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Just
below and on the rear cockpit bulkhead were 4
toggles. By operating one of these this would
release a drogue from under the belly of the
Mosquito. The skipper would then throttle the
engines back so we were flying just above the
stalling speed. He would then give the order
’steam’ this was to pull number one toggle to
stream the first drogue. We would then watch for
the drogue to deploy and open up much like a
wind sock and if all was ok would say, ’
streaming ok’, turn around and look down to our
control panel and operate the winch stored on
the belly of the aircraft. |
Winch Operating Panel in Mosquito |
|
Drogues Under Belly of Mosquito |
The winch was a device to
reel out and reel in the drogue, this was
operated with a switch and buttons. We would
then reel out the drogue to our maximum
permitted distance of 300 feet over land, and
the continue to fly out to the Todendorf firing
range via Echonforde Bay that joined the Baltic
Sea. We would then let out the drogue to our
operational distance, 1500ft. Light ack-ack,
3000ft. Heavy ack-ack. and then would fly up
and down the range just out to sea for up to 2
hours. If the drogue took a hit we were informed
by radio and would release it over the range,
climb and stream another until all 4 drogues had
been used then return to
base. |
I remember on
one occasion, and according to my flying log book the 13th.
Of March 1958 I was detailed to fly with Flight Sergeant
Wood. We had streamed the drogue and we were approaching
Echonforde bay when we received a radio call to warn us
that there was an unidentified ship within the range
area. We had to fly over the range drop the drogue and
search out the vessel. After a short time we spotted
what looked like I large fishing trawler and after
buzzing it at very low altitude with no response Flight
Sergeant Wood turned to me and said ’ I will soon sort
them out’ and with that we dived at the ship to about
100ft. Climbed steeply to around 3000ft. and while still
climbing feathered the starboard engine stall turned and
we were soon diving towards the ship which was getting
bigger at an alarming rate. F/S Wood then unfeathered
the engine and made a very low pass over the ship and as
we climbed away and banked I caught a glimpse of the
crew spread eagled on the deck and one lonely sole
standing shaking his fist at us, they quickly departed,
we then carried on with our detail.
There are a
couple of other incidents that are worthy of a mention
but I hasten to add I was not involved with either, the
first was probably more amusing than anything. Flying
officer Duplessis and his operator had just taken off
for the range when he reported a severe power loss and
to save weight instructed the operator to jettison the
winch, they returned to base and landed safely. The
ground crew spent several days searching for this with
out success. A few days later our CO called us together
to inform us he had just received a telephone call
from the local Polizei to say that a local farmer had
found a large yellow object sticking out of the ground
and thought it must be a Russian Sputnik in his field.
The ground crew were dispatched to the field and
confirmed that it was the jettisoned winch.
The other
incident and in this case I shall withhold the name of
the pilot for obvious reasons. On the 13th of
February 1958 the pilot and TTO were returning from the
range with the target still at 1500ft. behind decided to
carry out some low flying and bearing in mind at that
distance of tow the drogue is some 400ft. Below the
aircraft flew over a village very low and took out
electricity and telephone lines, and it was reported to
have knocked an old lady off of her bike, without any
serious injury.
I hope this is
of interest and may bring back some memories to anyone
reading this and stationed there at the time, especialy
my old TTO friends, Godfrey Cadman, Mike Searl, Brian
Tunstall, George Lake. I apologise for any omitted
names.
Frank Brooks Target Towing
Operator 1956-1958
