A true story by Roger Todd

Picture a jungle airstrip in Borneo. The R.A.F. were operating Javelin all weather fighters off this front line airstrip, in operations against the Indonesian insurgents who were attempting to take over. The airstrip was carved out of the jungle and consisted of a thin strip of concrete, with hard standings made from metal meshing to stop everything sinking into the ground.

Corporal Tech Todd was duty NCO with a party of 4 erks to get the early morning fighter pair airborne. The starter crew consisted of a wireless mechanic – Lofty, an airframe mechanic – Jim, an engine fitter – Rod and an armourer – Les. This fighting force was commanded by Roger.

A Javelin fighter weighs about 15 tons, has a crew of two, pilot and navigator, who sit in tandem. They are perched some ten feet above the ground on two Bristol Olympus Sapphire engines that develop some 20,000 lbs of thrust. The airframe is a large delta wing, with a delta tail stuck at the back apparently as an after thought. The wing is loaded with two 20 mm Aden Cannons and some 1000 rounds of ammunition, four Firestreak air to air missiles, each carrying 100 lbs of high explosive, plus rocket motors and propellant. Tucked inboard on each wing is a 1000 lb drop tank fully loaded and inboard a further 5000 lbs or so of aviation fuel. A pretty lethal load to which you add some 5 gallons of a devils brew called AV-PIN, which is, located in two tanks either side of the top spine of the aircraft, just behind the cockpit.

To start a Javelin engine it needs to be spun around rather rapidly. No electric starts on this baby. Press a button to start this engine and the results are rather dramatic. An explosive cartridge is ignited – about twice as big as a twelve bore cartridge. The gasses force a piston down a cylinder and compress about a pint of AV-PIN. Now AV-PIN doesn’t take to this too kindly and ignites producing massive amounts in of very hot gas, which whips the Sapphire up to start speed in the blink of an eye. The hot gasses exhaust via a pipe, which vents below the aircraft. Due to the age of the aircraft the pipes were prone to leaks and if this occurred in the engine bay a fire was the result. Solution, leave engine belly access panel open while engines are started, when started crawl under aircraft, look into engine bay and if no signs of fire replace access hatch. Simple if slightly scary.

To guard against fires a set of C02 fire extinguishers to be located by each aircraft. These consisted of a small two wheeled wheelbarrow on which two cylinders of compressed C02 were placed. The cylinders were connected to a ‘bang on demand’ lever which when activated pushed high pressure CO2 into the extinguisher lance. The lance was about six feet in length, which under CO2 pressure extended a further five feet and terminated in a gas dispenser nozzle. The idea was to keep the user as far away from the fire source as possible while keeping the lance a manageable length.

The scene is set, time 5:40 am, two sets of aircrew in place and time to start for the 6 am take-off. Roger was supervising and standing close to F for Foxtrot with the other aircraft S - Sierra about 20 yards away. The two other aircraft on the flight line either side of the two operational aircraft. The Foxtrot ground crew consisted of Lofty; a large slightly dopey but willing lad and Jim an old hand and not as sprightly as some. Pre-start checks were carried out and start engines given. Whump! Whump! And Foxtrot started its two engines. Pause for a few seconds, to allow the lethal AV-PIN fumes to disperse, and Lofty crawled under the belly, poked his head inside and after a short pause withdrew, grabbed the access panel and then ... stopped dead with a wild look in his eyes.

In the space of a few seconds he turned from a sleepy airman into a sprinter and shot past me at a great rate of knots screaming ‘Fire, fire the bloody thing is on fire’. He grabbed the extinguisher while I frantically signalled to the pilot to cut engines. The extinguisher was hauled into place, Lofty grabbed the lance and I hit the activate lever – nothing happened. Lofty grabbed the lever and broke it off! I send Lofty to Sierra and I ran off to the next aircraft – no use sending Jim as we would still be waiting. I returned seconds later to see Lofty beating hell out of set number two which also refused to cough up CO2. By this time the aircrew had cut engines and the pilot was starting to get out of his seat. I pulled my extinguisher into position grabbed the lance, held it out at 45 degrees and kicked the lever. Woosh! It worked – lance extended at high speed, only the end didn’t stop! It rocketed off towards the aircraft in a graceful parabola, just missing the pilot’s head. Both aircrew immediately disappeared back into the cockpit. I charged towards the aircraft and poked the remains of the lance into the engine bay. By this time the crew from Sierra were on the scene, with yet another dead fire extinguisher, but at least they had called out the fire crew who appeared in record time. Meanwhile Roger appeared to have beaten back the fire and was left with a few wisps of smoke drifting out of the engine bay.

The fire crew rushed in with, foam hose at the ready. Jim and Lofty then had to physically prevent the fire crew from sticking the foam hose into the engine bay but not before they had given the nose of the aircraft a liberal squirt of foam. They seemed rather peeved that they could not join in the fun.

Silence descended, as I stood by the dripping nose of the aircraft a voice from the cockpit was heard to enquired ‘Is it safe to come out now or are you planning to throw something else’?