British engineer who ACCIDENTALLY TOOK OFF in a fighter jet: Taffy Holden's Lightning Flight

[Applause] the incredible story of this sweet and charming old man is well known to almost every pilot in the royal air force this is wing commander walter taffy holden a former commanding officer of the search desert maintenance unit at raf lineup kathy holden remarkably went down in the history of the royal air force as an engineer who accidentally took off in a jet fighter [Music] i'm sure most of us if not all of us have dreamed of becoming a pilot at least once in our lives we dream of jumping into the cockpit of a jet fighter and then swiftly soaring into the sky leaving the ground behind for some of us that will remain a child's dream while others will go through rigorous selection then years of hard study and gruel and training so they can finally fulfill their dream and take off in a jet fighter but daffy holden got that opportunity without even wanting it in 1966 without being a pilot by mere accidental mistake taffy flew in the fastest british fighter jet ever this is one of those cases where the described events sound so incredible even by the standards of fictional stories but the thing is that they all truly happened to better understand the extent of the events first let me say a few words about the 60s and the fighter jet itself the 1960s were perhaps one of the most intense years of the entire cold war period no sooner had the berlin crisis ended rising the tensions between the soviet union and the usa to the extremely dangerous limit then the world again found itself on the brink of world war 3 now with the discovery of soviet missiles in cuba fortunately for both sides nuclear war was avoided but the very possibility of such a war between the ussr and the western countries did not completely disappear in the strategic plan of the possible future war one of the most important roles belonged to the british royal air force in particular to the so-called v-force a fleet of strategic bombers with names beginning with the letter we valiant victor and balkan at the right moment the bombers were set to take off from their airfields and unleash their devastating nuclear power on soviet military targets this is the destructive power we pray god we will never be called upon to hurl at any nation but this plan had one vulnerable point the location of the military airfields were well known so there was a high risk that the soviets would simply destroy british airfields along with the planes on the ground in the first minutes of the war because of the geographical proximity the soviet planes once detected would only be a few minutes away from great britain and after the soviet union began to develop new supersonic bombers there would be a risk that even this time would be reduced to a critical minimum and the existing british area defenses would not be able to intercept enemy planes in such a short period of time two possible solutions to this problem were interceptor aircrafts and surface-to-air missile systems but the problem was that in the early 50s the existing fighters did not have the necessary speed particularly the time they required to take off and climb to intercept the target was very long and anti-aircraft missiles in the return had a relatively short interception range the british solution to the problem was in a way two-in-one want to fly a lightning and take your own thunder with you the english electric lightning the pride of british military aviation and one of the most outstanding and unique aircrafts in the history of aviation the fighters stood out due to its quite unusual design like the two vertically staggered engines overland fuel tanks as well as the unique fitment of two air-to-air missiles on the sides of the forward fuselage but first of all the fighter attracted the tension because of its impressive flight characteristics most notably its exceptional rate of climb ceiling and maximum speed making the first flight in 1954 the plane turned out to be unbelievably fast the lightning became the first plane in history that could go supersonic in level flight without using an afterburner something in fact so rare that it wasn't until september 1989 when the experimental f-14 tomcat was a special engine demonstrated supersonic cruise for the first time british pilots admired the lightning's trademark tails and maneuver when you could climb almost vertically the experience that pilots described as being settled to a skyrocket the airmen joked that the lightning needed its wings only so you have something you could attach the landing lights to lightning's top speed exceeded the speed of sound twice over a number that is still quite impressive even compared to modern 5th generation fighters in addition to speed the plane had a phenomenal rate of climb it took the lightning only 150 seconds after releasing the brakes on the ground to reach an altitude of more than 12 kilometers although long removed from service the lightning's maximum ceiling has never been released officially among other things the lightning was equipped with the most up-to-date and advanced weapon systems and avionics compared to all previous british planes the fighter was so advanced that it was even said about the lightning that never before had a fighter been so dependent upon electronics but unfortunately like with all new technologies reliability was not among its best qualities it was exactly because of the electronics issues that one of the lightning's tail number xm 135 had been with the surgesort maintenance unit at raf linum for a long time already for the unit's commander walter daffy holden and this particular lightning became a real headache the power supply to flight instruments in the cockpit had been constantly cutting out so the standby system had to switch in which obviously wasn't great to have in supersonic fighter but the problem was that this issue would only occur during the takeoff run however while the plane was parked on the ground power supply would seem to work without any issues it had been several weeks already since holden and his electricians began trying to find the cause of the problem but every time they think that they have fixed the issue the test pilots would again report the power supply problems during takeoff on top of that taffy holding was under constant pressure from his superiors the main task of the 33rd maintenance unit that taffy holden was in command of was to prepare military planes like cambers meteors and lightnings before dispatching them to various flying units but at that moment the search desert unit was supposed to win down after disposing of its last aircraft tefe's unit consisted of some civilian contractors