This page contains a few pilot stories from my Belgian Air Force career as I recall them after so many years. This means they may not be 100% correct anymore. Feel free to send me your remarks if you happen to be one of the other protagonists in my stories.

First 2 solo flights on Fouga Magister

The Fouga Magister was the first jet I would fly as a student pilot. My instructor pilot, Jean-Pierre "Bill" Scruel, was a member of the Red Devils aerobatic team and had the qualification to clear student pilots for solo flights. Due to works in progress at Brustem Air Base (EBST), our home base, we were temporarily deployed to Beauvechain Air Base (EBBE). We took off for another course flight, going through the most important emergencies, mostly single engine. I still had two flights to go before my solo check ride, so I was surprised when Bill told me halfway through the flight to make a full stop landing. During the taxi back, he told me he would be getting out and I would have to complete the other half of the flight in solo. It was a great feeling to know that my instructor pilot had this much confidence in me. The remainder of the flight was completed with me smiling inside my oxygen mask. My class mates were also very surprised to see me taxi back in solo...

My second solo flight was to be performed in Brustem as the works had now been finished. The weather was fine with a slight wind straight down runway 24. The flight went uneventful until I ran into a problem on my last circuit. Upon roll out after the break, I selected gear down and air brakes in as you would normally do. I also selected flaps to 15 degrees. I watched the flaps indicator and saw just a small jump, and then nothing. The landing gear red lights remained on and a glance on the hydraulic pressure gauge learned me pressure had fallen to zero. There I was in downwind with settings which were not really that unfamiliar, because we trained the proper actions for these emergencies almost daily. I realized I would have to extend the landing gear in emergency, I would have to do a flapless approach and I would have to rely on the hydraulic accumulator for braking action through the parking brake. I called the tower and reported the hydraulic failure and announced I would be extending downwind for the flapless approach. I extended the gear manually (78 pumps with the right hand), confirmed three greens and turned on final. Meanwhile the tower advised me to stand by for the flight safety officer to arrive at the tower to provide assistance over the radio, but I replied I was happy with the situation. I crossed the threshold a little faster than normal as it was a flapless approach. Aerodynamic braking after landing was held as long as possible, and as soon as the nose wheel touched down, I did a light parking brake application to check any assymetry. The nose pulled to the left, so I applied right rudder in order to offset me to the right. I knew the hydraulic accumulator would only allow for something like 3 parking brake applications, so I did a second careful but positive pull on the handle. The aircraft slowed down readily but veered to the left again. I released the handle once more and used the last bit of aerodynamic forces on the rudders to offset myself to the right again. I then applied the parking brake for the third time until I stopped completely. As expected, the aircraft veered again to the left but luckily came to a halt on the runway, albeit with the nose wheel a meter or so from the grass edge. I did the shutdown checks while the fire crew arrived within seconds. The aircraft was still leaking hydraulic oil, but there was apparantly no fire hazard. The flight safety officer arrived a few moments later and in his first reaction he told me he was not happy I had not waited for his radio assistance. A few moments later, he admitted he was pretty much relieved I had pulled it off without further hick ups. His name was Breuls de Tiecken, a real gentleman and also a member of the Red Devils aerobatic team.

As from my third Fouga Magister solo, everything went normal... The actual aircraft of this mishap, tail number MT24, is now on display at the Brussels Air Museum.

Diversion to Bierset

The second jet type I flew as a student pilot was the T-33A. It was heavier and more powerful than the Fouga Magister, so an excellent transition trainer to graduate as a pilot. We were nearing the completion of the syllabus and we were getting quite proficient at close formation aerobatics with the T-Bird, which was the more popular name we gave to the T-33A..

That afternoon, we were scheduled for a training flight with an instructor as the lead, and myself and Michel "Smirnoff" Goossens as solo wingmen. The weather at Brustem (EBST), our home base, was fine but a front of heavy snowfall would arrive from the west during the course of the next 24 hours. As we stepped for our flight in the late afternoon, we were told that Koksijde Air Base (EBFN), our most western base, had turned meteo colour state red because of the low visibility and ceiling associated with heavy snowfall. Koksijde was at least 100 miles to the west of Brustem, so it was decided to continue and we took off for the mission. As we were performing the main purpose of the flight, the formation aerobatics, Belga Radar (who supervised the airspace) called out that the snowfront had already reached Brussels Airport. They also mildly suggested to return to base, so I was expecting the instructor to initiate the recovery, but apparantly he felt confident to continue our formation exercises. A bit later Belga Radar reported Beauvechain Air Base (EBBE), just west of Brustem, turning red as well. This time, the instructor understood the message and initiated the recovery after performing one more loop and barrel roll with us in close formation.

