ABP         Shenanigans at BAC Weybridge   (3 March 2006)   Minor tweaks on 27/06/08

I worked at BAC Weybridge in the Radio Department in the 1960s. The department was known by most of the factory as 'Column 9'. The reason being that the ninth column on an RAF flight-check sheet covered 'radio equipment', and a lot of the staff were ex-RAF. The site was on the old pre-war Brooklands racing track that still had a short piece of a very-heavily inclined concrete roadway. I am am told that the whole site now is a housing, industrial, and retail park. I imagine there is some sort of document that records the history of the site, but I have not found it. What I write below is from my own memories, and from stories I was told by some of the old hands. The word 'apocryphal' is appropriate as I cannot guarantee the authenticity of several yarns. But they were told me as if they were true.
 

YARN 1     Before the war Vickers Aircraft owned many of the houses on the Brooklands Road. These houses were let to Vickers staff. Coal fires in those days needed wood to get them started and a lot of aircraft components were packed in wooden crates. So it was common that returned boxes found their way to tenants of these houses. On one occasion, an airscrew (propeller to the layman) wooden box was left by the truck-driver at the side of one of the houses. It seemed awfully heavy, but the tenant dragged it round the back of the house in order to knock it to pieces for firewood.

When he prised the top off the box he found the reason why it was so heavy.  It had a brand-new airscrew in it.  There was only one thing he could do, he decided to wait till nightfall and bury the thing in his back garden.  But he was not on particularly good terms with one of his neighbours, and that neighbour  noticed what was going on and reported it to the site security.  My informant didn't tell me what the outcome of the fiasco was, but it is my bet that he got the sack.  And that would mean that he lost his house too.  Had he owned up in the first place, I doubt that he would have been much better off.  Before the war 'hire and fire' was common, and unless you had some specially-useful talent, being given the sack was always the penalty for getting caught.  And if you were in a tied-house, you lost your house and your job.

YARN 2    During the war there was often a night shift at Weybridge.  A lot of the staff were able to keep their motor-cars running by all sorts of ploys.  If they were unable to get to work by public transport, they would probably got a petrol ration.  Dilute the petrol with fifty percent paraffin made it last.  (I did this myself, even after rationing finished.  The engine pinked quite a lot but the old low-compression engines tolerated very poor fuel.  It was illegal, of course, but I never heard of anyone ever getting nicked.

Bill used to come into his night-shift towing a caravan.  The foreman wanted to see Bill about something, but couldn't find him.  One of the other workers suggested that the foreman go out to the car park to see if Bill was out there.  Whether this other chap knew more than he let on, I was not told.

In the car park the foreman noticed that the caravan had a light on, so he investigated.  Bill's second income came to an abrupt end when the foreman found the brothel that Bill was running.  Again I don't know the outcome.  Bill could have been prosecuted for "living off immoral earnings".  The sack was a certainty.

YARN 3    When I worked at Weybridge the whole site was constantly toured by MoD police.  The TSR2 was very hush-hush.  The River Wey that ran through the site had large signs on it banks "No Landing -- Ministry of Defence Property".  What would happen if you boated along the Wey and got into trouble and had to land?  I reckon you would be double-trouble.

One of the women mathematicians was a keen bird watcher and one lunchtime she was caught by the MoD police with a pair of binoculars as she surveyed the landscape from a vantage point at the top of the remaining piece of racetrack. I don't suppose much came of it as she was already working in a very hush-hush part of the business.  Incidentally, that concrete track had full-blown three inch diameter trees growing through the concrete when I was there.  You can see why The Burma Road cut through the jungle by the Japanese during the war, soon became invisible from the air.

YARN 4    When I worked at Weybridge, it was common to take material around the site using small petrol tugs that towed a number of small trailers.  The trailers were always covered with a tarpaulin to keep the contents dry if it should rain.  I was told that one pair of  operators used to regularly drive their little train around the site with one chap asleep under a tarpaulin while the other drove the tug.  They would swap places after a while.

YARN 5    There was a huge hanger nicknamed 'The Cathedral".  The hanger was on the site where a pre-war accident had occurred killing the driver.  The piece of tract had been removed when the hanger was built  A number of nightshift staff swore that late at night the ghost of the driver could be seen fleetingly in the Cathedral.  If a house is now on that site, I wonder whether it too is haunted?

