Page 209 - Demo

205Commander did very little flying while he was there, and we did not actually know what he was doing at all. From time to time some senior British Army Officers came over but as we were often flying we did not see them. As the course progressed, we were flying 3 or 4 times a day.The weather was often poor and for a long time the radar was broken and so that held us up. We sometimes flew in the afternoons if the weather was bad in the morning. At one point we got to night flying. All units have a system that allows the pilot to cope with a total electric failure. Their system was that the aircraft would fly past the tower and the duty instructor would fire a white very cartridges to see if the undercarriage was down. If it was, he would fire a green very cartridge and the aircraft would land. We asked how often this was practiced and they said never. We put it to the test. The problem was of course that the Air Traffickers had no idea that there was an aircraft with a total electric failure in the circuit unless they could hear it. So, you flew low over the tower to alert them, and they had then to guess by the noise where you were. That was not easy, so the duty instructor had to fire a very flare by a bit of a guess and quickly reload if you fired too early. While this was going on the other aircraft would be holding off out of the way. The very cartridges were still alight when they hit the ground and as the grass was very dry it quickly caught fire. People on the domestic site the other side of the road could hear the bangs of the gun firing and see the flames and some thought the airfield was under attack. However, no one appeared to do anything about that and so it did not really matter. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves but eventually had to call a halt to it all.At the end of October, the Squadron went to Victoria falls for the weekend. In the RAF, Squadrons might get the freedom of a nearby city, which meant they had the honour to parade through it occasionally. In Zimbabwe, Squadrons were affiliated to some town and 6 Squadron was affiliated to Victoria Falls. This meant that the Squadron went to