# BOTSWANA F-5A



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 1, 2005)

I spent a month in Botswana back in 2001. My company sold chaff dispensers to the Botswana Defense Force (BDF). I found this photo today on an old disk. They have 10 of these they purchased from Canada.


----------



## evangilder (Jul 1, 2005)

Nice! I loved the F-5 and the T-38. Great lines.


----------



## plan_D (Jul 1, 2005)

My dad loves the F-5 too, he got to see them during exercises against Lightnings. Great picture, I bet you'd love to fly one of them, eh, FB!? That'd make your grin from the other thread look like a frown...


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 1, 2005)

plan_D said:


> My dad loves the F-5 too, he got to see them during exercises against Lightnings. Great picture, I bet you'd love to fly one of them, eh, FB!? That'd make your grin from the other thread look like a frown...



You're right D! The F-5 is so simple to maintain and even when you sit in the cockpit everything is so accessable...

My father-in-law flew them and worked with the Dutch AF in the early 1980s with theirs. He loved them. He said it wasn't quite the performance of an F-16, but it came damm close at half the price.

Had I stayed in Botswana another week I probably would of gotten a ride.


----------



## plan_D (Jul 1, 2005)

I've never actually seen one up close. My dad used to love the Lightnings going up to intercept them and then watching the F-5s running rings around the big fat rocket called the EE Lightning.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 1, 2005)

plan_D said:


> I've never actually seen one up close. My dad used to love the Lightnings going up to intercept them and then watching the F-5s running rings around the big fat rocket called the EE Lightning.



That's pretty funny! Although your dad probably had a blast flying that rocket! It always reminded me of "Thunderbird 1." I loved watching those films when they take off and go straight vertical!  

I was told it could be a real b*tch if the top engine started leaking. Did your dad ever say how reliable they were?


----------



## plan_D (Jul 1, 2005)

...erm...yes, yes he did...and let me tell you, he was an electrician on them and he can't think of a worse plane to fix than the EE Lightning. They ALWAYS came back with a snag on them, ALWAYS without fail. He said they were the most rewarding planes to fix because they were such cunts to fix. And taking out the engines...my god, he rants and raves about that quite often...you mention the Lightning in his presence...this is always said "It was a wonderful aircraft while flying but a twat to fix!"

To pull the top engine out you had to pull the whole top of the plane off, then get a crane to lift it out! The bottom one was no easier. You couldn't just pull the jet pipe out and silde it out the back like on Phantoms...no, no...this was 1940s shit design...everything was complicated on the Lightning.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 1, 2005)

I worked a bit on a Hunter, Meteor and Vampire and it seems British aircraft in some cases were well thought out and very innovative, on the other side, it seemed that the engineers wanted to punish the maintainers!


----------



## plan_D (Jul 1, 2005)

You were/are a sooty, right? You'd have loved the Lightning...


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 1, 2005)

plan_D said:


> You were/are a sooty, right? You'd have loved the Lightning...



Maybe like your dad - loved it as it had the burner on flying out of site!


----------



## plan_D (Jul 1, 2005)

He loved watching it. He also 'loved' one coming home with the jet pipe on 2 engine burnt out, with fire coming out of the side of the aircraft.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 1, 2005)

My god! As you said, "A sooty nightmare!"


----------



## plan_D (Jul 1, 2005)

Oh there are some funny and scary stories from my dad's time with Lightnings. One funny one he told me the other day was a Lightning than tipped up on it's back wheels. It'd been emptied completely, and they'd not put weight on the front...it was being towed and the tow stopped and the Lightning just tipped backwards, lifting the tow in the air. 
Unfortunately, back in those days cameras were allowed no where near bases...so, he didn't have a camera handy...they just all lifted it up and about 7 lads sat on the nose and cockpit to keep it down...just picture the look on the lad's face in the tow truck, hung up in the air.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 1, 2005)

That's great!  

When things like that happen it's always amazing how everyone responds. I've had several of those happen around me, mainly fuel spills. When I was in the Naval Reserve we had a guy slam on the brakes on a tow tractor as he was towing a P-3. The tow bar broke and came through the back window just missing the driver!


----------



## plan_D (Jul 1, 2005)

What a lucky bastard. 

Another one was during exercise one of the other leccies was on a Lightning while the base was getting 'attacked' these Bucs buzzed the place at about 30 feet...and the lad shit himself and fell off the front of the wing, on to the fueling probe, then on to the Red Top and landed flat on his ass on the ground. Everyone rushed out to see if he was alright, but then he got mocked for days. 

Also, they used to have the gun cam in the nose wheel and the leccies used to have to wind it up for a few seconds to get it in. So, the other techs would stand in front and pull stupid faces and do stupid dances. SO the pilots would get a debrief and the first 5 seconds would be a bunch of techs being morons...and then it'd get to the gun cam.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 1, 2005)

OH that's great! Too bad you couldn't get your hands on those clips, you could have a hit website!  