YARN 6        "Homers" were common during the war, particularly when it was public money keeping the factory solvent.  It was a national joke about cigarette lighters that culminated with the Music Hall joke of the Minister visiting an aircraft factory and asked one of the workers
"How many fighters have you produced this week".
On getting a reply of "about ten", the Minister said "the RAF must be pleased."
"Sorry" said the chap "I thought you said "lighters"

The particular "homer" that I learned about was when petrol became de-rationed and a lot of staff used to come in to the site by car.  It was standard security procedure to have to show a pass-out at the gate if you left before normal knocking-off time.  This particular chap must have been a bit thick as he drove his car out earlier than usual and he was towing a caravan.  Security became interested and unearthed the fact that not only Sonny Jim did not have a pass-out, but that the caravan had been constructed on site using a lot of Vickers material.

YARN 7    While I was working at Weybridge, Pan American Airways (PAN AM to its friends) made aviation history.  It must be written-up in some aviation journal.  There is a gasometer at Kew that was was very convenient for pilots who were too proud of their flying abilities to use Glideslope and Localiser Beacons to guide their planes down on to the runway at Heathrow.  This PAN AM pilot must have been one of those.  But there is another gasometer that is visible as you approach Heathrow.  And it was the second one that sonny boy used as his beacon on that day.

Northolt is very small airstrip owned by the RAF.  It was, and is, used for things like flying an Air Chief Marshall from London to Scotland, and many other taxi-like jobs.  However this PAN AM pilot managed to get his plane down in one piece at Northolt.  It caused consternation on the ground.  Passengers had relatives waiting at Heathrow.  There was no Customs or Immigration at Northolt.  There was no steps high enough to get passengers down from a Boeing 707.  And there were no luggage-handling facilities at Northolt.  All in all; a glorious cock-up!

I expect the controller at Heathrow was a bit concerned when  his aircraft disappeared from the radar as it approached the runway.  But at the Northolt end, the RAF had much greater problems during WW2 and they were up to that sort of challenge.  Hurriedly chartered coaches, and a couple of cars brought Customs and Immigration officials across from Heathrow.  Somehow the RAF got the passengers and the luggage on to the ground.  I never heard what that little escapade must have cost PAN AM, but I'll bet that pilot was not the favourite member of staff with the firm's accountants.

Now there was the problem getting the kite back to an airfield that was designed for that size of plane.  It was thought at first that they would have to take the aircraft to pieces and take it out by road.  But in the end it was found to be unnecessary.  Strip out all the seats.  Strip the galley,  Have just enough fuel in the tanks to get the thing airborne.  And give the engines the gun when taking off.  They got the 707 out in one piece.

In the Radio Department at Weybridge, we always had a radio tuned to Heathrow Tower.  The goings-on were much more interesting than Radio 1, or the Home Service.  But I wouldn't have believed it had I not heard it with my own two ears; jokers couldn't miss an opportunity like this.  It was a couple of days later I heard Heathrow Tower greet a PAN AM incoming flight with the question "and where is "the World's Most Experienced Airline" landing today?  That PAN AM jingle must have made the Yank flying that plane squirm in his seat.

YARN 7  TSR2The link below may make interesting reading

http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/tsr2/index.php        The history of the TSR2 

I remember the first TSR2 being taken by road to Boscombe Down.  The airstrip at Weybridge was far too short to allow a takeoff there.  The plane fell off its trailer at Boscombe Down as they were unloading it.  One of the stubs of  the tailplane was bent   I wonder what that accident must have cost the taxpayer!

I have my own fond memories of working at BAC but can report now it is  fifty years later, of  the huge amount of money that must have been wasted on that project.  Senior members of BAC used to have private work done at Weybridge and it was always booked on to a TSR2 job number

The name Julian Amery rings a bell in my mind.  I believe that it was he and a group of hangers-on that visited Weybridge during my time there.  The purpose of the high-level visit was to inspect the progress of the development of the aircraft.  I can't remember my role in that visit, but a comical event took place.  One of my colleagues was a clever joker.  He got a small thermionic radio valve and removed the glass exposing the electrodes of the interior of the valve.  He affixed a paper speech balloon to the outermost electrode and wrote the words "I am a Tron.  Take me to your Leader".  When no-one was looking he placed the Tron on an empty table where it would be seen by the visitors.  I never heard whether it raised a laugh or a scowl.

Another odd incident took place.  As the party were going around the test rigs, one of the visitors said to the BAC engineer-host: "What's this switch for?" and made as it to switch it on.  I have no idea what would have happened has the switch been flicked, but it alarmed the engineer who probably didn't know either. It remained a topic of conversation for several days.

