Page 6 - Alan John Leslie Ridge

On the 18 September Jack and his fellow training pilots were detached to RAF Scampton,
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Lincolnshire to undertake additional blind landing training with No. 1518 Beam Approach Training
Flight that was stationed here. It should be noted that this unit was part of No.1 Groups training
units so it is possible that the RAF had pre allocated Jack (and possibly that entire pilot intake) to
one of No.1 Groups operational Main Force squadrons if he successfully passed out as a qualified
pilot on four engine types. This beam approach training was the predecessor to the present day
ILS (Instrument Landing System) where Jack would have to approach Scampton (or the nearby
satellite airfield of Ingham, one mile north of Scampton) and practise landing the Airspeed Oxford.
In simplified terms a transmitter created a pair of audible aerial highways, which crossed over an
aerodrome and divided the area into four distinct quadrants for about 30 or 40 miles. One leg of
the beam was lined up with the main runway so that a homing aircraft within the confines of its
on - course signal could be brought in directly upon the line of the runway.

By learning to ‘fly the beam’ it was possible to identify the specific quadrant an aircraft was in and
additional ancillary features of tones in the pilot's headphones at inner markers allowed a pilot to
make a blind landing even without visibility if there as fog or mist or very low cloud. Naturally this
was quite dangerous but at least in extreme conditions it was possible to even fly the aircraft right
onto the runway blind.

When weather conditions didn't cooperate in the training regimen the pilot was ‘put under the
hood’, a black canvas affair, which essentially simulated reduced visibility. Sometimes the
instructors could literally talk the pilot right to touch down while they were so blinded.

The Beam was a remarkable lifesaving piece of technology and it is fascinating to try to imagine its
use. BAT Courses allowed pilots to learn, develop confidence and trust in the system.
Jack on passing this aspect of his training left Scampton and returned to Banff to continue with his
flying training, and having successfully completed this was on 14 March 1943 posted to RAF
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Hixon, Staffordshire to crew up and undertake conversion to the two engine Bomber, in this case
the Vickers Wellington medium Bomber of No. 30 Operational training Unit.
Here all the new aircrew’s posted to RAF Hixon would be gathered into a hangar and told to sort
themselves out into crews. This was the standard way that the RAF built up its aircrew, perhaps
the only time in the airman’s service where he was allowed to make his own choice. On the whole
the system worked well. The only aircrew member missing from the crew line up was the flight
engineer, he would join the crew at the Heavy Conversion Unit when the crew passed this O.T.U.
conversion training on the four engine Heavies used by Main Force operational squadrons.
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The crew on the 30 May having now completed their operational training were posted onto RAF
Lindholme in South Yorkshire, seven miles south of Doncaster. Lindholme (11 Base) was the
Base station for No.1 Groups Heavy Conversion Units.
At this point the service record shows Jack being split up from his crew and returning to the United
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States to No. 6 B.F.T.S via 31 Personnel Despatch unit on the 21 April.

This posting most certainly saved his life as the chances of completing a 30 operational tour within
Bomber Command were virtually none existent at this time. By November 1943 Bomber
Command would attempt to destroy Berlin (the Big City), it did not succeed and in the process
Bomber Command lost the equivalent of its front line strength. The RAF losing 1,047 bombers,
with a further 1,682 damaged, and well over 7,000 aircrew, culminating in the raid on Nuremberg
on 30 March 1944, when 94 bombers were shot down and 71 were damaged, out of 795 aircraft.
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This final operation was the last undertaken by Bomber Command during what would be known as
the Battle of Berlin.
One wonders if Jacks first crew ever completed their tour of 30 operations faced with these odds.

Jack spent the rest of 1943 and the first half of 1944 in the United States as a Flying Instructor
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with this No: 6 B.F.T.S. He was commissioned Pilot Officer on the 18 May 1944 with the new
Officer Service No. 176279.