Brick

Eric, as always, you are an inspiration to the rest of the modelling community. This is a unique modelling project, and one that I am sure will re-kindle a lot of fond memories from old Mirage hands, pilots and ground crews alike. Alas, in my case, one of those memories is of the author of the missive quoted above. I speak, of course, of that perpetual irritant Sean Trestrail, a.k.a. TTail, a.k.a. The Eternal Bograt. As you know, as Commanding Officer, I had the misfortune of having to tolerate his presence in No 3 Squadron at Butterworth, Malaysia from '79 to '81, during which time I daily appealed to the heavens to inform me of what terrible offence I had committed in order to be punished with such severity. bograt (plural bograts) Noun (Australia, New Zealand, military, humorous, derogatory) A junior fighter pilot. So, Eric, I wonder if you would permit me, just this once, to briefly hi-jack your build log to deal with this tiresome fellow once and for all. If you grant permission, rest assured you will have performed a valued service to a grateful humanity. No, TTail (or whatever other silly sobriquet you operate under these days) there was no one in the back of that IIID "looking after Sir". The person in the back was a Channel 10 cine cameraman, who, as you well know, was there to record the pilot's eye view of that important historic event. And I seriously doubt whether I needed any re-training, given that you never once beat me at any weapons event. Not once. And that's something that should have caused you grave concern, given that you were then in your prime as a fighter pilot, and thus would not get any better, and I was the doddery old Wing Commander still bearing the scars of four years behind a desk in Canberra. Anyway, all that aside, there is one other thing, now that I think of it, and it is the nature of unfinished business. At the closing stages of Eric's build log on the Avon Sabre, you stated that you once got gunsight film of me. Well, mercy me! I'd never in all my days heard such an utterly outrageous claim, a claim that will surely echo in the halls of perfidy for generations to come. I regarded it then, as I do today, as the absolute mother of all line-shoots. shoot a line informal To try to create a false image, as by boasting or exaggerating. At the time, I was about to immediately respond to this most egregious assault on truth and historical accuracy, but decided instead to first consult a psychologist friend of mine. Why, I asked him, would this fellow make such a ridiculous claim knowing that he knows that I know the said claim is a monstrous fiction? Why? What's he smoking? "Well, Brick," the psychologist replied, "You have to remember that your former subordinate flies A380s these days. Those guys spend endless, interminable hours sitting on a lambswool-covered aerial lounge chair, counting their gargantuan pay packets, and watching a bunch of computers fly the aeroplane for them. As a natural consequence of that, their minds eventually start to drift, and they wind up fantasising about things they wished they had been able to achieve during their years on fighter aircraft, while at the same time realising that they were sadly short of the inner resources and skills essential to the realisation of such ambitions. The sad thing is, however, that these fantasies eventually become more real to them that reality itself. And so it is with your former subordinate. He's clearly down at the bottom of the garden by now, gambolling about with all the fairies. "But, look, he's clearly happy, albeit sadly delusional, so best leave him alone. Let it pass is my advice." So, in light of that advice, I did the humanitarian thing and did not respond. I simply let that all-time classic line-shoot just ride. After all, I'm not an animal. Incidentally, before I depart, I must congratulate TTail for his enviable skills with PhotoShop. You may not know this, but that in-cockpit selfie he uses to accompany his identity in the sidebar has, in reality, been PhotoShopped to within an inch of its life. Here is the highly doctored version that you are used to, in which my presence in my customary position in TTails six o'clock, and my usual surgical defenestration of his cockpit, has been digitally removed: Well, I was fairly certain that I had the unmodified original in my collection somewhere, and eventually found it. Here it is, before TTail got to it in Photoshop and created another warped version of the historical record, all for the purpose of a rather pathetic and ineffectual self-aggrandisement: And one more thing. I have not seen TTail since 1986, and had no idea how he was carrying the years. Then someone showed me a recent photograph on him in his silly Walter Mitty flying suit at some Namchang-toting airfield somewhere, and I must confess that I was somewhat shocked. Shocked, I say. Age, it seems, has clearly wearied him, and the years have clearly been somewhat condemnatory. So here's my final word, TTail. The mark of a true fighter pilot is the way he carries his years in later life. You are probably 20 years younger than me, but I look 20 years younger than you. Here is the proof: my good self on the way to a concert at Château de La Roche-Guyon on the Seine (Field Marshal Rommel's HQ after D-Day) in July. Look at it and weep with envy, TTail. Not a wrinkle in sight. Still taut and fit, whereas the only way you can get your muscles to ripple these days is to stand out in the wind. Game, set, and match, methinks.