By the time we entered the cloud cover, we received the message Brustem had turned red as well, so we had to divert to Bierset Air Base (EBLG), located east of Brustem. We would recover with a GCA (Ground Controlled Approach) with me in the right wing and Smirnoff in the left wing. By the time we broke the clouds, it had turned dark and Bierset announced the first snow was falling. By the time we were on final, colour state had turned amber. The instructor pilot briefed me to land first while he would go around with Smirnoff for a final run followed by a two ship formation landing. The GCA controller brought us and an offset angle to the runway centre line, so when I was told to land, I turned my head forward and saw that I was positioned way too far right and absolutely unable to land from that position. It had now become pitch black and I saw all runway lighting fully left of me. A moment, I thought I might hit an obstacle close to the runway, so I quickly joined up again and informed the lead. As the weather was further deteriorating, with no diversion airfields further east available and with fuel getting low, we were committed to land in a three ship formation (which was not normally done). This time the GCA controller brought us in much better aligned and we all landed safely in the snowfall. Rumour has it Bierset turned red just as we touched down...

We taxied to the apron where we were picked up by a van of the 1st squadron. Upon arrival at the squadron building, the Mirage pilots mocked our visibly embarrassed instructor. Myself and Smirnoff on the other hand were thankful he had brought us back safely in the end...

F-104 silent flight

Contrary to many Belgian Air Force pilots who first served with the Belgian Air Cadets, I didn't have any glider experience at all prior to my pilot career. Strangely, I was to gain that first experience in an F-104...

I was a junior one-o-four pilot at 31 squadron in Kleine Brogel back in the early eighties and attended the general morning briefing which was often concluded with a flight safety briefing. That morning the subject was compressor stalls. The fellow pilot giving that briefing did an exemplary job and had us all on edge. He explained that a compressor stall could be diagnosed by a loud banging noise, loss of thrust, decaying RPM (Revolutions Per Minute) and high EGT (Exhaust Gas Temperature). In order to clear a compressor stall, you had to place the throttle in the shut off position and subsequently perform an air start, flying conditions permitting. I listened carefully and was determined to remember his words.

That same day, I was scheduled for a low level flight with Pedro Buyse as my chase pilot. It would end with some medium level maneuvering in the Weelde area. The flight went uneventful and upon recovery, Pedro took position in a loose formation on my left wing. As I initiated the descent, I heard a loud banging noise, accompanied with a loss of thrust and decaying RPM. It immediately shot through my mind: here it is, compressor stall! As I was in ideal flying conditions, I didn't hesitate and placed the throttle in the shut off position. Of course, this resulted in Pedro racing past me, so he called "what's going on". As I hit both starter buttons, I replied "too busy, I'll explain later". It appeared to take ages before I got power again, and all that time, Pedro was extending his lead on me, so I had to reassure him a couple of times I was OK. The loud banging noise reappeared as the engine gained power, but the engine instruments all looked normal. The landing was uneventful and I reported the discrepancy to the engineers. My embarrassing moments were still to come...

I explained to Pedro what had happened. I had hastily diagnosed a compressor stall and initiated an air start. I still was not sure what had happened but I had to admit that only three of the four elements confirming a compressor stall were observed, as I had not seen any rise of the EGT. Soon afterwards, the engineers came with the explanation of the loud banging noise: the air conditioning cooling fan close behind the cockpit had shred a blade. As it turned out, this happened right at the initiation of the descent. As I was overwhelmed by the sudden noise upon initiating the descent, I didn't realize it was me who had retarded the throttle causing the thrust loss and the decaying RPM. That extraordinary coincidence at the time of the self induced thrust loss coupled with the brain conditioning of the morning flight safety briefing, made me jump to conclusions.

I was ordered to explain my story again at the morning briefing the next day in front of all my fellow pilots. It was very embarrassing, but at the same time it was a good lesson learned. For me and for my audience. Looking back at it, it was all worth the embarrassment because it earned me the unique bragging rights to having flown the Starfighter as a pure glider, even if it was only for a short while...

