I have a long-standing and highly respected friend called Tom. Our friendship goes back over twenty years. We served together in the Air Wing in Oman. Tom’s son Charlie is my Godson.
WE KEEP IN TOUCH on a regular basis and normally see each other at least once a year. Tom’s heroism in Northern Ireland earned him the award of a Military Cross when he carried out a helicopter rescue of a wounded sergeant, under concentrated sniper fire.
The helicopter was hit several times, but Tom managed to get the sergeant to hospital, where the surgeons were able to save his life. If you talk to Tom about the incident, he will tell you that the most scary thing about the whole trip was trying to avoid the numerous power lines which crisscrossed his approach to the place where the wounded sergeant lay.
The Air Wing was like that. We tended to form lasting friendships and those friendships have survived the changing circumstances of our lives.
Tom has one particularly endearing characteristic. He stutters. “M’s” and “B’s” can actually cause him to block up completely, if they catch him at the wrong moment. He sometimes even had trouble on the radio.
“Seeb Tower, this is Alpha Four Oscar M-m-m…….Bb-
baaaaa……”
“Morning Tom,” would come back from the controller, who knew Tom well and appreciated his problem.
It seemed unfair but inevitable that the helicopter which Tom normally flew should be registered Alpha Four Oscar Mike Bravo!
One day it wasn’t so much the stutter which caused the problem, it was the radio itself. I was flying back from Fahud to Seeb when I heard it.
A long hissing sound came over the air followed by a pause and then another long hissing sound. This was repeated several times and it became obvious that someone was trying to get through to Air Traffic Control, but they were only transmitting a carrier wave. There was no modulation and therefore no words could be heard. I decided to see if I could help.
“Aircraft transmitting on 119.7 you have no modulation.
You are transmitting carrier wave only.”
‘I decided to see if I could help’
“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh”
“Still nothing.”
So, if I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I can hear that he’s trying to transmit, how can we communicate?…..Morse Code?
My Morse was never very good even at the best of times and that was years ago, but there seemed to be no other alternative so I supposed we had better give it a try.
“Listen,” I said.” If you are reading my transmissions clearly, can you give me a couple of “Daa’s”? Just press your transmit button for a couple of seconds, twice.”
“Shhhh…..Shhhh” came back over the ether.
“O.K.” I replied, “This is obviously going to take some time, so let’s try changing frequency to 123.45.
I’ll give you a call and if you read me, give me two “Daas”.
“Shhh…..Shhh” came back on the new frequency.
“Right!” I said, “Let’s play Morse code. If I get the right letter, you give me two “Daas”. If I get the wrong one, you give me a series of “Dits.”
“Shhh…Shhh”
“What’s your registration?”
“Sh…Shhh”
“Is that an Alpha?”
“Shhh…Shhh”
“Great, So you are Alpha Four Oscar something. Correct?”
“Shhh…Shhh”
And so it went on, my creaking command of the Morse code eventually establishing the fact that the other guy was in an Air Wing helicopter going to Muscat with a Medical Evacuation.
I finally got the message through to Air Traffic Control about ten minutes before he landed!
Over drinks that evening I couldn’t resist the temptation of suggesting to Tom that he could try Morse Code in the mornings when he first contacted the controller.
“I don’t need to,” he replied, laughing. “The controllers
know m-m-m-my voice even better than the call-sign!”
