and the Brats
- The Aircraft Apprentices Scheme
- Clubs, Societies and Sports at Halton
- RAF Halton's goats
- Tributes to Halton and the Brats
- The 69th and the Apprentices Network, 1951
- The Presentation of the Queen's Colour, 1952
- Summer Camp, RAF Formby, 1953
- The 69th and the Queen's Coronation, 1953
- The 69th's Graduation Review, 1954
- The Senior Entry - a graduate's letter, 1954
- A full list of 69th Graduates
- Halton days: stories from the 69th
- The 69th's Burmese Brats
- The 69th's commemorative window
- 69th Entry Reunions