MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY! A Pilot's Memoirs

By Brian Clapp

MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAY...! My words choked to a standstill. Visibility in the Shakleton cockpit was reduced to mere inches.

 

I slammed the control column hard forward.... A one or two-second delay in my response would have had the Nimrod spectacularly crash back onto the airfield.

 

These and other airborne emergencies are vividly described in the memoirs of a Royal Air Force pilot who also amassed 18,000 hours as a civilian captain of Boeing jet aircraft. Humour, tragedy, and lucky escapes go hand in hand throughout this book touching on many diverse and interesting topics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Clapp
• Release date: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201937584

Brian Clapp

Brian Clapp served as a Royal Air Force pilot for eight years flying Shackletons, a development of the iconic Lancaster bomber. He then moved on to fly the Mighty Hunter, the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod. A career in civil aviation culminated in his command of the Queen of the Skies, the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet.

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Soviet Encounter

My closest brush with death as a pilot occurred flying a Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR1 during the second so-called Cod War, in 1973, between the United Kingdom (UK) and Iceland. A very fishy business to be sure. This confrontation can best be described as a militarized interstate dispute. One that undisputedly almost killed me. It started when Iceland unilaterally extended its territorial waters from 12 nautical miles to 50 nautical miles. This caused an uproar from British trawlermen as the implementation now precluded them from access to the rich fishing grounds surrounding Iceland. The British government was immediately forced to act.

Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR1

Both sides adopted aggressive measures. Iceland launched its seven small patrol ships equipped with trawler wire cutters plus a gunboat, the Aegir, armed with a 57 mm cannon. The might of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Navy (RN) was now thrown against this tiny island nation. My crew and I became part of that might. Navy frigates were ordered to protect British fishing vessels from below and Nimrod aircraft, likewise, from above. What chance did they have? As events transpired, a damned good chance!

The briefing for our daylight sortie, planned to last approximately nine hours, was conducted at RAF Kinloss, in Northern Scotland. All 12 crew members would be inputting their specialist skills to successfully complete the mission. We were tasked to assist the RN in their efforts at trawler protection. The high-level transit to our assigned area, about 70 miles east of Iceland, was uneventful. This was followed by a descent to 500 feet in the vicinity of a British frigate controlling operations in that area. They radioed an urgent request for us to visually identify all shipping contacts within 50 miles of their position. They had lost contact with the lone Icelandic gunboat and this was causing them great consternation.

During our pre-flight briefing, we had been instructed not to enter the 50 nautical mile exclusion zone. This was because the Icelandic gunboat was actually capable of shooting down a low-flying aircraft. David and Goliath stuff. However, the only single unknown positive surface contact our Nimrod radar operator had on his radar screen was about 40 nautical miles from the Icelandic coast, 10 nautical miles into the no-go zone. Well, of course!

The Second Navigator softly began to hum ‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves’ over the crew intercom. The engineer pointed out that the Icelandic population was so small that they should be called a tribe, not a nation. The crew consensus became unanimous. A small penetration into Icelandic territorial waters, not yet internationally sanctioned, should not be an impediment to accomplishing our RN requested task. They might be the ‘Senior Service’ but we were the ‘Steely-Eyed Service’. I banked the Nimrod in the direction of the possible antagonist and commenced a slow descent. Patriotism to the fore.

However, one small problem remained. Actually, bigger than small, some might say huge. The weather was fucking terrible. Gale-force ten winds were blowing on the sea surface, well over 50 miles per hour. After levelling off at 200 feet, I could not see the surface of the ocean. In fact, I could not see anything. We were totally enveloped in thick angry cloud. Neither could the two beam lookouts positioned both sides of the Nimrod see the ocean surface even with having the additional advantage of bubble-type windows allowing them to look directly downwards.

