To break the rules or not to break the rules? That is the question. Brian believes there can be times when it IS safer to break the rules than obey them
Brian Lecomber
1 August 2024
The room is small, dusty and airless in spite of an open window. I lean on the sill and watch the stream of aeroplanes departing at the end of the airshow.
All aerodromes seem to have the odd room like this tucked away somewhere. It’s as if they crept into the utilititarian architecture by mistake and thereafter nobody could quite work out what to do with them. Too big for a broom-cupboard, too small for even the most menial crew-room. Hotels can suffer from the same thing. They even have a name for these anomalies – they call them ha-ha rooms.
And I know perfectly well why I have been oh-so-politely invited to this ha-ha room. On this day this room has suddenly been deputised as a cell where a wrong-doer might confess his sins and weep for absolution.
Well. See how far that gets you…
The door opens and Ray walks in, carrying a file. I have known Ray for two decades. He is one of the handful of Air Display Flying Directors who seriously know exactly what they are doing and are respected accordingly.
Ray’s airshows do NOT go wrong. A Ray-organised show runs like a Swiss watch, with all the timing clicking-in and never a person over-stressed. Well, nearly never, anyway.
No display pilot would ever wish to fall out with Ray. And in 20 years I never have. I like to think we are personal friends.
He plonks his file on the table and himself on a chair.
“Brian, what happened today? You threw away the rules. You, of all people.”
I slide onto the opposite chair, seething. “Oh, I threw away the rules, did I? OK, Ray, tell me just what precious display rule I broke?”
He waves a hand. “I’d have to check the paragraph – but don’t piss about. You know perfectly well. Three minutes into your display you called, ‘Firebird, Bravo, go,’ – and for the rest of the display we had no communication with you. Zero. We never heard from you again until you were both on final to land and condescended to say so on Display frequency. I’ve got the SATCO on my back, the Flying Control Committee on my back, and of course you had to pick the day when the head of the CAA General Aviation Division himself was monitoring the show. And as if that wasn’t enough, he’d brought along a big noise in the CAA Legal Division as a personal guest. You know you bust the rules. C’mon.”
“OK Ray – and what rule did your lot bust?”
“My lot? Whatya mean, my lot?”
“To quote your goodself of a moment ago, I’d have to check the paragraph. But your display rules state that a performer starts up and taxies out on Ground frequency, gets to the holding point, waits there until told to switch to Display frequency, and is then cleared on Display frequency to take-off and display. Right?”
“Of course right. But…”
“Wait a moment.” I take time to dig out my pipe, light it, blow smoke towards the No Smoking sign on the wall, then point it at Ray like a pistol.
“Implicit in that – ” I blow smoke again, “ – is that the Display frequency is a quiet frequency, to be used only by aircraft actually on display. No approach info, no taxi clearances, nothing. Again, I’d have to check the paragraph, but it’s supposed to be a protected frequency. Right?”
“Of course. Bu…”
“Ray, listen. Two manoeuvres into our display your ‘quiet’ Display frequency erupted into a non-stop babble of talk about car-parking, fencing, who knows what else. I pressed transmit and yelled “SHUT THE F*** UP!” but it made no difference. So I waited for a slight gap and called to Number Two ‘Bravo, go’ – and we hit the buttons and went to our private radio frequency. Problem solved.”
“But… Brian, I’ve just come from listening to the ATC tape-recording. I’ve got the transcript here.” He taps his file. “And there’s no sign of any frequency breakthrough. It picked up your ‘SHUT THE F*** UP’ loud and clear, which I thought was rather elegantly put, but there was nothing else…”
“Balls, Ray! D’you think I did that for fun? Of course there was a frequency breakthrough. Bloody well go and find out what happened, fer Chrissake. I’ll be in the bar…”
I stand up and stalk out. Ray later told me I had smoke coming out of my ears as well as my pipe.
Ray found me in the bar an hour later.
“Brian, you’ll be glad to know you were right. There was a transmission breakthrough on the frequency. Turns out…”
“Ray, I know I was bloody right. And hang on a minute while I fetch Number Two. He’ll want to hear this.”
“We’re on that table over there. I’m getting the drinks.”
The ‘we’ turns out to be Ray, the Senior Air Traffic guy, the Flying Control Committee guy, the CAA head honcho and the only one I’ve not met before, the legal beagle.
“Brian,” says Ray, “you know we have maybe 70 handheld radios out there for marshallers, parking people, gate people, security – you name it.”
