Holden's Lightning Flight
en.wikipedia.org106 points by ColinWright 3 days ago
106 points by ColinWright 3 days ago
I would say it's worth reading Holden's account of it directly, which starts on page 3 of this PDF:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210319185656if_/http://www.nzr...
Love this story. There is something interesting that nags at me though.
- There's a test pilot on staff at the base, but they're not qualified for the Lightning.
- There's a test that needs doing, which doesn't require a test pilot (unless something goes wrong).
- There's no qualified test pilot available for the test, so Holden decides to run the test with someone who knows how to move the plane down the runway, but not necessarily fly it.
Of course you're deviating from the proper process at this point, but isn't the obvious choice for this still the test pilot who isn't qualified for the Lightning, but at least flies fighter jets?
It seems like Holden thought it through - it wasn't spur of the moment. Did he ask the test pilot? If so, did they say "no"?
If I've read the original account correctly, there was no longer a test pilot on staff at the base at the time of the incident:
"In my service, one of my postings took me to 33MU Lyneham where as the CO of a civilian manned aircraft storage unit, I had Canberra, Meteor and Lighting types, which were gradually being prepared for dispatch to various flying unit tasks. When the Meteor and Canberra types had been cleared, the powers that be decided that the MU should be closed after the last Lightning had been dispatched. Up until the last Canberra, I had a qualified and current test pilot on my staff for those aircraft, but he was not a current Lightning pilot. When a Lightning needed test flying, I had to call for any available pilot with a current test pilot rating. Most times I could find one who could be spared within a 24 to 36 hour period."
https://web.archive.org/web/20210319185656if_/http://www.nzr...
Thanks! That makes it more understandable how he ended up in that situation.
> Holden ran down the runway, narrowly missing a crossing fuel bowser
TIL Bowser is an actual word, huh.
> According to Holden, in a review before Air Marshal Kenneth Porter, he was asked whether he agreed that "With the limited flying experience I had, the test would have been better left to an experienced and current Lightning test pilot", which he answered in the affirmative, following which Porter related some of his own unfortunate flying incidents.
I feel like there’s something between these lines that I don’t understand. Like is this some form of lawyer hacking without lawyers? Like a, “let’s have you admit to something that isn’t really wrongdoing just so we have a thing for the report.”
I have no specific context here, but in case it's not obvious, I think you have to read the exchange in the context of British, and I guess RAF, indirectness and understatement.
I'm guessing the air marshal means "what the hell were you thinking"; Holden is agreeing, indicating that he has learned his lesson and acknowledges the error; and the air marshal is then graciously moving on.
My read is that the Air Marshal was confirming a gap in the orders, which were amended after this flight. Less of a "what the hell were you thinking" and more of a "what the hell were we thinking allowing this in the first place?"
I think the joke is that Air Marshal Kenneth Porter was chief of the RAF’s maintenance command, and also not a pilot. [0]
Edit: fergal_reid’s reply below is correct. Porter did serve several years at the start of his career as a pilot, in the early 1930s, before spending the bulk of it as a signals officer. Holden also had his wings, but never served as a pilot. I read Porter’s comment as a joke between two RAF officers who were not “really” pilots, but now I’m not sure how to read it.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Porter_(RAF_officer)
The de Havilland Comet (involved in this event) also has a famously dark history as the first passenger jet.
This status was short-lived when square windows popped out of their frames at high altitude when the cabin was pressurized.
The line had a much longer service life hauling freight.
That's enough of an oversimplification as to not really be true.
They developed an issue with explosive decompressions, because at the time we didn't fully understand how cyclic stress caused metal fatigue. It is true that they had square-er windows than modern planes, but they knew that and added reinforcement. The stress concentrations inducing fatigue cracks were around square cutouts for an antenna, not the passenger windows. Also, the windows didn't pop out of their frames. Large portions of the fuselage ripped open.
And they lived a longer service life after the fuselage was reinforced in the areas that cracks were starting, but had trouble overcoming their bad reputation from the earlier explosive decompressions.
Source: the introduction to the Wikipedia article you linked. Read it.
As Henry Cavill would say: “Wikipedia? You get your facts from Wikipedia?”
Also as the Hawker Siddley (later BAe) Nimrod maritime surveillance aircraft.