My love of aviation

After my apprenticeship ended in early-1970, I stayed on in the Flight Test Department at BAC Warton, and shortly afterwards transferred across to the Jaguar Flight Trials Management section. At that time there were just two prototype Jaguars flying at Warton, S06 (XW560) and S07 (XW563), and I joined Dave Williams, who was the manager, or “runner’ for S07, to learn the task. Remarkably, S07 still exists, it was the gate guardian at RAF Coltishall, Norfolk.but after that station closed the aircraft was moved to Norfolk County Hall, Norwich. I went to see it in early-2010, and it is freely available to public view, splendidly mounted on a plinth outside of the building's main entrance. S07 is pictured below flying over the Trough of Bowland, Lancashire, on New Year's Eve 1970 - Apprentice Broadbent was in the chase plane with a movie camera!

I stayed in this section for over four years, and had the total privilege of working alongside a great many really superb colleagues, far too numerous to mention, but my bosses in flight test, Derek Hargreaves and Ray Murdoch, the flight sheds' superintendent Len Dean and the chief test pilot Paul Millett, (succeeded by Dave Eagles) led an amazing enterprise. And to my surprise most of the prototypes I work on still exist, 35 years on. The Irrepressible Len died some years ago, Paul died after a long illness in September 2009.

As the number of Jaguars in the test programme increased, so did the trials management section, and I was given my “own” aircraft to manage. This was the second prototype, E02 (F-ZWRC), which was French-based and located, in the summer of 1971 at Istres, France (it is seen at Istres, right, before its first flight). I travelled there, monitored its preparation for transfer to the UK, and then a further short period at Cazaux, near Bordeaux, before Paul Millett flew it back to Warton, where E02 was used in engine development trials for some time. E02 was very different to the Jaguars we had at Warton, with French cockpit instruments, and we had many adventures together.

I was more than surprised to see that E02 is still intact (see main picture, top), given the years that have elapsed since I last saw it, but it is on display at the Conservatoire de l'Air et de l'Espace d'Aquitaine, based in the grounds of Bordeaux-Merignac's airport in France, painted as the first French Air Force two-seat Jaguar, E1... But underneath the paint it is still the aircraft that did so much to fund my mortgage!

I never managed any trials of the British two-seat prototype, B08 (XW566) but I did have a superb flight in it behind test pilot John Cockburn, low level from Warton to the Scottish Islands. B08 is preserved at the Farnborough Air Sciences Museum, where my old friend Richard Gardner is Chairman of the Trustees.

After the first phase of the engine trials on E02, that aircraft was dedicated to the totally unpredictable spinning trials, where the then (but now sadly no longer with us) deputy chief test pilot Tim Ferguson exhibited true flying bravery. Tim also died some years ago. I was on the sidelines for these trials, as I had reverted to head the single-seat team, managing the first flight of the first production RAF aircraft, S1 (XX108) which flew the day after my birthday in 1973. XX108 (pictured here landing at Warton after its first flight) is now at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford.

For trials engineers to be given the marvellous experience of flying in a fast jet was very unusual, but I was very fortunate, not only flying in B08, but also having a flight in the sixth production two-seater, B6 (XX141), the pilot being RAF Liasion Officer Squadron Leader John Preece (still lfying from Cambridge) - as we reached the top of the climb heaidng west John said "you have control" and I gingerly took the stick. Less than ten seconds later a warning light came on, John said "I have control" and we headed back to Warton, one hand very close to the ejection seat handle!! Then, as a “leaving present”, I was in the back seat of B1/XX136, behind Jerry Lee (XX136 is seen at the bottom of this page) on its delivery flight from Warton to Boscombe Down for RAF evaluation in November 1974: the aircraft crashed in Dorset on its very next flight - both pilots survived but as my memory recals, neither cause given in the two web sites I have seen rings true. One Jaguar trials aircraft I was not involved with was S2/XX109, whch is preserved at the City of Norwich Aviation Museum at Horsham St Faith, (Norwich airport).

Jaguars are no longer flying in UK skies and stripped-out examples can be bought on the web for a song, to complete the set of survivors with which I had a connection, the web tells me that XX141 is also still intact, at the RAF training airfield, Cranwell (left). And finally, although I never had any connection wth it, the front half of S06/XW560, is preserved at Boscombe Down. I wonder if the associated information indicates why only the front half is there.....

The Jaguar programme was very good to me: I had a superb, never-to-be-beaten four years, and worked with people the likes of whom I have never met since. And while I am name-dropping I must also record huge thanks to Derek Hargreaves, the inspirational, tad gruff but always modest deputy chief flight test engineer on Jaguar at Warton, who has also been very supportive with my TSR.2 Memories project, on which aircraft he was also deeply involved.

Jaguar flying in the UK came to an end in July 2007 when No.6 Squadron disbanded and its aircraft were ferried to Cosford, and at the same time the last Jaguar at Boscombe Down also flew for the last time. There is a very good chapter in RP 'Bee' Beamont's book "Testing to the Limit" (see TSR Memories pages), which gives a view of what was going on from five rungs higher up the food chain than my lowly position as a flight test engineer in Bee's directorate!! Reccommended reading!

I’ve had lots of great times in the air, both as private pilot and a passenger. On the other hand no fewer than eight former friends and colleagues (including my very best friend at school Brian Helm, and my flying instructor and fellow BAC apprentice Jane Murdoch) have been killed in air accidents, all while in the cockpit, so remember, flying can bite very hard. This picture shows me just after having landed at Leeds/Bradford airport in August 1972, on a PPL training cross-country flight: Jane Murdoch was the instructor.

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high unsurpassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941