that had to be laid off and the rogue fighter which had been upset in the timetable of clearance at the time added quite an irritation to both holden's staff and his superiors taffy's unit successfully cleared and sent all the remaining fighters and bombers to the air force units and only exam 135 stubbornly refused to get in service to establish the cause of the electrical issue teff holding decided to conduct some ground tests that would simulate a takeoff but there was a problem unlike other planes due to the technical complexity of the lightning a qualified pilot had to always be present in the fighter's cockpit during ground tests normally at tapi holden's request the air force would send him a qualified lightning pilot within 24 hours but this time he was told that a pilot wasn't available for at least another week big pressure from his superiors the long wait for a qualified pilot taffy holden was in a tight spot but one day in a conversation one of the test pilots at the air base suggested why doesn't holden do the tests himself isn't he a pilot too although taffy holden was an raf engineer officer technically he was indeed a pilot too in 1943 while studying to become an aircraft engineer the royal air force offered holding the opportunity to go through basic pilot training it was believed that an engineering officer was a pilot qualification could see the pilot's point of view in aircraft maintenance matters with more ease taffy agreed and after taking a short course of flight training received his pilot's wings but holden had never piloted a jet plane his training took place in an old tiger mode by plane which had a top speed of 175 kilometers per hour sure holden also had some experience of flying in faster planes like the trainer the hebel and canada chipmunk which could reach 222 kilometers per hour but even that was absolutely nothing compared to the top speed of almost two and a half thousand kilometers per hour that the lightning could reach but daffy holding on the other hand was not actually required to fly in the lightning to conduct the task he would take the pilot seat in the cockpit and then put the engines into the takeoff mode release the brakes make a short run of no more than 50 meters and then press the brakes again and shut down the engines such a task would simulate the first seconds of the takeoff so techy holden hoped it would help determine the cause of the repeatedly accurate malfunction on paper everything looked doable and on july 22nd 1966 after receiving permission for the test taffy holding took the place in the cockpit of the lightning exam 135. since traffic holden had no idea how to operate the lightning not only flying but even how to start its engines he asked one of his technicians to give him brief instructions on the engine's basic controls and taffy was sorely making notes on everything he had heard during the test holden was supposed to push the throttles up to 90 of the power and as he later recalled it was by way of extraordinary good fortune that his technician also mentioned that if he pushes the throttles further ahead he will reach the so-called reheat gate and throttles would then get locked in that position without going too deep into technical details reheat or as it is sometimes called afterburner is a jet engine operating mode used to temporarily increase the thrust most often reheat is used for accelerated takeoff and rapid climb as some fighter pilots like to say when taking off with reheat the aircraft's acceleration is so powerful that you feel like a bullet being fired from a gun to disengage reheat on the lightning one had to feel for the gate keys behind the throttle and unlock them but since you're not going to take off you don't need to remember this joke the technician luckily holden wrote it down anyways soon the lightning was towed to one of the auto use runways and everything seemed to be ready for ground tests to connect some temporary wires that were required to run the test the cockpit canopy was completely removed from the plane for communication with the air traffic control which was supposed to give clearance for each run they were using a land rover with the radio station which was parked next to the plane after getting the first permission the officer and the robber gave tefe a signal and he gradually pushed the throttle still holding the brakes then holding cautiously released the brakes the initial punch from the thrust was quite remarkable as taffy then recalled the plane rolled down for about 40 meters then holden throttled back and applied the brakes well so far so good tefi said to himself after the plane came to stop the second round went just as smoothly as the first one and taffy was about to do the third and final run to the aero traffic control tower everything seemed fairly calm and routine as well and since taffy's first short runs didn't raise any concerns of danger the tower even decided to allow the crossing of the runway to the bowser with three thousand and six hundred gallons of jet fuel in the meantime tepi saw another hand signal from the officer in the rover and pushed the engine throttles once again but this time he mistakenly pushed them a bit too far and all of a sudden they got locked into reheat in the blink of an eye while sitting in the lightning's cockpit taffy became the bullet being fired from a gun two powerful rolls-royce engines in reheat mode began rapidly accelerating the lightning with daffy holding in the cockpit taffy tried to move the throttles back but they already got locked in before holden even had a moment to think about how to get out of reheat all his thoughts were concentrated on the fuel bowser that was crossing the runway in front of him from right to left in that moment nothing really depended on him yet since he couldn't steer the bullet on the ground at such speed by some miracle he avoided the collision by a tiny margin as staff later wrote the time between finding myself in reheat and just missing the bowser was less than half the time i have taken to write this sentence but the very next moment he had evaded the bowser he's always order a comment from the raf transfer command that was taken off on the main video runway which daffy was about to cross in a fraction of seconds fortunately he missed the collision again in just a few seconds taffy was already on the verge of death twice but his problems didn't end there the same could not be said for the runway which was coming to an end and very quickly by that time the plane had already gained quite high speed and taffy understood that there was no chance of stopping it on the runway considering that right at the end of the runway there was a small village called