Interview with a Blackburn Beverley Pilot (My Uncle)
It has recently been announced that the last surviving complete example of the Blackburn B-101 Beverley is to be saved! Beverley C1 XB259 had been at risk of being scrapped for several years now, since its previous long-term home at Fort Paull closed its doors on January 2020. Thankfully, the last Beverley is now destined to be displayed at the Solway Aviation Museum.
As you will read in the interview below, the Beverley holds an important place in my Family’s history. My Uncle, John, piloted Beverleys with RAF 84 Squadron from 1965 - 1967. The last surviving Beverley currently wears a near-identical desert camouflage to the ones flown by John in the late 60s.
To all involved in rescuing this irreplaceable piece of our history, thank you!
Tom: So you flew Beverleys!
John: I did.
Tom: How long were you flying them?
John: I was on 84 Squadron. It was based in South Yemen, in a place called Aden (RAF Khormaksar) from 1965 until 1967.
Tom: What did you think of the aircraft?
John: Well, you have to remember that all pilots have a sort of fond memory of the aircraft that they flew, because we’re still alive. So that aircraft saved me from being dead. That’s a funny way to look at it, but it was a tremendous aeroplane in terms of what it could do. And no other aeroplane could do what it could do. It could carry an enormous load in the back end of it. It could be adapted for so many different roles. It could drop paratroops. It could drop heavy loads.
Tom: And it could drop them out the back whilst airbourne?
John: Yes, because what it had out the back end, and you can’t see it from that photograph, is what they call clam-shell doors. You could take them off, and fly it without them. And that meant the back end was completely open, and what we used to do was to have big loads of parachutes attatched to them, on roller conveyor from the front end to the back end, and the first parachute would deploy by being pulled out by a small parachute, then a big parachute would pull out. And then it would pull the load out of the back of the aeroplane, and it would descend. Some of the loads could be 3 or 4 tonnes.
Tom: And do still recognise this aircraft?
John: Yes! I would have flown that aeroplane. While I can’t remember the exact day, it is highly likely I was in that aeroplane at the time. At that point I was not a Captain, I was a Co-Pilot. I didn’t become a Captain until I flew Andovers. You can see a Scorpion on the front there, and that was the logo of 84 Squadron.
Tom: What other aircraft did you fly in your time in the RAF?
John: I started on a thing called a Jet Provost which was a single engine training aircraft. And then I went to fly a Vickers Varsity, which was a twin-engined aircraft, and that was at what they called Advanced Flying Training School. From there, I went on to fly the Beverley. When I finished that, I did a ground tour. Then I came back and flew the Hawker Siddely Andover. After that I flew a Devon, which is basically a de Havilland Dove. So those are the aeroplanes I flew.
“All pilots have a sort of fond memory of the aircraft that they flew, because we’re still alive. So that aircraft saved me from being dead.”
Tom: And what would you say was the most memorable of them all?
John: Oh definitely the Beverley! We were based in Aden. One time, we flew from Aden down to Nairobi, and we lost an engine mid-flight. The engine malfunctioned, but you could fly on 3 very easily.
Tom: So you had to feather the props on that engine?
John: Yeah! We landed and got a new engine put in. We were planning to drop a mobile radio station by parachute in a place called Francistown, because the runway was being repaired. But by the time we got there, they’d finished the runway, so we could land, so it was a bit of a waste of time.
Tom: What do you remember about this particular aircraft?
John: Well the thing you can see there is that those are mountains, and that aircraft is way up at about 6000 -7000 ft above sea-level. Aircraft don’t perform quite as well the higher up they go, and that would have been a very short runway. In order to stop on that runway, we had to land as close to the start of the runway as we could, put all the engines into reverse thrust, and stop by blowing the air forwards, which created an enormous dust storm. We then had to stay there, and wait until the dust settled before we could see whether we were still where we thought we were, and then taxi in. That photo would be a take off.