Eric, it's coming along well. I can't believe that you are going to do the trailer and tug as well. I suspect that, should you go ahead with a kit, you will have many customers for it once the word gets around. I know I'll be one. Incidentally, you can just see the end of the red carpet in that 5000 hours shot of me, so I just thought I'd add a colour shot of the beginning of that agonising journey to ritual humiliation: One more thing, when I order my copy of the kit, you can leave the model of TTail out. In my version, I'll be replacing that with a model of a REAL fighter pilot.

Another magnificent build, Eric. A triumph of the modeller's craft.

Yet another absolutely stunning effort, Eric. I'm sure Mac will be absolutely delighted. I thought I'd throw in a pic of Mac in later life, just to show how much he (and I) had deteriorated. That's Mac on the extreme left, me on the extreme right, outside Buckingham Palace during a Battle of Britain 50th Anniversary event. Not the slimline Mac of his Vietnam days

Hi Andrew. No, the IIID in question was ARDU's A3-101 (on 8 February 1989). 101 had normal camo, not the unique ARDU "Fanta can" scheme. It had been used by us as a photographic "chase" vehicle when a high-speed chase was required (e.g., F-111C and F-18 tasks). Sold to Pakistan in 1990.

Great job, Andrew. You really should have received a prize for this one. If it hadn't been for the entries of that tiresome young upstart from Queensland (Eric Galliers) I'm sure you'd have gotten something for the cabinet I don't mind admitting that it was a very emotional moment for me when I walked into the model show and saw the model for the first time. Just the sight of it brought back many happy memories, and seeing it parked together with Eric's model of my No 77 Squadron Sabre was just the icing on the cake. I'm not too sure how an old geezer like me got this much attention from two master modellers in the twilight of my life, but I shamelessly admit to lapping it all up with relish. Small point: I retired in the rank of Group Captain (GPCAPT), the RAAF having made the incredible blunder of promoting me a couple of years after I left No 3 Squadron. I mention this because it explains how I got to be CO of the Aircraft Research and Development Unit (ARDU) in '88-'89. We were the last RAAF unit to operate the Mirage IIIO and IIID, most of the rest having been placed in storage at Woomera. The very last RAAF Mirage to land at Woomera was our IIID, with ARDU test pilot FLTLT Scott Goodier flying and me in the back seat enjoying one last flirtation with that lovely French Lady. I'm happy to report that A3-10 had a second life with the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). She was placed in storage at Woomera in October 1988 and was subsequently sold, along with about 50 other IIIOs and a few IIIDs to the PAF. Most of these aircraft were very heavily modified by the PAF, particularly in terms of the avionics fit. Her tail number in PAF service was 90-510. The photographs below show her awaiting shipment from Whyalla in South Australia in October '90, and in service, as 90-510, with the PAF. I seem to recall reading somewhere that she was still flying as recently as 2010.

Perhaps a bit of video action for your build log, Andrew. A3-10 went unserviceable on the day I did my final flight ever in a Mirage IIIO, dammit. And, unfortunately, the guy who got some 8mm film of it failed to get some of my best stuff. Anyway, for what it's worth, here I am making a fool of myself (but greatly enjoying it anyway):

Coming along nicely, Andrew. You know, I never met a Mirage jockey who didn't have a really soft spot for the French Lady. It was that kind of aircraft - the kind that, through a happy combination of pleasing lines, handling properties, performance and, yes, character makes you want to go out and fly the thing every day of the week. I mean, how could any young pilot worth his salt not have been entranced by an aeroplane that looked like this: Even so, looking back on it after the passage of all these years, I am struck by the realisation that there really were ample reasons to develop a thorough loathing of some aspects of the beast, and it's all related to the delta wing planform that gave it such pleasing lines. Yes, the airframe designers would have loved that particular planform because it enabled them to design a very light and strong structure with ample room for internal storage of fuel, etc. And the aerodynamicists would have been overjoyed by the benefits to be gained in the transonic and supersonic areas of the flight envelope. But the downside was that, at the low speed end of the spectrum, the delta planform made the aircraft an absolute flying speed-brake, thanks to its ability to generate massive amounts of induced drag at higher angles of attack. Nowhere was this "flying speed brake" characteristic more evident that in the engine-out forced landing pattern. Consider this: in the Avon Sabre, if you flamed out at 40,000 feet, you could glide at the minimum drag speed of 185 KIAS for 92 nautical miles in still air, which meant that, if you lost your engine over Sydney, you could make it to a landing at Williamton (near Newcastle) with the greatest of ease. The Mirage, however, lost all faith in itself as a flying machine when the engine failed. It didn't glide in the usual sense. The minimum drag speed was 300 KIAS, and it dropped like a stone. The forced-landing pattern required that you hit a "high-key" position directly over the airfield at 15,000 feet heading 30 degrees off the reciprocal of the landing direction. Your vertical speed, as I recall, was about 8000 feet-per-minute. Your final decision point was at "low key", which was at 5000 feet abeam the runway threshold. If you were not happy at that point, you consulted Mr Martin-Baker. If you were happy, you lowered the gear and began the turn onto finals, the lowered undercarriage causing your vertical speed to increase to about 12,000 feet per minute. Because of that eye-popping rate of descent, you had to commence your flare at about 400 feet in order not to create a rather large smoking dent on the runway. I looked at that procedure just once during my conversion course and decided that Mr Martin-Baker was the best friend I ever had. Why didn't stuff like that turn you off the beast? Well, I guess because she was the French Lady. She'd spend all your money, always keep you waiting while she finished getting ready, flirt with all your mates, and total your Citroen DS, but you'd forgive her for anything ;-)