braedenstock taffy holden made the only red decision to avoid casualties he pulled the stick and the lightning sword into the sky once airborne teffy managed to get his thoughts together and finally turned off the reheat the first thing he did in the air was search for the comet he had missed a few seconds earlier on the ground after looking around and not finding it in the sky taffy was now at least trying not to lose the sight of his airfield considering lightning's high speed even in normal horizontal flight it wasn't as easy of task as it might seem at first he then began circling over the airfield but with each passing second taffy holden became more and more aware of the terror of this irrigation in which he had all of a sudden found himself in he was in the cockpit of one of the most fastest and most complex fighters of its time and by the way he was in the cockpit without a canopy which had been removed for the test since on the ground they were using only hand signals for communication holden didn't even have a flight helmet which also meant that he had no radio communication with the airfield taffy could not eject because the ejection seat had the ground locks in to make it safe for ground servicing taffy holden understood that he couldn't expect help to come from anywhere and that his life now depended entirely on himself the reality was that the one and only way out of this irrigation was to land the plane it's worth mentioning here that due to the large wing sweep angle lightning's landing speed was quite high which made landing difficult even for duty pilots to let along ground crewmen but daffy holding had no other choice left and after making several circles over the airfield he began his first attempt to land the first two approaches were quite unsuccessful because taffy could not correctly adjust the speed and altitude at some point on the second approach he even found himself below the runway level after descending into a valley before the airfield he miraculously avoided a crash but the plane failed to land again the third approach was more successful the plane finally touched the ground and ran down the airstrip normally jet fighters use a break-in parachute to slow down the plane after landing taffy managed to find the right lever and pull it but the plane for some reason was not slowing down as he expected it to so teffy then pressed the brakes as hard as he could the thing is that unlike the early planes that use a tail wheel the lightning was a nose wheel aircraft so when landing the lightning using the same technique he was taught to land the old tiger mod he slightly hit the ground with a tail bumper taffy didn't even notice that but the hit was enough to break the rubber case with the parachute cables so when taffy pulled the lever the braking parachute simply dropped out on the ground without any effect even after the landing when it would seem that the hardest part was already over teffy was again on the verge of his death fortunately for him even though he burned out the brakes of the plane he managed to stop it eventually there was just about 100 meters left to the end of the runway the whole flight from takeoff to landing lasted for only 12 minutes during which taffy could have said goodbye to his life at least five times after landing the lightning was towed away to the hangar and taffy was sent to the doctor where he immediately received some sedatives a little later teffy was also given the robber parachute block from his plane which has since been kept for years as a family relic after a while holden was called to the air ministry given the circumstances he had already said goodbye to his military career so he did not expect anything good when he stood in front of air marshal sir kenneth porter the marshal began menacingly with the limited flying experience that you had would it have been better to leave the ground test to an experienced lightning test pilot yes indeed agreed taffy good very good said to marshall well then take off your hat and take a seat i'd like to tell you a story about my unfortunate flying incident in mesopotamia in the middle east after the investigation regarding the incident had ended holden was not priced with any charges the consequence of the incident was only a slightly damaged aircraft and technically holden was not acting against any current regulations in the flight order book but after that the regulations of course have been amended to avoid such incidents in future tefi holden remained in his service but he was absolutely not prepared for the fame that suddenly fell upon him since the airbase had many civilian contractors it was impossible to keep the incident a secret and soon the inaudible flight at raf lanum became the frontline news in europe jeffrey recalled that even on vacation in italy where he had been urgently sent away to hide from the public he was immediately recognized by one of the hotel guests despite multiple offers for interviews holden tried to avoid any publicity he refused all the offers except the one from sunday express but only on the condition that instead of paying him the newspaper will contribute to the charity fund of the royal air force which taffy holden remained was until his retirement at the beginning of the 80s the lightning fighter with the tail number xm 135 in which taffy made his accidental flight in 1966 got fixed and remained on duty until 1974 when the plane was transferred to the imperial war museum duxford where you can find it on display even today in 2013 to the great surprise of visitors who were listening to the museum tour guide and his story about the incredible flight of taffy holden it suddenly turned out that the old man who silently stood with them in the crowd appeared to be the famous taffy holding himself a good sense of humor remained with staffy even in his old age could you find the ladder [Laughter] holden passed away in 2016 at the age of 90. although in a somewhat original way taffy for rages went down in the history of the royal air force as an engineer who accidentally took off in a jet fighter and that's the story if you like aviation and stories like this watch my video about the incredible story of douglas runway corrigan the only pilot to fly across the ocean by mere mistake that's all for now thanks for watching and see you in the next video goodbye

Channel: Paper Skies

Views: 1,524,629

Keywords: aviation, history, aviation history, paper skies, history of aviation, lightning, english electric lightning, taffy holden lightning, taff holden, RAF history, lightning pilot, bac lightning, fighter jets, fighter jet

Id: MzlnMRwnzdw

Length: 18min 40sec (1120 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 26 2021