Nickodell
Donation Time
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70th anniversary of Wrong-way Corrigan's Flight
- Thread starter Nickodell
- Start date
Nickodell
Donation Time
Rick: In my time during training as an RAF navigator the instructors, several of whom had been in Bomber Command in WWII, told us horror stories of navigational errors. As you know, one of the most common, when navigating by compass alone, was "laying red on black." To the non-flyer, this simply means that the gyro compass can be misread by confusing the red direction line for the black, meaning that you will fly a perfect reciprocal course, i.e. 180 degrees from the correct one.
While in the great majority of cases the pilot will catch such an incorrect direction from the navigator and ask him what the f**k he is talking about, sometimes, in the stress of battle, they would miss it and as a consequence many a brave crew went to their deaths because of this error.
Despite Corrigan using the "red on black" excuse, I couldn't even believe him if the entire trip had been at night, with no sight of the sea instead of ground; even then the total absence of lights on the ground would have given the game away. I just love this kind of "I did it, so whaddya going to do about it?" attitude, thumbing the nose at stuffy officials.
One navigation instructor, who had flown WWII Lancasters, told us of the time when, distracted by flak close to the plane, and the glare of searchlights, after they had bombed Berlin he mistakenly gave the pilot the ground speed to steer instead of the compass course for home, and as they were doing some 220 mph, they proceeded merrily on for 80 miles or so on a course of 220 deg magnetic, until the mental bulb came on in his head and he realised that they were flying south west, instead of north north west, and deeper and deeper into Germany. What saved them was the fact that all the nightfighters had been vectored into the returning bomber stream much farther north. By nursing the plane at optimum range speed and altitude, they made it back to RAF Hawkinge, a fighter station on the south coast of England, and the last drops of gas ran out as they taxi'd to dispersal.
One of his colleagues steered their plane out over the Bay of Biscay! (They did a quick about turn and made it to northern Spain before they ran out of juice and had to ditch. They made it.)
While in the great majority of cases the pilot will catch such an incorrect direction from the navigator and ask him what the f**k he is talking about, sometimes, in the stress of battle, they would miss it and as a consequence many a brave crew went to their deaths because of this error.
Despite Corrigan using the "red on black" excuse, I couldn't even believe him if the entire trip had been at night, with no sight of the sea instead of ground; even then the total absence of lights on the ground would have given the game away. I just love this kind of "I did it, so whaddya going to do about it?" attitude, thumbing the nose at stuffy officials.
One navigation instructor, who had flown WWII Lancasters, told us of the time when, distracted by flak close to the plane, and the glare of searchlights, after they had bombed Berlin he mistakenly gave the pilot the ground speed to steer instead of the compass course for home, and as they were doing some 220 mph, they proceeded merrily on for 80 miles or so on a course of 220 deg magnetic, until the mental bulb came on in his head and he realised that they were flying south west, instead of north north west, and deeper and deeper into Germany. What saved them was the fact that all the nightfighters had been vectored into the returning bomber stream much farther north. By nursing the plane at optimum range speed and altitude, they made it back to RAF Hawkinge, a fighter station on the south coast of England, and the last drops of gas ran out as they taxi'd to dispersal.
One of his colleagues steered their plane out over the Bay of Biscay! (They did a quick about turn and made it to northern Spain before they ran out of juice and had to ditch. They made it.)