It's like watching Michelangelo modifying the overall shape of a block of marble. That cockpit should be hung in the National Gallery, Eric.

Harsh, Eric. Exceedingly harsh ;-)

Followers of this build may be interested in some interesting reading on the subject of the Mirage in the Royal Australian Air Force. This is a PDF of a book published in about 1989: http://www.radschool.org.au/Books/the_raaf_mirage_story_opt.pdf I particularly recommend the article beginning at page 49 titled The Edge of the Envelope by Air Commodore G. W. Talbot, AFC. Geoff Talbot really was the RAAF's "Mr Mirage", having been the first RAAF pilot to fly the type (in France in 1959) and, later, having flown every IIIO produced at GAF as a production test pilot. Some rather hairy stuff went on in the early days, including "Stu" Fisher (a former No 77 Squadron colleague of mine) suffering a shattered canopy and consequential explosive decompression at Mach 2 in a IIID on its second production test flight. Another very bad incident was a last-second supersonic ejection by test pilot Tony Svennson which resulted in the loss of A3-1 and horrific injuries to Tony, who somehow survived. As you read this article, you could be excused for reaching the conclusion that in 1960 the RAAF had, in effect, procured a half-developed prototype that wasn't yet ready for prime time - at least in our particular operating environment. Consider, for example, Geoff Talbot's description of the problems that had to be solved when operating the beast in a tropical atmosphere: "In-flight cockpit conditioning problems occurred in three areas; the pilot was too hot in high speed, low level operations; because of cold soak at high altitude, the pilot's instruments fogged up (internally) during descents; and, most critically, the windscreens and canopy, for the same reasons, clouded over with condensation during descent to the extent that all external vision could be lost. Thus, in the worst case - and it happened in service - the pilot could be faced with total loss of external visual reference when making an approach to land in bad weather conditions and at the same time be denied the use of essential flight reference instruments in the cockpit. The aircraft was usually short of fuel at the same time.". And as for Geoff's dissertation on the matter of taking off a Mirage with two 374 gallon external tanks and one 286 gallon external tank (page 58), I still question the advisability of attempting such a feat - and feat it was. I mean, you could have held a gun to my head and ordered me to do that on pain of death, and I would still have refused ;-)

Just chiming in to report that I am now out of winter hibernation and finally paying attention. Nice to see the fastidious attention to detail in this build, Andrew. I'm certain that this will be a stunning model, and I'm now following along with keen interest. It was the same with Eric's build log of my Avon Sabre: just following along is triggering off some memories which hadn't re-visited my conscious thought for many years, the chief one being how greatly I enjoyed flying the "French Lady", as we used to call her. French elegance and sophistication personified. What a gal. I must say at this point that I am absolutely chuffed by your decision to choose my No 3 Squadron flagship as your subject. First, Eric's build of my No 77 Squadron Avon Sabre, and now this. My cup seriously runneth over. All this means a heck of a lot to a grizzled old "knuck" in the twilight of his life. I mean it. The cockpit is looking just great. I simply can't fault it, and there's nothing like a highly-detailed "front office" to bring a fighter model to life.

Eric, superb craftsmanship and commendable attention to detail, as always. As an old Mirage jockey, may I offer a couple of suggestions for the sake of authenticity? Since your subject is the Mirage IIIO flown by TTail, you might want to place two or three brown paper barf bags at easily accessible locations in the cockpit. Also, some cobwebs around the gunsight camera would be super-realistic, given that Tail never, ever got to use it. Not ever.

