Page 56 - Demo

52tainers to RN ships using the same techniques. We also had to learn to position the aircraft for the siggies to take photos. They did this out of the open beam window down the back and as they could not really see the ship until the last minute you had to talk it down to them. There were various rules relating to Soviet ships which meant you could only do three passes and were not allowed too close. In fact, if we were sent to take photos of something particular, you bent the rules a bit and the photo section would forget to send the prints to the hierarchy and just send them to the intelligence people. Later when I was on 206 Sqn we had a Canadian exchange captain who was often in trouble for being too close. One day someone found a photograph of a Russian war ship that must have been taken from a rowing boat looking up at it. This was labelled up as from one of the Canadians sorties with a note attached from Coastal Command saying please explain. It was then put on the boss%u2019s desk. He went apoplectic for a bit until he realised it was all a joke.The second half of the course was learning Maritime tactics. We were now joined by the rest of our crew including a student air engineer, two navigators and a bunch of siggies together with an AEO. (An Air Electronics Officer sometime posted in after a tour with the V force). Consequently, we no longer had a QFI with us but rather a Maritime Operation Instructor. While he might be in the co-pilots seat for take-off and landing, for much of the time it would just be Hugh and me. Actually the 2 phases of the course overlapped and so we did carry on with basic flying during the start of the operational flying phase and completed our instrument ratings and a final handling check with an independent checker. We were introduced to stage 2 training where we would do a radar homing to a buoy and simulate dropping 3 Mk1C sonar buoys. We would relay the drop direction to operators back at St Morgan who would set a submarine running on a big table. I cannot remember exactly how it worked but in essence they transmitted back to us what real