Seated by the open hatchway of an Auster Mk 7 taking in the drone of
the plane's single engine and staring fascinated at the coastlines of
Lantau Island and Castle Peak shrinking away beneath my elbow as we
continued what seemed an interminably long climb, my awestruck
reverie was interrupted by the pilot's voice crackling over the intercom.
"Harness tight?"
"Affirmative." This being a trial flight to ascertain my suitability for parttime
aircrew duty, my imperative was to remain calm, collected and
sound as confident as I could manage. That question was a clue. I
braced myself. Then the intercom crackled again and over the roar of the
engine with the doors removed in Hong Kong's summer heat and
humidity and a less than perfect connection of the pilot's throatmicrophone
or my cloth helmet's earphone, I was able to make out only
intermittent words: "Now going to nose-up a bit....(crackle) throttleback....
into....(crackle).... stall....before...(crackle).."
Now somewhat more alarmed, I hastily recalled from test-flying model
aircraft that a stall was a BAD thing, a situation to be avoided, except at
the very point of landing, when almost on safe ground. I steeled myself
and tried to stay sharp, thinking 'Whatever happens, DON'T VOMIT!' As
I should have remembered from glide-testing model airplanes, what
followed was a classic induced stall and perfect recovery, as the
increasing nose-up attitude gave way to the (almost) sickening lurch as
we were suddenly pitched down, pointing almost vertically at the sea with
both airspeed (and, importantly, lift) then picking up dramatically, before
Flying Officer Allan Tai of the Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force pulled
the stick back. He then gunned the engine as he banked the plane over
for a more graceful return to straight and level flight. I then realized that
the long steady climb after takeoff had been performed to gain the height
needed to execute that manoeuvre safely.... The outcome was that I
was told "Okay - you'll do...." This was my introduction to part-time
aircrew duty flying over Hong Kong's mix of high-rise urban sprawl, water
and sharply hilly terrain.
When I began my Government service in the territory in 1965 it was
customary to join one of the part-time emergency services. My first
posting being at Police Headquarters I was press-ganged into signing-up
with the Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Police Force (RHKAPF) Marine
Division, with our auxiliary crews relieving the regular police crews on
harbour and inter-island patrol launches. When I later heard of a much
smaller and more specialized unit, the RHKAPF Air Observer Squadron,
I jumped at the chance to transfer across. The AOS's task (mostly in
RHKAAF 'Alouette' helicopters) was that of air-spotting and liaison with
police units on the ground and sea, and this function called for an
increase in part-time on-duty hours during the events of 1966 and the
Disturbances of the following year, when the AOS' 'eyes in the sky',
paired with effective radio communication, served an intelligence and
monitoring function for the police units tasked with riot-control. A practical
advantage of the aerial platform was that estimating the number of
people in a large crowd was more accurate when looking down at the
'head-count' as opposed to the tendency to overestimate when
confronted at ground-level with a crowd in motion.
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