A challenging pair leader course flight

I had gone through my first flights in the F-104 pair leader course (nowadays called element lead course) without any problems, so the squadron leadership wanted to give me a more challenging task for my next course ride. As it turned out that day, there were three flights which could theoretically be combined timewise. Usually, all missions were done individually and from time to time, two missions were combined, but I had never seen a combination of three missions. As I would learn later, they were sure I would fail and just wanted to see how I would react and handle the situation... The combination for that day consisted of a counter air mission featuring an attack on a Hawk site in the Federal Republic of Germany (West-Germany) with a TOT (Time Over Target), a CAS (Close Air Support) mission more to the north to train Belgian FAC's (Forward Air Controller) within a given time slot and finally a CWT (Conventional Weapons Training) mission at the Nordhorn firing range, also with a time slot. The flight was scheduled for the afternoon, so I had ample time to thoroughly prepare the mission. The close air support mission seemed the most difficult part because of the combination of three possible IP's (Initial Point) and three possible targets. My chase pilot was Marc Janssen, the A-flight CO at that time. He watched my planning with great interest.

I briefed the flight and we took off at the correct time to make the TOT at the first target, the Hawk site. The low level navigation, the run in and the simulated weapon delivery to that target all went smoothly with a TOT right on time. This was followed with a low level navigation with a small detour to allow us to arrive in the vicinity of the IP's at the beginning of our allocated time slot for the CAS. When we approached the area, I tried to contact the FAC but to no avail. I checked the correct frequencies and Marc, my chase pilot confirmed they were correct. The tasking did not provide for a fixed IP and/or target, so I randomly chose a combination. When I overflew the chosen target, I saw some men on top of a Jeep waving at our jets and moments later, we were instructed on guard to come onto another frequency (which had not been briefed). With radio contact established, we were instructed to do two more runs, this time with proper assistance of the FAC. Both these runs were successful and we said goodbye so we could continue our navigation to Nordhorn range for the CWT. We arrived there on time and all went fine as well. We recovered to Kleine Brogel and both myself and Marc were happy the combined mission was a success. Another good pair leader course flight, even if it was a very challenging one.

Many years later, Marc Janssen was to become my CO (squadron commander) at 40 squadron heli in Koksijde, see story "The Admiral's daughter" further on. I had gained a good reputation as a Sea King captain with him and one day, while recalling F-104 pilot stories, he referred to that particular pair leader course flight which he admitted had so impressed him. He gave me one of the best compliments I ever received in my career by saying that no other squadron pilot would have done better than I did on that particular flight...

I still think the reality was that I also had an abundance of luck that day!

A self induced scramble

We were on standby for a big international SAR (Search And Rescue) exercise with participation from our neighbouring countries. I was still a junior co-pilot but my captain was an experienced Sea King pilot. He was always very eager to fly and that day, it was no exception. He was happy when we could take off and head for an exercise medical evacuation on a Dutch oil drilling rig in the North Sea. Our task was to hoist 5 simulated wounded persons aboard and bring them to the closest hospital. Upon arrival at the oil rig, the captain didn't want to waste any time and started the hoisting operation right away. Unfortunately, during that operation, a small wooden beam was blown away by the important downwash created by our helicopter, and fell right onto the head of one of the simulated wounded persons. That person suddenly became a real wounded person, so we took him to the hospital for treatment. At the hospital, they were only expecting simulated wounded persons, so they were very surprised we brought in a real wounded person. We had to admit we had caused his injuries ourselves... Upon arrival back at Koksijde Air Base, the first thing my captain did was to add the event to the scramble tote board. He never mentioned it was a self induced one...

Solo slim

A few years later, I was on real SAR stand by with that same captain again. We were scrambled a bit before sunrise for a wounded person aboard a ship to be brought to the hospital. We both had to come from home and we arrived at about the same time. As I was strapping myself in, he started the engines. Normally the captain would ask the co-pilot to perform some tasks, but he didn't. Not at all. He was behaving as in a single pilot aircraft (which he had flown many years earlier). He did everything himself, including the radio frequency changes. After take off, he reached for the landing gear handle which is situated on the co-pilot's side and selected up. I was feeling pretty redundant, but it would get even worse. As we approached the ship, he instructed the flight engineer for the hoisting operation and selected all appropriate switches himself. Meanwhile, the navigator had calculated that the AZ Brugge hospital was the closest. Finally after the hoisting was completed and with the wounded person on board, he called for my service for the very first time during that flight: he asked me to select AZ Brugge in the GPS. I was so pissed off feeling redundant that I refused and answered he could do that all by himself, just as he had done everything else on his own. He was flabbergasted by my response, but he completed the flight, doing everything as if I were not there. After landing, he reluctantly admitted his fault and said he could understand my reaction. CRM (Cockpit or Crew Resource Management) was in its early days and the notion hadn't found its way to this captain yet... A few years later a lack of CRM in the cockpit with a different crew would bring me to a close encounter.