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Nimrod Cockpit

The aircraft was being strongly buffeted at this low altitude. My eyes constantly referenced the radar altimeter as the barometric altimeters were of no use in these conditions. 25 miles turn 5 degrees port, good contact. The radar operator intoned into my headset. We knew where the contact was, yet no crew member had visual contact with the sea surface. Standard operating procedures did not allow for the Nimrod to be flown below 200 feet in such terrible weather conditions. One reason for this restriction was due to the Russian Navy, our normal adversaries, having one training ship, the Kruvenshtern, with a mast height approaching 180 feet. To fly into this mast would certainly make your eyes water.

19 miles, dead ahead, good contact. I decided to fly lower. I figured the chances of that particular Russian ship being in these waters were about zero. 15 miles, dead ahead, good contact. The radar operator was holding a good strong contact. My radio altimeter showed 150 feet when both beam lookouts shouted out that they could now see the waves beneath the aircraft. Through my pilot windscreen, I still could see nothing, except rain cloud whipping past. 9 miles, dead ahead, good contact. To positively identify a small gunboat there was an absolute need to fly directly overhead in these atrocious sea conditions, coupled with the marginal visibility. 5 miles, dead ahead, good contact. Something was wrong. My second or even third instinct kicked in. But what was wrong, the hairs on the back of my neck stiffened. 2 miles, dead ahead, good contact. That was it, ‘good contact’, those words suddenly had a chilling effect on me. The sea beneath us was obviously a maelstrom of wave crests and troughs. Ships would rise on the crest and then plunge back into the trough. Even the large Russian warships we constantly tracked would never be described as ‘good contact’ so consistently as we approached them in such similar appalling weather conditions. When they would plunge back down into a trough ‘poor contact’ and sometimes ‘lost contact’ would occasionally be called.

Immediately, I banked the aircraft to port and kicked the rudder to speed the turn. I would not directly overfly this contact. Jesus Christ shrieked the starboard lookout. A fucking iceberg! The cold killer passed closely down the starboard side of the aircraft and was icily looking down on us. Full power and a rapid climb ensued.

It subsequently transpired that no such large iceberg had ever been known to drift this far south from the Arctic Circle before. There was no knowledge of its existence until our near ice-miss. It now became a navigational hazard and was closely monitored by air and sea authorities. A few days later we flew back to the same area in beautiful clear skies. The iceberg was awesome and stood about 300 feet high.  We had escaped its icy embrace by just a few metres. My first encounter with climate change was almost my last encounter with anything at all!

The Icelandic nation subsequently prevailed in the fishing waters dispute. A victory I, personally, did not begrudge them. Many years later I would fly Jumbo Jets for an Icelandic aviation leasing company. A full-circle experience. The Aegir gunboat became, I was told by one of my Icelandic first officers, a restaurant in Reykjavik. At the end of hostilities, the Cod War was replaced, once more, by the Soviet Cold War.

It was during the Cold War that I also had another interesting low-level encounter flying Nimrod XV249. On this occasion, the confrontation was less heart-stopping with unlimited visibility and a flat calm sea. We were returning to the UK from the Far East and were flying the sector from RAF Gan, in the Indian Ocean, to RAF Masirah, situated on an island off the east coast of Oman. These were the days when Britannia still had misguided aspirations of ruling the waves.

During the pre-flight briefing, the intelligence officer reported that a fairly large Soviet Navy presence was suspected to be transiting the Indian Ocean and might be located in the vicinity of the Socotro Archipeligo, near the Gulf of Aden. The crew was tasked to carry out an initial covert surveillance operation to locate this unfriendly maritime force. The Cold War was at its height and our orders were to approach the Russian fleet, undetected until the last moment by flying very low. We were then to photograph their red smiling faces and ask them to say ‘TBOPOR’, which is Russian for cheese.

We descended from our high cruising level, above 30,000 feet, to carry out a radar search of the suspected area where Ivan might be located. The intelligence proved to be good. Many surface contacts suddenly appeared, at extreme range, on the radar operator’s screen. The radar was then immediately switched off and a rapid descent to 100 feet above the millpond Indian Ocean was carried out. We would be undetected until arriving very close to the Soviet ships.

