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Blogs by Rolf Richardson
Coffin corner 12/19/2019 2:03:10 AM
On day two of my Christmas book roundup we come to my second book, published in 2016 and set during the 1960s PREFACE.
Flying is now very safe. You are more likely to die in bed than in an aeroplane. OK, anyone can play silly statistics, but you get the drift. Buy a ticket in cattle class today and you stand a very good chance of reaching the other end alive. This wasn't always so.
Airline traffic has increased about 60-fold in the past half century, while fatalities have taken an irregular path in the opposite direction; the worst year to date has been 1972 with 2429 deaths, the best 2013 with only 265.
Join me in the cockpit in the year 1960, when old seat-of-the-pants habits had not entirely died out. The aerial age of science was getting underway, many safety features had yet to be invented and managers were still trying to work out best operating procedures.
We find ourselves in Singapore, a tiny island with no natural resources, few prospects and a combustible racial mix.
The people and airline in this story are fictional, but set in the real world and with many of the actual events of the time. So all aboard: and fasten your seatbelts!
MAY 1960. HONG KONG.
CHAPTER 1
"Crap weather," murmured Dave, the flight engineer.
No one replied. Concentrating. A grey, foam-flecked sea, sporadically visible through wispy cloud, slid by beneath us. But no land. Not yet.
We'd passed Green Island a couple of minutes earlier. Just managed to spot it. Next feature would be Stonecutters and the lead-in lights. We'd need to see them pretty soon if we were to make it.
"Weather limits, six hundred feet," Jeff, the navigator, reminded us. He was referring to the height below which we shouldn't descend unless visual. The altimeters were nudging 500ft.
It was my first experience of the white-knuckle ride into Kai Tak. The other three were old hands. For Captain Bill Brailey, Navigator Jeff Hastings and Flight Engineer Dave O'Connell, this was a milk run. Easy. Usually.
The weather briefing at Singapore had warned of a disturbance in the South China Sea that was throwing a damp easterly airflow over Hong Kong. Nowhere near typhoon strength, but unpleasant enough. Down low, our aircraft was bucking like a randy stallion.
"Thar she blows!" shouted Jeff. We'd all seen them: the welcoming white lights that led to runway 13. We relaxed. Grinned.
Then the lights were gone again. We were back in the murk, thicker than ever; another burst of scud had come funnelling in through the harbour. Land must be very close, the sea a mere 500ft. below - perhaps less. For a few seconds we pressed on. Then a large freckled fist appeared by my left arm and grabbed the throttles.
"You have climb power, sir," Dave's Irish lilt was more pronounced than usual.
Captain Brailey had no option. Unless our trusted Britannia was to try for the sound barrier, he'd have to climb. Brailey bowed to the inevitable, ordered "Gear up. After take off check." Then started a gentle climbing turn to starboard. Not too fast, mind you, that might take us into the Peak: just nice and easy, aiming for the Lei Yue Mun gap between Hong Kong island and the mainland. A low-on-fuel Brit was light and nifty, so there would be no problem clearing the high ground.
Once we were well away, Jeff appeared with a slip of paper: "Our initial heading to clear the PRC islands. I'll have a course for Manila and an ETA there in a couple of minutes."
Manila was our fuel alternate, the place we had to be able to reach if our destination freaked out. As it had.
"Let's have another crack at Hong Kong," said the captain in his Aussie twang.
This seemed a bad idea, but I was only the new boy. Inexperienced. The others appeared to accept it as normal.
"Might try runway Three One," added the skipper.
This seemed an even worse idea. Although aircraft no longer had to take off and land into wind, there was a limit. This was generally set at a ten knot tailwind, provided the runway was long enough. The present tailwind would be a good deal more than that.
Brailey was flirting with the northwesterly runway because then he could do an instrument approach through the gap, nice and easy down to 200ft; less if he was feeling naughty. No split-arse turns, no nasty bits of rock, as long as you kept strictly on centreline.
The downside was that we'd have a howling gale up our backside. Landing at a speed even Stirling Moss might jib at.
As if reading my thoughts, the captain looked across, said: "You can stop the Brit on a sixpence. No problem."
He was right. All aircraft have good brakes, but the Bristol Britannia had another weapon: four huge propellers. Full reverse with these was like hitting a brick wall. As co-pilot, I had to make sure this massive power was applied promptly and accurately. If all four props didn't do their dance together, we'd lurch sideways and take a swimming lesson, because Hong Kong's only runway was a thin pencil of concrete sticking into the sea.