“Sure I do. But they don’t operate anywhere near air-band frequencies.”
“Of course not. But some of our people have air-band handheld transceivers as well. Particularly the airside marshallers. So they can stay a bit ahead of the aircraft requirements.”
“And?”
“And… well, truth is, one of the guys screwed up. He picked his air-band off his belt instead of the walkie-talkie and spoke into it for about two minutes before he realised what he’d done. He stopped immediately – but of course you’d disappeared into the ether by then.”
“So how come your ATC tape didn’t pick him up?”
“Ah…” SATCO looks embarrassed. “His position was out of line-of-sight with the Tower aerials, and of course a handheld’s low-powered. You’d have heard him airborne, but…”
Beside me Number Two, John Taylor, stirs. Being 6ft 6in, muscular for his size and having a face of granite when he feels like it, John does not have to stir very much to create a certain… shall we say, presence.
“Yes, well…” SATCO looks a trifle ruffled. “Fact is, we’re not wholly convinced that’s all there is to it, either. We’ve impounded the handheld and we’ll have the radio experts in tomorrow…”
There is a short silence, during which I for one brood. The blunt fact is that an incident like this might have been a staff mistake – probably was – but could have been more. With handheld air-band transceivers on sale in every knicker-elastic shop in the kingdom, anyone can walk in and buy the means to disrupt an airshow.
Or do something very much worse. I know it and everyone around the table knows it. It is not talked-about. To quote the Harry Potter books, it is the he-who-cannot-be-named threat. We all know it’s lurking out there…
SATCO coughs gently. “Brian, you then switched to a private frequency with a coded radio call; ‘Bravo’.”
“Yes.”
“You could have switched back to our Ground or Approach frequencies, yes? Then at least we could have heard you.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Er…?”
“One – if your Display frequency was contaminated, then so might be your others. And in any case they wouldn’t be quiet. Two – I had the other frequencies, but they were on my kneepad. We were in the middle of a formation aerobatic display.”
I glance at John. “Two, would you have appreciated it if I’d glanced down at my knee during a down-vertical and then read a new frequency to you?”
John swivels his eyes slowly around the group. After a moment he says with formidable restraint; “Not entirely, Boss. No, I wouldn’t have liked that.”
I nod. “Three – on our radios Bravo is permanently selected on the last pre-select button. So all we do is hit the last button and we’re there.”
SATCO looks uncomfortable, but says, “Look – I take that on board. But you were flying at our airshow, to our rules. And we lost you for seven minutes. If you had an emergency frequency, shouldn’t you have briefed us about it beforehand?”
Number Two growls, “No f***ing way!”
There are times when John’s tact and diplomacy bone could do with a bit of a polish. I on the other hand can be suave and diplomatic. So I make a point of smiling sweetly as I reply.
“No f***ing way,” I say. “Sir.”
“Why?”
“Because then it’s not secret any more. You might switch to it – and bring your disease with you. We like to be more secure than that.”
SATCO seems to swallow something sour. Flying Control Committee twitches a corner of his mouth. CAA head honcho (in fact a very practical guy) coughs gently.
“Look, you’re aware that one reason for the regulation is in case ATC have another emergency – someone needing to land in a hurry for example, which you know nothing about – so they can immediately break you off and give priority to the emergency. But now they can’t talk to you…”
“Well, they couldn’t if we’d had a complete radio failure, either. Or if they’d had one. They’d have given me a red from the Tower”.
“A red light. And would you have seen it? In the heat of a display?”
OK, fair question. I teeter my hand.
“I think so. I hope so. I had a slightly extra eye on the Tower. If they’d fired a red Verey flare as well I’d almost certainly have seen that.”
CAA Honcho glances at SATCO. “Do you still have a Verey pistol in your Tower?”
SATCO takes his turn to cough, then consults his gin and tonic.
Legal speaks for the first time. He has a deep and soothing voice, obviously in practice for becoming King Solomon.
“Gentlemen. This is a rare case. It is clear that Mr Lecomber broke your display regulations. It is equally clear that he did so quite deliberately, and so was in legal breach of his contract with you, not to mention the overall rules governing display flying. Yet in my view any court in the land would support his decision, and the Civil Aviation Authority, for one, would never consider a prosecution. He was correct in breaking the rules.”
There is silence for a long moment. Then SATCO stands up.
“My round…”