An incredible sight rapidly came into view as we approached our target at high speed, above 250 knots. A large number of Soviet Navy ships and submarines were all on the surface, at anchor, all pointing the same way in a diamond type formation. As we closed to within a few hundred yards of the nearest ship it became obvious that all the Russian sailors were standing at attention on the many decks, including those crews of the Whiskey class conventional submarines, which had surfaced. I had never witnessed anything like this before. It was truly awesome.

We were very unwelcome. Whilst roaring alongside the biggest ship, an impressive Sverdlov class cruiser, with the most sailors on deck, a large military band was playing to all those standing at rigid attention. The Nimrod’s four screaming Rolls-Royce Spey turbofans added their unwanted pennyworth to the percussion and drum instruments. Not a popular addition.

I noticed something else which was strange. Normally, a flypast of a Soviet warship would have their big guns tracking our aircraft. We could always expect to be, literally, staring down the gun barrels. It always made me feel somewhat uneasy. This time, however, the big guns were obviously unmanned and all pointed, with military precision, in the same direction, to the ship’s bows. It was the radio operator who suddenly came up with an explanation for this Soviet maritime military tattoo. Gentlemen today is the first of May. This is a May Day parade! He was right on.

Soviet Sverdlov Class Cruiser

With little concern for Russian traditions, we continued our very   disagreeable orbiting of the fleet. The May Day Parade degenerated into the Mad Day Parade. Click, click, click, our photographer was having a communist field day. The band stopped playing and the fists started shaking in our direction. Even the conductor of the military band was seen aggressively waving his baton at us. We eventually departed with a noisy full power climb to regain altitude. Examination of the photographs the next day revealed that the Admiral of the Soviet Fleet had also been on board the Sverdlov, which was almost certainly his flagship. He did not wave his flag at us during our departure.

The most interesting aspect of our Soviet Navy flypast had been to see submarines on the surface. Russian submarines were an exceedingly rare sight, even the conventional submarines that needed to snorkel. Periscopes and snorkels were commonly sighted but not the submarine itself. I only ever saw one conventional submarine surfaced.

Soviet Typhoon Class nuclear submarine

Similarly, prior to the May Day encounter, I had only ever seen one Soviet nuclear submarine on the surface. It had been transiting the Straits of Malacca situated between Sumatra, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The waters between these two countries were too shallow to allow the huge nuclear beasts to travel submerged. The crew members in the conning tower had been friendly enough to wave as we flew past them at a very low-level in the Nimrod. Not like that unfriendly bunch off the Socotro Islands.

Personally, I never once saw the periscope of a submerged Soviet nuclear submarine although I did, on one occasion, have an extremely close encounter with the periscope of a British nuclear submarine. Exceptionally close. My Nimrod crew on 206 Squadron were invited to visit Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Clyde, commonly known as Faslane, near Glasgow. It was home to the core of the Submarine Service, including the nation’s nuclear deterrent.

We had been security cleared to take an accompanied tour of a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. My crew sometimes flew with navy personnel in our Nimrod submarine hunter, and they would often reciprocate, as on this occasion. The actual submarine we toured that day was not in the water. It was in dry dock, well above the waters of Gare Loch.

The visit was fascinating and helped give some insight into the working environment of our Russian adversaries. It certainly gave me some insight into something I was totally unprepared for. Whilst in the control room I couldn’t help but wonder why there was a queue standing behind a seaman, obviously peering through the submarine periscope. A submarine that was not even wet. I asked my accompanying naval officer if, perchance, I could also take a peek.

He looked rather perplexed but then tapped the viewing sailor on the shoulder and suggested that their RAF guest be able to jump the queue. With obvious reluctance, the outranked seaman relinquished control of the periscope and stepped aside. I, literally, grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Bloody hell! I was stunned, she was gorgeous. No, not a mermaid. The curvaceous half-naked blonde appeared to be deciding