Postscript
Tally hopeless
Patrick Marnham
No sooner does one invite the RAF to carry out low flying above one's residence, on the grounds that they are ob- viously very good at it, than there comes the story of the Phantom jet and the sidewinder missile.
To recapitulate, an RAF Phantom jet on a training exercise over West Germany met an RAF Jaguar strike aircraft. The crew of the Phantom decided to aim a dummY sidewinder missile at the Jaguar. Unfor- tunately the missile was a real one. The Phantom crew launched it and watched it proceed briskly towards the Jaguar. At some time during this interval the navigator of the Phantom is reported to have said, `Tally ho!' The sidewinder then hit the Jaguar, the plane exploded and its pilot, realising that something was up, ejected and parachuted safely to the ground. Giving evidence at the subsequent court martial the pilot of the Jaguar said that he could not remember much about the inci- dent, understandably one might suppose, until he added that his loss of memory was due to the celebrations which had taken place in the bar when he met the crew of the Phantom jet that evening. It is this detail about the celebrations which gives the game away. Before that it was possible to believe that this was an un- typically disastrous day in the lives of highly
trained professionals. So what if there was no red tape on the Phantom's master arms switch because RAF Wildenrath had run out of red tape? So what if the pilot and navigator had not realised that they were carrying live missiles? So what if the safety Pins had been removed from the Phantom because they were so big that they made the plane dangerous to fly? So what if the navigator's additional safety switch did not work, and that subsequent tests showed
that it could be accidentally joggled by his knees. They don't normally behave like that You know. What, then was the Jaguar pilot, celebrating?
His aircraft cost £7 million and was now scattered across rural West Germany, no doubt bringing back glorious memories of 1943 to the veteran ack ack men of the Third Reich. Not much to celebrate there.
He himself had failed to evade a hostile at- tack. Not only had he lost the plane, he had lost the eight live missiles which had been attached to it (again unknown to the pilot). And although he had survived the event more or less unharmed this was not a matter for unrestrained celebration, because live sidewinder missiles are supposed to kill peo- ple. Regarded from the technician's angle the Jaguar pilot's survival was the culminating incompetence. Have another, old boy. The only genuine comfort for all concerned is that reports of the court mar- tial appeared while Mrs Thatcher was in the Falklands. Had she read about it, it might
have reduced her to the level of bumbling Indecision which characterises the rest of Public life.
For a politician to persist in the Falklands affair with the admirable determination shown by Mrs Thatcher it is necessary for her to have complete fantasies about life in the armed forces. She must not know that the RAF runs out of red tape. It is quite ob- vious that Mrs Thatcher has the most delicious fantasies of this sort. You have
Only to see her being photographed beside a Plane or a tank to understand this. While Denis leans forward in a pathetic simulation of interest she throws herself quite naturally into the sort of pose adopted by models at the motor show. Her eyes light up, her skin Vows, a happy, happy smile crosses her !ace. Just before setting out for the Falklands she was pictured in the cock- Pit of a Sea Harrier and she was quite Clearly murmuring 'Tally ho!' Beside her stood the chief test pilot looking not so much worried as desperate. But he probably knew rather too much about the knobs inside the cockpit and the position of her knees.
When you drive out of Wales the last Words of Welsh you see are 'Arafwch Nawr', (reduce speed now). The jagged Welsh consonants loom out of the mist just before you hit the roundabout at the end of the motorway. In 'Arafwch' the 'w' is pro- nounced somewhere between a '11' and an „,
The chief test pilot was not saying `Tally ho'. He was saying 'Arafwch'. It Slang.
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