Eric, words fail me. I'm truly out of superlatives. What an honour for an old "knuck" in the twilight of his life. My wife Jan and I are greatly looking forward to meeting you at long last and seeing that magnificent creation in the flesh at the Expo. And for geedubelyer in England, for once I'm a small step ahead of you ;-) : Yes, I make 1/32 aeroplane models too. It's just that, every time I see one of Eric's models, I feel like throwing my airbrush in the trash and sulking for a week ;-)

Eric, I just don't know what to say. I can scarcely tell the difference between the model and the real thing. On the one hand I am in absolute awe of your skills as a modeller. And, on the other, I am deeply honoured that you would choose as your subject an aircraft that I flew over fifty years ago - more honoured than I can possibly say. I mean it. This means a heck of a lot to an ageing "knuck". It really is the icing on the cake, and has caused me to re-visit in my mind some enormously enjoyable days of my earlier life. I was about to respond to TTail's latest outrageous post when I saw your completion post arrive. I was going to do that yesterday, knowing that you had almost completed the build. However, your work had inspired my wife Jan and I to drive over to the Temora Aviation Museum yesterday to have a look at A94-983, given that I had not seen a Sword since 1986. (My log book says that I flew that particular airframe exactly once, on 11 March 1964, so there is a small connection there.) But here's the thing. When I walked into the hangar to see that bird, which is illuminated by special lighting, I became, shall we say, a tad emotional. I'm sure I'll feel the same when I see your model in real life on 13 June. So be prepared for the slight possibility of an ageing "knuck" making an absolute fool of himself

Eric, there's just no pleasing some people ;-)

Eric, I hope you don't mind me hogging your build log again to respond to TTail's latest tiresome post. (And, incidentally, I just restored the photos that used to accompany my posts, and which disappeared from the server I use for some reason.) First of all, TTail, may I say that I am absolutely delighted to see that, after all these years, you have finally learned how to do a loop. I am simply overjoyed. Tickled pink, in point of actual fact. No, really, I am. Then again, there's not much to it is there? Just pull the stick back a bit and avoid hitting the ground. I mean, I could teach a pet chihuahua to do that. When you can do five continuous slow rolls at 500 feet in a Mirage, accelerating from 350 to about 540 knots with the altimeter needle not moving a millimetre all the way through, come and talk to me. And don't try to tell me you've never seen me do that, incidentally. 16 June 1981. With regard to point 1, I will settle this matter for you once and for all right now. The full-scale part of it was the glove. On that much we agree. The half-scale part of it - or what I cheerfully allege was half-scale - was, as you well know, a representation of a Mirage stick grip, and certainly sculpted and painted to look exactly like one, though in a rather "arty" and abstract sort of way. (The troops, as you know, could be stupefyingly unsubtle when they set their mind to it.) With regard to point 3, I should point out to followers of this thread that this point is a reference to the fact that I was a qualified flying instructor (QFI) in my day. TTail's deliberate and predictably childish corruption of that acronym arises from a war that raged in the fighter world for decades, a war that never resolved the issue as to whether the best people to instruct on fighter conversion courses were QFIs or FCIs (Fighter Combat Instructors). QFIs who were not also FCIs tended to look down their noses at FCIs, and FCIs who were not also QFIs returned the compliment. TTail's Iittle barb seems to arise from the fact that he has completely forgotten that I was one of those rare beasts who was qualified as both a QFI and an FCI, and had instructed in both capacities. So the QFI/FCI argument was quite irrelevant to me. TTail, as you will have guessed by now, was an FCI but not a QFI, and is thus much to be pitied - a semi-qualified wanna-be hovering around the periphery of true professionalism. You heard it here first.