I was told a couple of yarns that were alleged to be true.  A BAC test pilot was an excellent aviator and could be relied upon to spot the smallest operational error in the newly-built aeroplane.  He was test-flying a Vulcan over the English Channel when he spotted an aircraft carrier below. He flew around and positioned himself as if he were going to land on the carrier.  Undercarriage down, flaps down, everybody below believed that he was going to make an attempt at landing.  It doesn't take a aircraft specialist to know that the huge plane would have no possible chance at landing safely.  My storyteller said that the sky was full of every colour Very Light that existed.  Of course, at the last minute Sonny Jim aborted the landing  and simply flew away.  I was told that the pilot got a very high-level rocket from the Air Ministry for his prank  The same pilot did a beat-up of an airfield at VERY low level for a party of overseas visitors being shown the factory by BAC salesmen.  And, so I was told, it was one of the V-Bombers that was being shown-off.

I've seen Vulcans at Akrotiri, and they have a menacing beauty when you are right below them.  It was at the same airfield that I saw the Red Arrows give their display to the Cypriots population.  I was lucky enough to work at that RAF site as a civvy employee of Plessey.

May 28 2007        Update on above stories

Since writing the above I have had further thoughts on the subject of the TSR2. 

Working at Weybridge in 1964 and 65, I was a very lowly technician in the Radio Department.    I was given the job of building a test rig to test the functioning of the TSR2 AFCS.  For those souls who don't know the initials, it stands for "auto-flight-control-system".  The box of tricks was effectively a very sophisticated auto-pilot.  Because modern high speed aircraft can get into an oscillation that is far too fast for human hands to control, electronics is necessary to damp down this oscillation.. Yaw judder is one of the modes of oscillation that can tear an aeroplane to pieces if not controlled.

Elliot Automation were the designers and builders of the AFCS system.  The senior sales man of Elliot's later became to site manager for several Plessey projects that I worked on.  He was an RAFVR ex-Vulcan instructor pilot; quite a character; he was the ultimate Mr Fixit.  I have a few stories about this chap and his way of getting things done.

It is my opinion that electronics was at the crossroads between discrete components and integrated circuitry at the time of the TSR2.  I reckon that the TSR2 would have been a pig to maintain to an airworthy state; the complexities were so many and difficult.  The plugs and sockets (of which there were a great many) were Plessey Mark VI.  The largest one I knew of was a 55-way connector.  Wiring was crimped into the pins and the pins were then inserted into the hard-rubber body of the connector.  It was not too difficult to push a pin into the rubber moulding and push it through the hard rubber and make a short-circuit between pins.  I never heard of this happening without being spotted.  But it was a potential risk.  So the powers that be set up a department of two chaps who would look at every connector to see what the effect would be if two adjacent pins were to be accidentally connected.  Would such a fault hazard the aircraft?  It must have been soul-destroying work; consider the number of combinations!

But BAC had another  bow to their armoury; DITMCO  (pronounce 'ditmucco') (Drive-in-Theatres-Manufacturing-Company), a Yankee outfit.  This machine was programmed to carry out a continuity and insulation test of every wire to every other wire of a cable loom.  The company that dreamed up the machine was, as the name suggests, a drive-in-cinema company.  And it seems that they used to get a lot of trouble with snogging couples turning the sound down with the aid of a pair of wire cutters.  This American concern managed to sell quite a few of their invention to other industries, such as the aircraft industry.

The TSR2 was noisy; very very noisy.  The Rolls Royce Olympus was the same basic engine that was later used by Concord.  When I worked in Teddington not long before Concord was grounded, everybody in the town used to go on hold while Concord was passing overhead with its trail of smoke coming out the back.  Double-glazing seemed to have no effect, and anyone on the 'phone just had to yell into the microphone "wait a moment, Concord's passing over".

When I was working at Boscombe Down, on one occasion I drove to a village about five miles from where the TSR2 was doing ground engine trials.  At the petrol pump I was at, the engine noise was quite clearly heard.  Ground to ground at that distance!  I shudder to think what it would have been like had the beast flown overhead at fifty feet, as it was intended to do in a real wartime situation.

I understand that when it was to be used for real, the forward-looking radar and the sideways-looking radar would take a look at the terrain, and circle and drop a bomb (perhaps nuclear), and then do another pass to see what the countryside looked like afterwards.  I was told that the pilot could also be in touch with base-control and tell them of any changes in the scenery.

I believe that the Australians were considering buying a few, but were enticed away by the Americans with a much better financial deal for the F111.  Where the Australians would have wanted to use the aircraft, is still a puzzle to me.

It was the TSR2 that introduced me to the concept of inertial navigation.  It was at Weybridge where I learnt the meaning of the "Coriolis Effect".  This is when a body (like a cloud or an aircraft) flies due north or south but actually drifts towards the east or west due to the rotation of the earth beneath the flying body  The effect was first observed in meteorology, but was found to occur with  aircraft moving in a similar manner to a cloud.

All in all, my term at Weybridge taught me a lot of things that I would never have dreamed of otherwise.