Rick Purnell writes ….

A spy in the Sky…..

Philip Carlisle presented a PowerPoint talk by Zoom to Teignmouth Probus Club of his experiences as an RAF pilot on Photo Reconnaissance during 1963 – 1985 the Cold War years.

As a youth, having sat in the cockpit of a Vampire jet at an Ideal Home Exhibition, stimulated an interest in flying and he joined the Air Training Corps, moving from glider pilot to Private Pilot’s Licence. He joined the RAF and gained his ‘wings’ flying Provost jets. Philip’s legs were too long to fly Vampires (not enough space for ejection without taking off his knee caps!) and became a flying instructor on Provosts.

He elected to move to fly the Canberra PR9’s on photo reconnaissance with the 39 Squadron. This plane had 200 series Rolls Royce engines giving 22,000 thrust and equipped with ultra hi-res film cameras which were very large and stood some 5 feet high. They were had powerful acuity. Flying over the Isle of Wight some 120 miles from London, on a clear day the time on Big Ben could be read. All film was read as a negative as definition was lost with a positive print.

His flying kit included G-Suits to permit greater than 5-7G’s flying, pressure helmets and blood decompression body vests in case of cabin pressure drops at high altitude.

His work took him to Malta assigned to NATO but on being expelled in 1970 worked in Norway. During that time he aerial mapped the whole of Denmark for a Government contract.

Special piloting skills were needed for reconnaissance as a small deviation off course at height meant uncaptured ground on film. Each ‘pass’ required a small overlap to match the next ‘pass’.

His Canberra PR9 was assigned to the British Honduras but ended up in Nassau. His ‘claim to fame’ was his being the last pilot to fly the Blackburn Beverley before being scrapped and being one of 5 Commanding Flying Officer RAF Marham, Kings Lynn airbase during the 1977 Queens Silver Jubilee where because of its proximity to the Sandringham Estate he was part of the Air Flight Support in and out of Sandringham and the Queen was the Honorary Air Commodore of that station which including a mess dinner with the Queen. He retrained to fly many different planes from a De Havilland Devon to Hawker Hunters. The only plane he didn’t pilot was the Hawker Harrier. He was promoted to Experimental Flying Corps at Farnborough as the Canberra expert and Instrument Rating examiner. Next to RAF Fillongly training NCO aircrew Group then as his last flying job as Squadron Leader back with Canberra Operational Conversion Unit 231 OCU.

Lastly desk jobs of Group Flight Safety Officer 38 Group, RAF Staff College Bracknell and finally Royal Navy Staff College Greenwich before electing for retirement..

In question time, the speaker had not ‘done a Gary Powers’ flying over Russia but did photograph Northern Ireland during ‘the Troubles’ using infra red to find arms dumps, Baltic traffic and the Belize, Cuban, Bahamas region. He retired from service before electronic digital imaging and most surveillance was now by satellite and drones. Vote of thanks was given by Steve Battersby.