Through the DV Panel
by Simon Erskine Crum
 
Our Newsletter editor has, for as long as I can remember, entitled his introduction “Out of the DV Window”. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I have copied him as much as I dare without committing blatant plagiarism. For those not too familiar with front end of a Vulcan, the DV panels or, more correctly, windows are relatively small triangular glass triangles outboard of the man windscreen which can be opened to allow fresh air in on the ground and, in extremis, removed to allow direct vision to the outside (hence DV). To withstand the strains of pressurisation and forward speeds of over 300 knots, they have thick metal frames and are at least 1½ inches (4 centimetres) thick and extremely heavy.
 

I have two stories, one on 12 Squadron and the other on 44, some 4 years and 6,000 nautical miles (11,000 kilometres) apart but, remarkably, in the same aircraft XM 651 which had the more powerful 301 Bristol Siddeley Olympus engines (other Mk 2 Vulcans had the less powerful 201 engines). The first one was in 1964. I was a brand-new co-pilot on 12 Squadron at Coningsby.  With the recent improvements in Soviet air defences, the V-Force had just started to train to fly at low level and we were on a low-level training flight in the area of what is now Humberside Airport. I had my head down, checking our fuel consumption and centre-of-gravity and logging it (as was the lowly lot of co-pilots in those days). Suddenly there was a loud bang and, looking up, I saw that Ricky, the captain was covered in blood. I immediately took control of the aircraft and started a gentle climb. I then saw that Ricky was looking at me rather quizzically and I realised that all the blood and gore was on the outside of his Mae West (life jacket), flying suit and helmet as well as the inside of the canopy around him. There was also an all-pervading smell of fish! Whilst establishing that he was in a fit condition to take control of the aircraft back and reassuring the rear crew that everything was alright and the aircraft was handling normally, Ricky decided that we should head straight for Coningsby, which was fairly close by, and land without delay. We still didn’t have the faintest idea what had happened. Apart from the apparent bloodbath, everything appeared normal (pressurisation normal and no increase in noise etc) and it was quite difficult to explain to Air Traffic Control why we were returning early and wished to make a priority landing. After landing we opened both DV panels, if only to get rid of the smell, and found traces of mashed feathers on the rubber seal of the captain’s panel. Subsequent investigations concluded that we had hit a sea gull squarely on the captain’s panel. Despite being iron bound and 1½ inches thick, it had flexed enough to shred the said bird into the cabin and all over Ricky and then reseated itself perfectly. There was only a small mark on the skin of the aircraft. However, all Ricky’s flying equipment had to be written off and no one wanted to fly 651 for a few weeks; the smell of fish was very persistent.
 
The second story was in 1968 when I was a captain on 44 Squadron at Waddington. Because 12 Squadron was being temporarily disbanded and the other two squadrons of the now Cottesmore wing (Coningsby had moved lock, stock and barrel to Cottesmore shortly after the first story) were being transferred to Akrotiri in Cyprus. The role of the Cyprus Vulcans was more suited to the characteristics of the 201 engines, whereas the UK based squadrons would benefit from the more powerful 301s. Therefore, a swap was done between the Cottesmore (soon to be Akrotiri) and the Waddington wings. XM 651 followed me from 12 at Cottesmore to 44 at Waddington.
 
A flight (4 aircraft) of 44 Squadron was tasked to take part in Exercise Sunflower – an exercise to practice the reinforcement of overseas bases. Excitingly, not only was the destination Singapore but we were also to go ‘west-about’, simulating a situation where we could not route over the Middle East. Our route was via RAF Goose Bay in Labrador (night stop), Offut Air Force Base (AFB) in Nebraska, McClellan AFB outside Sacramento California (night stop), Hickam AFB in Honolulu (night stop), Wake Island in the middle of nowhere, Andersen AFB on Guam island in the Marianas (night stop) and finally on to RAF Tengah on Singapore island.
 

We had carried out a routine Hi-Lo-Hi training flight from Tengah, dropping practice bombs on Song Song range north of Penang and returning to Tengah. We let down through cloud on the approach to Tengah but on breaking cloud noticed that the front windscreen appeared completely misted up, although we had had windscreen demist on. A quick wipe on the inside showed that the inside was clear; it must be something on the outside. We slowed down and turned on the windscreen wipers but that only made matters worse. We were completely perplexed but noticed that the DV panels and side windows were completely clear.
 
We decided to carry out a straight in approach on GCA, noting what we could see of the runway through the DV panels when we could see it. This would be followed by an overshoot into a left hand visual circuit, so that I could see the runway most of the time. We overshot again and compared notes as to what the best option might be. Luckily, there had been a cross wind from the right and so I had been able to see the runway fairly easily out of my DV panel from quite a way out. We decided to go for the GCA with the co-pilot flying and me taking control once I was happy with what I could see of the runway. I contorted myself to get the best view and told the co-pilot to do the same as soon as I took control. I also told him to tell me to overshoot if he thought that I was straying too far to the right of the centre line. All went like clockwork, and we had a completely uneventful landing. We did decide, however, to shut down as soon as we were clear of the runway and get towed back to dispersal. As part of the after landing checks we turned off the windscreen heating and almost immediately the front windscreen cleared!
 
It turned out that we had flown though a large amount of dust, probably from a volcano in Indonesia, during our decent through cloud and that the electro-magnetic field caused by the windscreen heating had attached it firmly to the windscreen rather like iron filings on a magnet. Remove the magnet and the iron filings, or in our case dust, fall away.
 
The sequel to this latter story was many years later when the same thing happened to me flying Buccaneers near Mount Etna. The front windscreen was obscured with volcanic dust. The Buccaneer had a windscreen washing system (designed to rid of sea salt accretions) but this did not shift it, so I switched off the windscreen heating and guess what, the windscreen cleared.