FLYING LOW

In late 1979 and early 1980 the hot news topic in our neck of the woods was low flying, by British and American jet fighters. Some localities were getting very vocal, complaining of excessive noise. The system then was that the fighters and their crews - and they needed to train somewhere, remember - were restricted to air corridors so that particularly vulnerable areas were avoided as far as possible. But there was a flaw. It also meant that those people who lived under the corridors saw more flow flying than elsewhere. So the system was changed. The corridors were abolished, and instead, 'sensitive' localities were designated 'no-fly zones,' giving the jets more navigational flexibility while the noise factor was spread over a wider area.
Yet the grumbling continued, so the RAF responded with a public relations campaign. Sensing an opportunity, I applied to RAF Coltishall for a Press facility ride in one of their Jaguars, and to my surprise they agreed. This in turn led to a day spent on ejection procedures, dinghy drill, a pressure suit fitting, a health check, and the issuing of a medical certificate, which I still have. Dated February 12, 1980, it reads: 'Fit to fly in high performance aircraft, Category 2.'
A few days' later I was kitted out in flying helmet and pressure suit, attended a briefing (the plan was to 'target' Holbeach bombing range on the edge of the Wash, and then fly into the Midlands via Norman Cross, visit one or two other targets, cross the Cotswolds, and turn over the Bristol Channel before returning to Coltishall. 'Targeting' and 'bombing,' of course, meant locking-on and photographing. Nothing more than that. But it felt deadly serious when I was finally strapped into the back seat of a Jaguar behind Ted, my pilot.
I had flown in aircraft before, and had been up in a helicopter, gliders, and a hot air balloon, but nothing can prepare you for 40 minutes in a fast jet. First, they don't do anything slowly, and the feeling of high speed is something entirely outside of your usual experience. They don't turn gently, either. They flip over on their side, suddenly, and drop out of the sky. At the same time, there is the claustrophobic grip of the pressure suit as it inflates and the rubbery smell of the face mask.
By the time we had flown over Holt, crossed the coast and zoomed out over the Wash, I was already feeling ill. There was bile in my mouth, and my stomach seemed to be somewhere else. 'You OK?' Ted asked. I mumbled in the affirmative, so he took us down to 200ft over the water - we seemed to be level with the top of Hunstanton cliffs - and roared over the Plughole (a circular test bank in the Wash, which from the air resembles a basin plug), left the Holbeach range behind (after a successful 'attack'), and thundered over Long Sutton and through something called the Norman Cross gap at just over 1,000ft and an airspeed of 470 knots.
It was easy to see where we were because there was a moving map screen right in front of me. Then Ted explained the workings of the attack computer on his head-up display. On the screen there was a steady verticle line and a moving horizontal line, with a circular line on the outside which reduced as the seconds-to-target ticked away. When the horizontal line reached the top of the verticle, to form a T, the target - a rail bridge - had been reached. Ted pressed the button, took his photograph, and flipped over, twice, to avoid a cluster of Worcestershire villages. I felt awful, too ill to be sick.
'I think we'd better head home,' Ted said in my earpiece, and so in the gathering gloom of early evening and somewhere near Malvern, he set course for Corby, Peterborough, and Coltishall.
Near Norman Cross he asked if I wanted to fly the Jaguar, which was not as daunting as it sounded. On another screen there was a small yellow circle and a little cross, and around the outside another circular line which counted off the seconds. My task, using the stick, was to keep the cross in the middle of the circle, and when the outer line had finally ticked away, he said, 'Look left,' and there was RAF Coltishall far below us. Ted took over again and we made a gentle landing, but it was two or three days before I felt that my stomach had finally been reunited with my body.