The admiral's daughter

I was a young Sea King captain when I was scheduled for a SAR demo mission during the Navy days at Zeebrugge. A SAR demo would typically consist of a couple of flypasts and a winching exercise with our diver. That Sunday, I was briefed that the Navy was going to provide a RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat, also known as Zodiac) to do a ship winch in the harbour dock in good view of the crowd. We took off for our flight to Zeebrugge and started our demo. When we approached the RIB, I could see a beautiful girl amidst the sailors on board. I told the diver to ask the girl if she was willing to be hoisted aboard our helicopter. She didn't hesitate for a moment and a bit later, we were doing a couple of flypasts with her on board. Mind you, this was a time long before smart phones, when cameras where rare, so the risk of me being caught taking an illegal passenger was pretty slim. We completed the demo by winching the girl back on board the RIB and returned back to Koksijde Air Base.

The next day, my CO ordered me to his office. It was Marc Janssen, with whom I had gained a good reputation following my impressive pair leader course flight illustrated above. He asked me if I was the captain of the SAR demo the day before. I nodded yes, feeling bad things to come. Then he told me calmly and with a big smile that he had received a very warm thank you message from the Admiral for taking his daughter aboard a Sea King helicopter. He paused for a few moments and then added he had no other choice than to sanction me for taking a civilian on a military plane, emphasizing the sanction was necessary to set an example. I don't remember the exact nature of the sanction. I guess that's because it was a rather benign one...

Close encounter with River Tagus

We were on a SAR squadron exchange with Montijo in Portugal. The Air Base is actually a peninsula in the estuary of the River Tagus, just opposite of Lisbon. The military ferry boat would take you downtown in less than 15 minutes. By car, it would take you over an hour. Our party consisted of two complete Sea King crews. Throughout our stay, we had enjoyed some good flights with our Portuguese colleagues with the highlight being our trip to Sevilla to attend the 1992 World Expo.

Our last evening in Lisbon was a memorable one and the night was way too short. The next morning, the wake up call came very late, only minutes before the departure time of the ferry at  8 o'clock sharp. Knowing all too well it was not an option to miss that ferry, I quickly put on my flying suit and threw all the rest of my clothes in my suitcase. Then it was a matter of running the half a kilometer stretch to the ferry dock. I was not alone being late, half of our party was in the same situation. We jumped onto the ferry seconds before it started to sail. A sigh of relief...

I was scheduled to fly the first leg of the return flight to Belgium which would bring us to Bilbao in the north of Spain with a refuelling stop at Salamanca. As I didn't feel too well because of the short sleep, the sudden wake up and also a little bit of a hangover, I had installed myself near the bow of the ferry to inhale some fresh air. Our mission commander, who happened to be our CO at that time, observed me and quickly concluded I was not fit to fly. He decided on the spot he would take my place in the pilot's seat. I protested and tried to convince him I was OK, but to no avail. So a bit later, we departed from Montijo with him having taken my place. He was the flying pilot, Michel "Motje" Claeys was the captain and would be acting as non-flying pilot. As we were quite heavy with two crews, a fair amount of luggage and fuel tanks topped up, a rolling take off on one of Montijo's runways was performed. A shallow climb was initiated bringing us directly over the River Tagus. The tower instructed the crew to change to approach frequency for the departure. Normally, the non-flying pilot takes care of this, so in this case Motje, but for some reason, our CO decided he would help him. In the process, he didn't notice he was slowly lowering the collective lever. We observed from the back of the Sea King that both heads were turned inside the cockpit and we felt the climb was going over in a slow descent. As it became critical, we all shouted we were going down. Motje immediately took over the controls and pulled the collective lever up, just a few meters above the water surface, as such saving our lives. In my frustration, I uttered a series of curses towards the CO over the intercom. I was so pissed off he had decided to take my place, but now he proved to be the one who was unfit to fly. Not only that, it was also a clear example of very bad CRM (see also "Solo slim" story). The CO later admitted his wrongdoing...

Philip Avonds Scale Jets