Egad, a blast from the past! A posting by TTail (see above). I must confess that this came as somewhat of a surprise to me because, firstly, I have not seen TTail for 30 years or so and, secondly, I had heretofore been completely unaware that he could actually read and write. For those of you who do not know him, TTail is an A380 captain with Qantas, and very careful not to go over thirty degrees of bank these days for fear of frightening himself. As he says, he was a junior Mirage pilot in No 3 Squadron in Malaysia when I was CO in 79-81. Like all the other rather tiresome junior fighter pilots of that era, he was brash, boastful and supremely over-confident - a marked contrast to the shy, self-effacing, painfully modest junior fighter jock I was in the days of ol' A94-967. He was an officer but he was not, of course, a gentleman, having never flown the Avon Sabre and, as a consequence, never having had the opportunity to acquire the level of sophistication, refinement and urbanity that characterised those of us who flew that legendary aircraft. When you have just ticked over 40 years of age, have spent the last four years on the ground at Staff College and behind a desk at Defence Headquarters, and are posted back to flying as CO of a Mirage Squadron, you know - you just know - that all the young hot rocks in the squadron are going to look upon you as a doddery old geriatric who is well past it and should have been put out to stud years ago. It was ever so. And I must confess that it was a bit of a struggle to get up to speed again. So I was rather pleased that, after a couple of months, I found myself at the top, or near the top, of the weapons ladders, which are about the only objective criteria we had for measuring pilot ability in those days. This gave me the opportunity to stand in the Officers' Mess bar with my junior pilots, loudly and rather theatrically lamenting the fact that the young fighter jocks under my command, all of them in the prime of their flying lives, couldn't beat an old re-cycled dodderer of my then age. It's a failing, I know, but I really, really enjoyed doing that. And as for TTail, I'm pretty sure that he never beat me at one single weapons event. Not ever, which is such a shame really. As for his challenge to me to describe the parting gift presented to me by the No 3 Squadron troops (a.k.a. ground crew), I have absolutely no hesitation in responding to that rather puerile "dare". The gift was a model in two parts. The first part was a full-size model of a hand in a golden glove. The second part was a half-scale model. As for the F-18 ride TTail took me on at Edinburgh, where I spent two years surrounded by maritime reconnaissance crews and other weird people, well, bear in mind that I had not been in a fighter for about five years prior to that date. And, as anyone experienced on fighters will know, that meant that my 'G' tolerance was going to be way, way down. Did TTail act responsibly and professionally and ease off a bit on the high 'G' stuff in recognition of my years on the ground and advanced age? No he did not! I swear that we must have spent at least half of that mission up around 8.5 'G', with me in the back struggling to stay "awake". To this day, I still suspect that TTail had decided on one last effort to finally best me by getting me to "black out" while he stayed awake. Needless to say, he failed in this endeavour, and had to resort to resurrecting that damned golden hand nonsense, which had me cringing in embarrassment from 1980 until the end of my Service career. And now he's done it again. 30 years later! The man has no shame. I hope he falls off his wallet on payday. At the end of my two-year tour amongst the "fishheads", the Air Force absolutely startled me by assigning me to be CO ARDU (Aircraft Research and Development Unit). I couldn't believe my luck - back in the cockpit for one last hurrah. About two months into that tour, the unit was assigned a PC-9 performance validation task, as a consequence of which we were also assigned a PC-9 on a semi-permanent basis. In a trice, the troops put my name on the side of it, underneath which they put, in gold for Pete's sake, the words "The Golden Hand". I just shrugged, finally resigned to the fact that this cringe-inducing embarrassment was going to follow me to my grave. And so it is, courtesy TTail's posting, for which I hope he burns in hell But here's the thing that represents my final ascendancy over TTail. The PC-9 with my name on it was the seventh off the production line, and thus had the tail number 007. TTail never, ever - not in his whole life - had a flagship with the tail number 007. Game, set, and match, methinks. Anyway, back to Eric's superb rendition of ol' 967. Below is the only other picture I have of her. If you look closely, you'll see a lovely little schoolteacher by the name of Sally, who wanted a photograph of herself near an Avon Sabre. (I told you that my first tour at Butterworth represented the best days of my early life ) The aeroplane, gentlemen! You're supposed to be looking at the aeroplane!

Really coming to life now, Eric. Excitement mounting at my place. Not many people have the pleasure of seeing the development of a model, by a master modeller, of an aircraft they once flew. Looking good.

Apologies for the delay in responding, Adam. I've been over in Europe floating aimlessly down the Rhine, the Main, and the Danube. Anyway, I didn't know Starch all that well, but I knew of him. As for the 'Stang, there are some photos here: http://barracudacals.com/gallery/index.php/Tamiya-1-32-P-51K-Mustang---K-J-Bricknell---Canberra-Australia