"They don't actually know what the wind is at Kai Tak," added the captain. "In these conditions it swirls and eddies all over the place. The runway has three separate wind readouts and I'll bet a months salary every one is telling a different story."
If he thought this comment would fool me, he was wrong. Why had I volunteered for such a crazy job?
But Brailey had already pressed the transmit button and asked for runway Three One. I could almost see eyebrows in the control tower twitching in astonishment.
After a short pause, ATC came back: "Negative, Straits Two Zero. We have departing traffic on One Three. If you wish you are cleared for another approach on that runway."
If Brailey tried to land on the runway he wanted, we would meet the departing aircraft head-on. Kai Tak did sometimes allow us to opt for a runway, but only if traffic was light. Most of the time it had to be a one-way flow to keep things moving.
So we kept going on a wide right-hand turn for the south-easterly runway. Again.
Jeff said: "If we have another go at Honkers and don't get in, we won't have enough fuel for Manila."
Brailey brushed this aside: "Plenty of concrete on Taiwan. Taipei and Kaohsiung for instance. More convenient anyway."
"They don't really like us using Taiwan," said Jeff.
"God knows why not," replied the skipper. "They're supposed to be our friends, for heavens sake! Not like lobbing into Canton. Or Kunming."
At this point a brief political explanation: Since Mao's revolution, about a dozen years earlier, mainland China, known as the People's Republic of China or PRC, had been completely off limits. No overflights, never mind landing at any of their airfields. This meant we had to route in and out of Hong Kong via the south, taking care not to fly over any of the uninhabited rocks belonging to the PRC. The Chinese good guys, under Chiang Kai Shek, had finished up on the large island of Taiwan, which should therefore welcome us. No one seemed to know why there was this hang-up about using Taiwanese airports, but Captain Brailey was right: if we did finish up there, there'd be no diplomatic incident.
So we continued for another try, once more circling Cheung Chau beacon to get low enough to see something. As we did so, Purser Arnie, the boss in the back, appeared at the flight deck door.
"How much longer is this going on for?" he asked. "It's full sick bag mode in the back. My customers are not amused." Arnie was short, tubby and almost bald. Normally you'd call him irrepressible. Not now. We'd been bouncing around in the elements far too long for comfort.
"Soon be down," replied Brailey calmly. "Second time lucky."
"Bloody well, better be," mumbled Arnie. "Just fed the punters in first a lovely Tournedos steak. Washed down with our best Burgundy. Makes a horrible mess when it all comes back at you."
We broke into the clear at....well, let's say a smidgen below the regulation 600ft. Good view of Green Island. Also Stonecutters. The blistering easterly wind, chopped into mini tornados by the peak and chunks of rock out to starboard, battered us unmercifully. Squalls and cloud fragments kept racing across, but now Brailey was not to be denied. Pushed his luck to....was it 400ft.? I hardly dared look at the instruments.
This time, when the lights appeared, he didn't let go. Followed them, come what may, until we saw the checker board, a chess-like marker on the hillside, where pilots had to push the control column hard over, pivoting on the starboard wingtip. And hey presto! There was Kai Tak's Runway 13 by my right elbow.
Years later, when they'd installed an instrument guidance system for runway 13, we could measure this turn at precisely 47 degrees: sharp enough when you were almost touching the tenements below. In those early days, before any electronic help, heaven only knows how acute the turn was. Our Britannia shuddered at what seemed the edge of a stall, but was probably only the storm's buffeting. Then Brailey put her down. A greaser. Like the ace he was. I applied reverse thrust, as per instructions, but in such a strong headwind more power was hardly necessary. If ATC had not refused Brailey's other option, our landing groundspeed would have been about 40 knots faster.
An hour later we were gathered in Annie's bar in the grand old Peninsula hotel, downing our first round of San Miguel beer. Old colonials will be quick to point out that the 'Pen' didn't have an 'Annie's' bar. Correct. We were gathered in Annie's room - more properly 'Arnie's room'; that's to say Arnie Blaxendale, our esteemed purser. For what I would come to know as a standard airline ritual: the post-flight drinks party. Nothing wild, just a couple of noggins to help us relax. All part of my initiation. Not only to Kai Tak airport, but also to Straits Airways. Hardly what I'd expected.
