Sometimes the best part of history is just a ripping yarn. One of those stories where
truth is stranger than fiction. Like that day in 1966 when a Royal Air Force ground
crewman accidentally took off in one of the world's fastest aircraft, if for no other
reason than it's just a darn exciting story. It is history that deserves to be remembered.
On July 22nd 1966, Royal Air Force Wing Commander Walter “Taffy” Holden was in the cockpit of a
Lightning F1 fighter interceptor on runway 36 at RAF Lyneham. Introduced in 1959, the English
Electric Lightning was a very fast aircraft that used a unique staggered configuration of
two rolls-royce Avon turbojet engines within the fuselage. The F1 was the first production model
of the Lightning, and the Lightning remains to this day the fastest UK designed and built
fighter aircraft in history, with later models capable of reaching Mach 2. At the time, the
United Kingdom's nuclear-armed strategic bomber force was called V-Force, referring to the three
RAF bomber types of the era. The Vickers Valiant, the Avro Vulcan, and the Handley Page Victor. The
RAF assumed that in the event of an attack by Soviet strategic bombers, the V-Force airfields
would be a prime target, and the English Electric Lightning was designed to defend those airfields
long enough for V-Force to take off and get clear. It was anticipated that the Soviet Union would
soon deploy a supersonic bomber which they did, the Tupolev Tu-22 NATO reporting name Blinder,
introduced in 1962. Given the Blinders top speed of mach 1.4 and the limited role envisioned for
the Lightning defending airfields, emphasis for the planes design was put on rate-of-climb,
acceleration, and speed at the expense of range. The plane achieved this through a number of design
features, the most unique being the vertically stacked, and longitudinally staggered engines.
Design allowed the thrust of two engines while producing only the drag of one and a half engines,
a 25% reduction in drag over traditional side-by-side engine design. In addition,
the design allowed a low frontal area and efficient single-engine type handling,
as having both engines within the fuselage means that there was no asymmetrical thrust. The
combination of the engine design and the radical 60-degree notched DeltaWing allowed not just
great speed but an exceptional climb rate. The Lightning was famous for its ability to rapidly
rotate from takeoff to climb almost vertically from the runway. And if you needed extra thrust,
it had a reheat. Sometimes called an afterburner a reheat injects additional fuel into the jet pipe
downstream of the turbine. The resulting heat significantly increases thrust at the cost of
very high fuel consumption and decreased fuel efficiency. Reheat could be used for short
sharp takeoffs, a process that is described as, “being like a bullet fired from a gun.”
Given its design emphasis, a Lightning could be tricky to
handle and was described by its pilot as like, “being saddled to a skyrocket.”
The particular aircraft being used that day, number XM-135, was in for repairs having an
electronics issue with the RAF 33rd maintenance unit. The 33-MU based at RAF Lynam since 1940,
was a civilian manned aircraft storage unit commanded by Wing Commander Holden which
stored and maintained three types of aircraft, the English Electric Canberra medium bomber,
the Gloster Meteor jet fighter interceptor, and the Lightning. The planes would be dispatched to
RAF units as they were ready and needed. Having dispatched all of their Canberras and Meteors,
the unit was due to be disbanded as soon as all the remaining Lightnings were dispatched. However,
XM135 which had been the very first full production Mark One off the assembly line
and had served at the central flight school at Coulter Shaw,
was having a particular electronics problem. This being the last aircraft before the unit
was closed, Wing Commander Holden was under some pressure to get the plane fixed and dispatched.
To make matters more complex the unit had a qualified test pilot assigned to it but
that pilot was not qualified on the Lightning, thus to test XM135, the unit had to wait until
a qualified Lightning test pilot was available. The plane had a recurring electrical problem,
during the first few moments of takeoff the inverter that supplied power to the instruments
would cut out, forcing a backup to kick in. That is not ideal under any circumstances, but
particularly troublesome on the Lightning where “Being shot like a bullet from a gun” didn't give
the pilot a lot of reaction time. The electricians had been unable to tamp down the problem. The test
pilot who was available tried the plane a couple of times but the problem persisted. Without a
solution they couldn't keep the pilot on temporary duty. The electrician's decided to devise some
tests which might isolate the fault and indicate roughly where and which component was at fault.
They needed to test the plane on the runway, having the pilot make short runs while throwing
various switches to see if they could replicate the problem and identify what was causing it.
However they didn't have a test pilot. Still under pressure to keep the clearance timetable, Holden
found out that there would not be a qualified test pilot to do the tests for another week.