I don't have a decal, Eric. But look, all you need is a bit of Tamiya tape and a dab of paint and Bob's your uncle. This photo will enable you to get the proportions right (Just kidding.) Anyway, I'm hoping you won't mind me hi-jacking your build log just this once to reply to Adam. Yes, Adam, the model is 1/48 - and I've just realised that 1/48 violates one of LSP's rules. Ah, well, I'll just have to make amends with a 1/32 model (see below). Yes, the name Pete Clements rings a distinct bell. If I recall correctly, and I'm pretty sure I do, Pete was on the No 78 Wing headquarters air staff when I was in No 77 Squadron. (No 78 Wing was the parent of Nos 3 and 77 Squadrons.) I don't think Pete would remember me kindly because I can clearly remember my squadron-mate Ken Smith and I gate-crashing one of his house parties on Penang when we were both brash young single officers with an unshakeable conviction that we were fully entitled to be made welcome at any social function conducted by married personnel, if for no other reason that to liven the party up a bit. I'm familiar with Judy Pay's Mustang. The markings are of course of the No 3 Squadron P-51K flown by Squadron Leader Murray Nash in northern Italy in late '44/early '45. I know, because I made a 1/32 scale model of that aircraft a couple of years back:

Gentlemen. And (not forgetting about you, Girlscanplay2) Ladies. As Eric knows, I'll shortly be off to Europe for a few weeks, so I thought I'd better post the story of the sad demise of A94-967 before I go. But first, a quick note about that superb model of the North American ejection seat on Page 8, more specifically about the handles and the red knob and structure at the top. The first three pilots to attempt ejection from the Avon Sabre never made it out of the cockpit. In those days, there were two ejection levers on the front of each arm rest. Pulling the first lever (1) jettisoned the canopy and (2) exposed the second lever, which you then pulled to fire the seat. The important thing to remember was to lean right forward, with your head practically on your knees, before you jettisoned the canopy, the reason being that the tail of the canopy would lift as the front ran back along the rails, causing the metal canopy bow to "scallop" downwards. With the canopy gone, you could then sit upright, put your feet on the stirrups, and fire yourself gracefully out of the aeroplane, where you had to manually separate yourself from the seat. (As I have said previously, this seat was quite primitive compared with the Martin-Baker standards of the day.) It seemed that those three pilots, for some reason or other, failed to lean forward, or didn't lean forward far enough, while they fired the canopy. Thus the canopy bow collected the top of their heads, at which point they were toast. With this unfortunate attempted-ejection history on the record, the powers that be tasked the engineers to come up with a solution to the problem. That solution involved modifying the seat and the ejection sequence to eliminate the need to jettison the canopy. In this revised system, a canopy-breaker bolt, located just behind the pilot's headrest, was fired through the canopy, thus weakening it, just before the seat was fired. Both these actions were effected by one pull of the (now) single ejection lever (right or left, take your pick). The additional structure on the top of the seat was intended to aid in further opening the shattered canopy top as you sailed up through it. This system worked fine, as was proven by the first guy to use it. He was the pilot who ejected from A94-967 on 9 October 1963, thus consigning my beloved Avon Sabre to a violent demise. She was on temporary loan to No 3 Squadron at the time, and was being flown by the leader of a section of four during a 4 versus 2 Air Combat Tactics training mission. The section was "on stooge" at about 40,000 feet when they were "bounced" by the pair. A break turn was thus called by somebody in the section and, on entry to the break, the jock flying my bird flicked her, failed to correct for some reason, and quickly found himself in a fully-developed spin. He hadn't recovered from the spin by the time he got to 10,000 feet (go figure), so he ejected. The section No 3 (Flight Lieutenant Frank Clough), who had followed him down, said that the aircraft recovered itself after the ejection and went into a spiral dive, accelerating all the way. She hit a rubber plantation at heaven knows what speed in a near vertical attitude a mere 12 nautical miles north-east of Butterworth airfield. Of the limited part of A94-967 that the ground troops eventually recovered, there was no piece bigger than the average-sized wok. I know, because I was there when the truck carrying the remains pulled up at the hangars. It was, unquestionably, one of the saddest days of my life to that point, and I don't mind admitting it. Old '67 was such a significant part of my life as a young man on his first overseas tour that, a few years back, I decided that I just had to get a model of her on my desk. So I built one - the first model I had built in 45 years. It's absolutely nowhere near the quality of Eric's work of course, but it's adequate enough to remind myself of the many happy hours I spent at the controls of its real-life antecedent.

OK. Take a selfie then.

