The trainee pilots
soon learned that they had to fly at 360 knots at not more than 250 feet, which although the ‘legal’ minimum height allowed, was regarded as a suicide height if one came up against modern SAM and radar-controlled multiple guns. Hence the FR pilots were encouraged to go down as low as possible as some of their photographs showed! They also learned about fuel consumption, and with the Meteor guzzling 10 gallons per minute at low level, the maximum endurance was about 42 minutes. Some exercises were planned to last 40 minutes which not only focused minds on flight planning but also resulted in some very hurried circuits and anxious taxying back to dispersal.
The pupils would start their course with a low-level demonstration
flight in the T7 to familiarise them with very low flying and Mark 1 eyeball reporting. They would then commence a series of exercises photographing a variety of targets. While John’s responsibility was to provide the aircraft and organise the flying, an army major was attached for the purposes of de-briefing the pilots after the exercises and to instruct on tactical requirements.
F/Lt Pascoe-Watson flew as a pilot’s No 2 on the routine long-range exercise to Little Rissington and on their final TAC/R assessment which took them along the south coast between Dungeness and Dover. Pilots were also detached to Colerne from where they flew artillery spotting details (‘Arty/R’) for the Royal Artillery stationed on Salisbury Plain. John would also fly with the trainees and make comments constructive or otherwise on their flying, often with the use of photographs. This particularly applied to the pilot’s skill in dealing with the most critical phase of any exercise and when he and his aircraft were at their most vulnerable, namely in deciding how and when to climb away on completion of his photographic run.
While the
actual photographic part of the work was down to the camera and the skills of Cpl Botterill who ran the film section, the pilots were trained to judge the best moment to shoot. Although the Meteor was equipped to carry port and starboard facing cameras, the FR9s at Stradishall carried only the port-facing one. This was because the pitot head provided an ideal fixing point for the centre of the frame. The ideal target position was on third up from the bottom of the picture and laterally central. Later Meteors had a three-way mounting for the camera so that it could be used in any plane.
The Flight also had other interesting details to undertake. It was provided with a list of military installations / airfields to cover for the Air Ministry, these being photographed from all four points of the compass and from 1,000 and 3,000 feet. The airfields ranged from Dalcross to Aldergrove, and from St Mawgan to Bradwell Bay. Photographs of naval vessels were taken for publication in recognition manuals and a fleet of Russian spy-trawlers in the Channel were also ‘attended to’.
