Another day in the Cold War

Bruce Mcdonald of Emirates, just passed this photo on to us. He had recently been in contact with Bill Spears, kneeling on the left, who sadly just passed away far too young.

This was a group that made a day out chasing boats quite enjoyable. Mick Corbett is standing 3rd from the right, he was the 2nd engineer at this time, the lead engineer is kneeling on the right, and was a ring-in from crew 1, our arch rivals. TC, Terry Crimean was lead engineer, and was probably still over in the rock replacing the front fence of a seedy bar that we had run an old car into a night or two earlier. The owner of the property came out in response to the sound of falling brick work, looked at a crew car that that had 13 guys in a 4 seat car, and then took exception to the driver, TC. The owner yelled out.... "TC, Ive told you before, don't crash into my place, park out the front like everyone else". Mick Corbett flew the P-3 well, better than many pilots on the plane. Mick in those day could be seen driving a mad trap at 300', with a coffee cup in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and hand poling the P-3 beautifully. I recommended him for pilot training, and he turned it down to avoid a return of service, and went on to become a civil pilot and eventually the chief pilot of a training school in Adelaide, hopefully putting out pilots that emulated his skills.

Bill was the flight commander, and had undergone ETPS, and then spent his time at ARDU. During his pilot training, he had managed to do a beautiful landing in a town call Forrest, WA, which was perfect until the belly of the aircraft started to make noise on the tarmac. His talents were sufficient to allow him to survive a gear up landing in training and to go on to a pretty effective career.

This is a B model, in fact it is about one of the last flights of the B in the RAAF. A day or two after this photo, we were out over the brine, looking at an Echo II in transit of the straits of Malacca, out to the west of Sabang Island, and one of the avionics in the cabinets let the smoke out into the tube. The smoke had flames, the works... Bill was flying, I was PPC. Bill asked for the nav's vector to home plate, which was some distance away, I advised the crew we would be remaining in the local area around the soviet Kresta II and AGI and the boat until we had extinguished the fire. The fire was put out, smoke cleared, and we then plodded off back to Butterworth for a few beers and satays.

A few days later, Bruce and I, and a minimum crew did a medivac for a 2Y/O with a cerebral haemorrhage, to Perth, and that went fine, until the gear was retracted. The forward radar knowing that it was coming to the end of its life, decided to quit at that time, which is annoying, but we had a zero cabin alt to maintain, and there were 2 cyclones to transit along the way. Alex Szabo, Lyndon Johnson (named after you know who) and the rest of the team spent a few hours swapping the rear radar to the front. Didn't work, so we got the rear radar back on line and did a plot of weather for the rest of the flight. We ended up with prop leaks, fuel leaks, CSD failure/failure to disconnect, and went through a series of engine shutdowns and then starting up one to shut down another with a more interesting problem. We got back to Perth eventually and actually had shutdown 3 engines, and still managed to land with 3, of which 2 still had shutdown conditions in play. That plane then had a special flight permit, and we did the last flight in the RAAF for that back to Adelaide. It then was retired but went on to serve again, I think that is still flying with the USCS, with a coffee saucer on top.

ASW was and is interesting, yes, it is as exciting as watching grass grow, but when a team of 15 are working all together, functioning in unison, it was the best flying I have had in 28,000 hours of military, airline, flight test, fixed and rotary flying. The P-3 was a standout aircraft that did a damn good job and got a lot of people home safely. We happened to be in the time of the babbit seal failures, so became quite used to engine out landings, not just shutting down engines every flight.

TC decided one day that when we called for climb power down low, after rigging a ship, he would advance each engine (3 out fo 4) one at a time. It made for deft foot work.

I'm pretty sure that Bruce won't mind us mentioning the return one day to Adelaide off a task on 3 engines where he was in the left seat, I was his pilot not interested in the right, and as we entered the circuit, we were waiting with the engine restart checklist for #1 engine, which was never called for. TC was in the engineer throne, looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders. Bruce flew a nice approach, did a nice landing and taxied towards the bird bath. On approaching the bird bath, Bruce asked us to "call approaching" to get the water going, and TC and I stared at him, and then at the instrument panel, and then back at him... and eventually TC taped him on the shoulder and pointed out the window... Bruce then noticed that #1 was proudly feathered and X'd. I think that was his first engine out landing, but given the P-3's propeller issues with the 54H60 at that time, I doubt it was the only one in his career.

Lots of crews spent time doing their thing in the Cold War, some of it was more fun than others, the P-3 was a crew aircraft that rewarded crew cohesion with good outcomes.

It is unfortunate that the tension that we worked through at that time, in the closing years of the Cold War have seemed to have beed for nought. We have a strange attempt at dismantling democracy in the shining city on a hill, which to an outside begs the question as to whether whatever is being smoked in the land of the free and the home of the brave, whether that is now legal in Colorado, California or whatever... The paranoia that seems to have taken the place of the "brave" suggests that it is not.

In November, the vote is whether to tear up democracy and turn the USA into what is disturbingly best described as a fascist dictatorship, and if so, it is for the benefit of the visionary, D. J. Trump? The choice isn't between an 83 year old and a 79 year old it is between the continuation of a democracy that the world needs to keep the peace on this beautiful planet, or the end of 250 years of experimentation that has for better or worse shown the truth in the statement that democracy is messy, but it is better than every other form of government. That this happens with the most dysfunctional HoR in the history of the US, with attempts to impeach a sitting prez that is not liked by some, using information provided by.... V.V. Putin, is the stuff that Lewis Carrol could only dream up.

When the richest and most capable nation on the planet loses confidence in itself, and complains that chaos is a better option, I am sure that many people in Somalia, Bosnia, Syria, Lebanon, Angola, Rwanda etc, that they would gladly swap the worst day of a US citizen for the very best day of their life. Strange times.

Vale, Bill Spears, A.K.A. 'Spill Beers". A salute.