Good to see you are back at the forge, Eric. Firstly, one small thing: I noticed that, in your Rumpler build log, you mention that you encountered a vexing problem with the lozenge decals, as a result of which you spat the dummy and spent the next two hours in the foetal position underneath your workbench, refusing to come out. So, may I ask a favour? Next time you do that, could you get your better half to take a photo and send it to me? I mean, I'd be prepared to pay good money to see that For the folks following this build, I regret to say that the time has come for more reminiscing about my Avon Sabre days in South East Asia. Yes, I can see the eye-rolls and hear the moans of dread at the prospect of being bored out of your minds by a fighter jock yet again; but, hey, I'm an old guy, so indulge me just a little. On 17th October 1963, I was tasked to ferry a Sabre from Ubon in Eastern Thailand back to Butterworth in Malaysia for a major servicing. With full internal and external (167 gallon) tanks, I took off on Runway 23, only to get a PV Ram failure just after the gear and flaps had come up. The main symptom of PV Ram failure is pretty simple: you experience a sudden and rather annoying loss of thrust. Quite a significant loss of thrust, in point of fact. The PV Ram operates the swirl vanes on the Rolls Royce Avon, which are located just in front of the first stage of compressor blades. It is operated by fuel pressure, causing the vanes to start opening, as I recall, at about 5300 RPM and finish opening at about 8000 RPM. When the PV RAM fails at high RPM, the swirl vanes close, starving the engine of air. Apart from the embarrassing loss of thrust, the other symptoms are pretty straight forward: RPM stays the same, but Jet Pipe Temperature (JPT) almost immediately drops to about half what it should be. There is no other failure that results in those symptoms, so I knew immediately exactly what had conspired to get my day off to a less than optimal start. Take a look at that ejection seat of Eric's. The full-sized one is vastly more comfortable than the Martin Baker seats in the Vampire Mk 35s I did my Wings training on, but also vastly less capable. It was a pretty primitive device, even for the early sixties, and was not even close to zero/zero; in fact the minimum safe ejection altitude above ground was 1000 feet. In any event, an ejection would have been out of the question with the built-up area of Ubon right in front of me. That area also prevented me from immediately jettisoning the external tanks, which I desperately wanted to do, given that I just didn't know at that point whether I would be able to keep the bird airborne. Everything depended on where I was on the drag curve at the speed I was at, so all I could do was nose-over and level the bird out right on the rooftops, keeping my eyes glued to the airspeed indicator, willing it to hold steady or perhaps slowly increase, and knowing that it could just as likely slowly decrease. I thought that, if I could just keep the bird airborne until I cleared the built-up area, I might be able to belly it in, if necessary, after I passed the Ubon jail and the Mun rivulet. I passed the jail below the level of the watchtowers (see photograph), and can still remember seeing the guard in the south eastern tower looking across at me with what was no doubt keen interest as I sailed past at pretty much the same speed I had when the failure occurred. Good, I thought, at least I'm not going to make a fiery urban spectacle of myself today, even if I have to eventually belly this thing in to a rice paddy. Having made it to the edge of Ubon, I was about to jettison the tanks when I observed the airspeed increasing, albeit agonizingly slowly. So I just held the bird on the deck for another couple of miles to see what speed I might be able to get up to before starting a very, very gradual climb and a very, very gentle turnback to the airfield. Having decided what I was going to do, I called the tower controller to get my Flight Commander into the tower so that I could explain what had happened, what I intended to do, and hopefully get his blessing for that plan. My Flight Commander agreed with my intentions, so I retained the external tanks (I was determined to recover the bird intact if I could) and orbited the airfield for about 50 minutes to burn out the fuel, always remaining in a position from which I could execute a forced landing if the engine finally gave up the ghost. Eventually, when I was down to a safe weight, I landed the bird off a precautionary forced landing pattern. Next day, after the troops had replaced the PV Ram, I flew the bird back to Butterworth. A glorious 2 1/2 hour flight out to Korat and then down over the Gulf of Siam in amongst the towering tropical cumulo-nimbus at 45,000 feet. The reality was that, if the PV RAM had failed just a few seconds earlier, I would have spread myself and a jet laden with fuel all over beautiful downtown Ubon, no doubt killing and maiming a good many people. But the curious thing is that the incident never affected me in the slightest. I slept soundly on the night after the incident with not a worry in the world. A couple of days later, I thought that this thing would catch up with me sooner or later, but it never did. I guess that was because, when you're young, you not only think you're invulnerable, you actually know you are - even in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Nope, it didn't concern me at all back then. But these days I very occasionally think back on the time I came, literally, within 10 or so seconds of buying the farm and almost certainly killing and maiming a lot of innocent people on the ground, and it makes me think a bit. What would my last thoughts have been when I realised that I was about to clobber that heavily populated area? I mean, there are few things worse than being faced with a really dicey situation and knowing that you can do nothing - absolutely nothing - but just sit there and await your fate.