But they did have an option because Wing Commander Holden was a qualified pilot. Holden had enlisted
in the RAF in 1943 and had elected to pursue a career in aircraft engineering. But the RAF
had allowed him to train and earn his wings under the theory that an engineer who was a pilot would
be better able to understand the pilots point of view when dealing with maintenance issues. He'd
learned to fly on the de Havilland Tiger Moth. The de Havilland Tiger Moth was a single engine
biplane first introduced in 1931. It had a maximum speed of 109 miles per hour, somewhat slower than
the maximum 1,300 miles per hour of the english electric Lightning. Holden had also flown the
de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk, which while still a single-engine propeller driven plane,
was at least a monoplane as opposed to a biplane. Holden had never piloted a jet aircraft. But he
did not need to fly the Lightning, he just needed to taxi it on a disused runway while flipping
switches. Rather than wait for the test pilot they decided to have Taffy Holden operate the plane,
which was only supposed to taxi in 30 to 40 yard bursts. They used runway 36 which was closed,
the plane did not need to fly so the canopy was removed, a land rover nearby would keep
in contact with the tower and keep them apprised of each test. All Taffy had to do was taxi the
plane a few dozen yards while flipping switches and then make notes. The electricians would then
decipher the notes to identify the location of the fault. Having never been in the cockpit
of a Lightning and never flown a jet fighter, Holden did not even know how to start the engine,
so one of his engineers gave him a short briefing on the operation of the engine and the throttles.
Strapped in, Holden made his notes on the switches before the test, signaled to the land rover for
clearance for their 30 to 40 yard jaunt, throttled the plane up and let off the brake. He described
the initial punch as “remarkable” as you might expect, but managed to throttle back and apply
the brake in the 30 yards that was expected. As he later said of the first test “So far, so good.”
Now Holden moved some switches and took notes and planned for the second attempt. The land
rover contacted the tower for clearance and he throttled up again. But this time it did not
go so well. As he throttled up, the plane shook against the brakes, but this time he throttled
a little bit too far and the shaking caused the throttle to push past the gate locks for reheat.
When taking off with the reheat, the throttle had
something called a gate lock which was designed to hold the engine in reheat,
so in essence, all the sudden Taffy Holden was the bullet being fired from the gun.
To throttle back from reheat the pilot has to push back keys that are located behind the throttle,
but Holden had never used these keys and only even knew of them because the engineer
had briefly mentioned them in the five-minute briefing. And Holden did not have time to search
as there were more immediate problems just in front of him. Having been told that he was only
going to use another 40 yards of runway, the tower had cleared a fuel Bowser and trailer to
cross the runway to fuel an awaiting C-130. Now zipping down the runway, Holden's first problem
was not colliding with the Bowser. He just missed it, but after that runway 36 ran across the main
duty runway and a de Havilland Comet of the RAF Transport Command was taking off down that runway.
The Comet narrowly passed ahead of him marking a second near-death experience in mere seconds,
and he was still on the runway! But another problem was coming up quickly,
the runway was running out. Still without time to find the keys that would allow him
to throttle down, and with not enough room anyway Holden did the only thing he could,
he pulled back on the stick. As a stroke of good luck the previous pilot had trimmed the aircraft
for takeoff and Taffy Holden, who had never been in a Lightning cockpit until a few minutes before,
now airborne and as they say, “Saddled to a skyrocket.” He had almost died on the ground
three times yet was somehow still alive, and now he just had to get back on the ground.
His immediate concern was to try to keep the base in view and look out for the Comet that
had just recently taken off, but once airborne, he was able to search for and find the keys
that allowed him to throttle back. However he was still in a pickle. Holden had no radio,
no helmet and no canopy. He thought about ejecting but he couldn't, the safety pins that
were used to make the plane safe for servicing were still in. His only choice was to land the
plane. He described his first attempt to land as “Ridiculous”, and he had to pull up and try again,
the second attempt also failed and he had to pull out again. He tried landing going the
other direction and got the plane down on the third attempt. Now the problem was stopping. He
looked around for and found the handle for the breaking parachute, but it did not slow him as
much as he wanted. What he did not realize is that unlike the Tiger Moth and the Chipmunk,
the Lightning had a nose wheel. The planes on which he had trained all had tail wheels. He
had landed like he had been trained, and in doing so, had crushed the block containing
the breaking chute cables. The braking chute had dropped off as soon as it was deployed.
He kept applying the handbrake and watching the end of the runway get closer and closer,
but managed to stop with about a hundred yards to spare. The ground crewman, who had only
before ever piloted single-engine trainers, had landed the Lightning with minimum damage.
At first Holden was afraid that the incident might cost him his career,
or at very least his pilot wings, but while everyone agreed that he should have waited
for a qualified Lightning test pilot, they also agreed that he hadn't actually broken
any rules. Taffy Holden continued with the Royal Air Force until retirement. Eventually
engineers did figure out the fault that was going on with the plane. It seems that one of
the circuits originally had had a ground test button installed, and while later on in the
design the button was removed, the wires were still there, and those were causing the short,
and that shows the complexity of the plane that Taffy Holden and his crew had to keep flying.
Taffy Holden eventually ended up spending a couple of years in the hospital dealing with
emotional issues. He said that while he always understood the technical aspects of his flight,
he had never really sat and dealt with the emotional stresses that came from
such a terrifying 12 minutes. He said the entire experience gave him a much better understanding
of people who might need the same kind of help after similar unfortunate occurrences. And that
might be the best lesson from the entire tale. Taffy Holden passed away in 2016,
and the airplane Lightning F1 XM135 is today on display at the Imperial War
Museum at RAF Duxford. In my opinion, a great museum well worth a visit.
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