RAF Chivenor (Jul 1964 - Oct 1964)

by 681267 Cpl/T Alan Lowther Armourer

July '64 and it's off to RAF Chivenor as part of a Work Study detachment (probably to find out how many troops they could get rid of at the next downsizing!). I was part of the headquarters staff and we collated all the data entered on to the record sheets by the personnel out in the field. This involved a 7 am start and all the data was usually collated by lunchtime. In the afternoons we usually went out to first or second line and stood in for some of the guys out there to give them a break. All working sections were covered for all the hours they worked which meant that some sections had 3 operatives covering the full 24 hours.

I did stints as a recorder in the hangar, armoury and at first line in addition to my daily data collating job. In those days we didn't have computers so everything was done with ballpoint pens on special recording sheets. The results sheets were typed up on typewriters and one of the guys there taught me to type which has stood me in good stead ever since. Day to day was routine stuff, just filling in the relevant paperwork that was sent off to wherever in MoD.

Bear in mind that the following incidents occurred during the few months I was detached to Chivenor. The flightline had one or two interesting incidents that were worth recording. Strangely enough most of these were down to one guy (a J/T) who would "commit a crime" and get moved to another post where he would do a repeat performance.

The main objective of Chivenor at the time was tactical weapons training so every day (weather permitting) the aircraft flew camera gun sorties on another aircraft or armed sorties on the banner. On one "camera" tailchase sortie the chasing aircraft fired 3 rounds at the target aircraft, luckily he missed. The armourer responsible had not removed the remaining rounds from the aircraft after the previous live firing on the banner. Said armourer was removed from first line into a second line post in the hangar. Shortly afterwards he managed to fire one of the ejection seats of a T7 that was in the hangar for maintenance. Luckily the canopy was removed ready for seat removal, no damage was done to anything other than the fired seat and no one was injured.

A seat went through the canopy, in flight, on a T7 and didn't fire, luckily for the crewmember that must have had a severe case of the "brown trousers". The aircraft landed safely. There were several cases of barrier engagement, quite amazing how much damage was caused to the Hunter leading edges by the barrier.

A large number of the pilots in training were Indian or Pakistani and it was quite amusing to listen to them arguing about who was which paint colour when checking the banners in the hangar after an air-to-air firing sortie and only half a dozen shots on the banner of varying colours.

Top banners (usually QWIs) were hung on the hangar wall and there was one belonging to Fl/Lt "Chunky" I'Anson (ex-28 Sqdn, Hong Kong) that had 138 shots on it. Not bad out of 140.

Another incident occurred on a weekend. A T7 had been sent to the hangar on the Friday with a snag and the aircraft was put on jacks facing the hangar wall (SOP at Chivenor). At the weekend a bunch of ATC cadets were conducted round on a visit and were allowed into the aircraft. Next thing is a loud bang and the gun is fired. The round passed through the hangar wall then entered the ejection seat bay, went through the bay and out of the back wall.

The hole in the back wall was big enough to walk through; luckily it was a weekend and nobody was working. The offender was the same as before who had been put back on first line, plus a combination of the aircraft being on jacks and the five-pin plug still being plugged in.

The programme involved a lot of week-end working for the Work Study team, surprising just how much work went on at week-ends even when there was no flying. The social life wasn't affected too much by the fact that we had to work odd hours sometimes. Barnstaple was the centre of the social side and the Market Inn was the local watering hole. I teamed up with a couple of armourers and we played darts for the Market Inn which got us round most of the pubs in the local area and got us free Sunday lunches with the family in the Market. Outside of that nothing much exciting happened.

I was there at the weekend for the B of B air display and the only thing that sticks in my mind is the Javelin doing an inverted flypast. Probably because I had been told that they (Javelins) didn't fly well (or at all) inverted.

Came the end of Sept '64 the detachment was due to end and the detachment CO asked if anyone would like a posting to anywhere other than their parent unit. I decided that RAF Bicester (71 MU Repair and Salvage) would suit me and was duly posted there wef Oct 1964 at the end of the detachment. I went back to St. Mawgan and arrived and cleared at the same time, something I was to get used to during my time on 71 MU.

To be continued.......(maybe....ed)