Eric, watching this build is like attending a master class in modelling. Those additional cockpit details are really bringing the bird alive. Firstly, some responses to some of the gentlemen following your build: For Simmo.b. I'll relate the story of the loss of 967 when Eric gets closer to the final stages of his build. Prepare to weep. For Andrew. I don't recognise any of the names, but it's likely that I may have crossed paths at some point. As for Hawker Hunters, yes, the RAF had a squadron of FGA.9s at Tengah (No 20 Squadron). Got to be one of the most beautiful fighters ever built. (See also Chiang Mei, below.) For Peter. You sold your TR? I thought that was a federal offence And the Piper PA22? Trike undercarriage and interconnected ailerons and rudder? I got endorsed on that type at the aero club at the airport at Hobart, Tasmania, in about 1957. A very nice little bird, as I recall. ( I started young and had a commercial pilots' license by the time I joined the RAAF). Now, then. More boring reminiscing. In June 1962, No 77 Squadron deployed a detachment of Sabres From Butterworth, Malaya, to Ubon in eastern Thailand. This eventually became No 79 Squadron, and represented part of Australia's SEATO commitment to defend Thailand against attack by its communist neighbours, which was thought to be imminent. No 20 Squadron RAF (Hawker Hunter FGA.9s) also deployed some aircraft from Tengah in Singapore to Thailand, basing them at Chiang Mei in the north west. The Hunters returned to Tengah in December 1962, but No 79 stayed on at Ubon until August 1968. No 79 was manned by pilots on rotation from Nos 3 and 77 Squadron at Butterworth. In the early days we spent about two to three months at Ubon before returning to the welcome comforts of Butterworth. I say that because life at Ubon in the early days was pretty basic. There were no taxiways except for a small one which joined our tarmac to the centre of the runway, the landscape around Ubon for miles must be amongst the most featureless and boring on the planet, the only two night clubs in town both had earth floors, and we lived in tents for the first few months: By my second tour up there, management had worked out a way of alleviating our suffering. This involved allowing two pilots to fly over to Takhli in western Thailand late on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend with the USAF F-100 jockeys who were based there. Their mess was an old fire station, so they lived in comparative luxury compared with us. Anyway, all this brings me to what was, in certain circumstances, the most important switch in the Avon Sabre cockpit. It's in the centre of this photo: It's the ammo heat switch, which allowed the pilot to switch off the heat to the ammo bins underneath the cockpit in the event of a runaway temp. So this was the drill: before we left for Takhli, we'd fill the ammo bins to the gunwales with cans of Fosters Lager, which the F-100 jockeys were very partial to. We'd then climb up to about 35,000 feet and race across Thailand at maximum continuous with the ammo heat switch selected to OFF, thus snap-cooling the Fosters. We'd then do an extremely rapid descent and landing at Takhli and taxi in. The F-100 jockeys, who by this time knew the drill, would race out, open the ammo bins, unload the Fosters with great urgency, and race it up to the mess to their refrigerators before it started to warm up. The precious cargo thus accounted for, they would then come back and collect us pilots. This, I'm sure you will agree, was international cooperation at its finest. (That said, if you were an Australian taxpayer back in the 60s, please disregard the above.) We used to do air combat tactics (dogfighting, if you will) with the F-100 jockeys, and occasionally with USAF F-102s operating from Don Muang at Bangkok. I can remember being at a meeting at Takhli, with my flight commander (Mick Feiss), to settle on the rules of engagement and other aspects of these joint activities, and I can remember the USAF major asking us what altitude we would be at when we were "on stooge". We said "Oh, about 50,000". I know that the major thought we were having a lend of him; but, on the day, that's where we were: 50,000 feet. And there were the F-100s, running out of puff at about 35,000 feet. They simply had no hope at all of getting to us - until we decided to come down to them and have some fun. It was amazing how high you could get the Avon Sabre in the tropics, this being made possible by the fact that temperatures at altitude in those regions are much lower than is the case in the temperate zones. In fact, the highest I have ever been in the Sword was 52,000 feet - and I'm very glad I did not have an explosive decompression on that occasion Here's a mate of mine (Dave Champion) flying pairs patrol with me over the padi fields of Thailand: And here's one of our birds with an F-102 out of Don Muang: Following Eric's build has rekindled many half-forgotten memories for me, and I'd now pay big money to get just one more hour in the Avon Sabre. I think I might have to go over to Temora and make them an offer they can't refuse: http://aviationmuseum.com.au/aircraft_colection/sabre/index.html