When I worked at Lockheed, smoking wasn't as restricted as it is today. We would get a new guy in the cockpit during ground runs on new P-3s and some one would blow cigarette smoke through this tube that held the pilot's glare shield. It terminated behind the whiskey compass right at the top front windshield. When the smoke came out it appeared that the compass was on fire! Some one would shout "Compass Fire, pull the circuit breaker!" The new guy would be sh*ting himself looking for the circuit breaker for the whiskey compass!


----------



## plan_D (Jul 1, 2005)

One thing with the cockpit on the Lightning was that it was hydraulically powered and often it would run out of pressure so the hood would close. With the new lads they didn't know how to open it 'cos there was just a pump in the cockpit, but the hood was quite heavy (obviously) so they were stuck! Everyone would just laugh until it got old and they'd let them out by putting the pressure back in from the outside. 

It happened to my dad but he just happened to have a book so he just sat in there for like 10 minutes reading. And the Flt. Lieu came out and tried to complain, then had a go at everyone to get him out of there. After a while people would learn to stand on the seat and pump it while standing up to lift the hood.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 1, 2005)




----------



## the lancaster kicks ass (Jul 2, 2005)

they're great stories 

and does anyone else find this funny?? 



FB said:


> they purchased from Canada


----------



## evangilder (Jul 2, 2005)

Yep, I was just sitting back and enjoying these.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 2, 2005)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> they're great stories
> 
> and does anyone else find this funny??
> 
> ...



Yea - its funny, those F-5s had the same avionics as Canadian F-18s! They were in great shape, it makes me wonder why Canada gave them up. The Canadians built a whole bunch of F-5s.


----------



## plan_D (Jul 3, 2005)

I've got quite a few stories from my dad's time with Lightnings;

An example of pilot's thinking they're gods, one had been trained in a F.3 Lightning and thought that he could fly a F.6. Somehow he got flight time in a F.6 without being trained in it, ended up having to eject over the Med. 

Another one, a tech left a screwdriver in the engine. Came back into the crew quarters ...and discovered he was missing a screwdriver. They all looked up to see the Lightning he'd just finished with lifting off the runway. Panic, of course! Air traffic called it back in and lucky, the screw driver had gone in sideways..lodging it against the blades instead of going through them into the engine. 

Story of great pilot skill, the control pin in one of the Lightnings came out...the pilot had NO control over the aircraft except by trim. The pilot landed without a hitch on trim alone...on an aircraft with a landing speed of 190 mph!


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 3, 2005)

My God!


----------



## plan_D (Jul 3, 2005)

I know some of them are just amazing and scary. 

The RAF were used to stop drug smugglers too, at least...you could say they were. One night they picked up an aircraft flying in with identification. Naturally they believed it to be Soviets playing their game, so they scrambled a Lightning to go intercept. They picked up Lightning as being right above the spot where they had the aircraft, but there was nothing there. Being the middle of the night, the pilot radioed back as there being nothing present. 
While circling the area, he felt a huge bang and the aircraft shook violently. He reported it and headed home, landing without incident...


...the next morning the crew went out to check the aircraft. Nothing was wrong except a massive scar under the fuselage. They assumed it might have been a bird...or...a plane. Later that day the local news reports a Cessna 150 had crashed in the very same region he'd been circling that night. 

In conclusion, they were drug smuggling. No lights, no IFF. And the Lightning had smashed into the top of them, luckily for the Lightning he only scrapped them, any higher and bits would have been flung into the intake. The Cessna, however, felt the wrath of 50,000 lbs of EE Lightning and fell out of the sky.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 4, 2005)

My old Naval Reserve squadron (VP-65) busted a boat with 47 tons of cocaine in the Gulf of Mexico in 1998. When the plane spotted the suspicious boat, they flew around it and then came in real low with the bomb bay doors opened (there was nothing in them) the smugglers saw this P-3 bearing down on them at 200 knots with the bomb bay doors opened, they surrendered right there. It took an hour for the Coast guard to get on station. In the mean time the smugglers basically surrendered to the airplane all standing on deck with their hands up hoping this big grey airplane won't drop something on them!


----------



## plan_D (Jul 4, 2005)

Haha, brilliant.  I wonder what the Lightning pilot would have done if he'd have seen them though...shot the Cessna down with his red tops...hahaha


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 4, 2005)

If a red top hit a cessna I think it would go right through and not even set the warhead off!


----------



## plan_D (Jul 4, 2005)

Probably but you know you'd enjoy shooting a Red Top up one's arse. Or unleash the fury of two 30 mm Aden cannon.


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 4, 2005)

I said it before, you're a sick man!


----------



## plan_D (Jul 8, 2005)

I heard a few more stories from my dad again today so, it's story time!

The chaff on the Lightning was the most crude system in the world. They used to hydraulically open the airbrakes and put into them an open box full of aluminium strips. When the Lightning opened his airbrakes, these would come out. 
One time they did this and the person pumping (to get hydraulic power) forgot to take the pump handle out and stow it properly. Later that day the Lightning got scrambled - and in the air he noticed the Soviet crews going nuts, taking pictures and calling to each other. He landed and reported the incident only to have one of the crew point out the bright red hydraulic pump on the side of his aircraft. 

Soviet Thinking: "NEW SENSOR OR RADAR - TAKE PICTURES!"


----------



## the lancaster kicks ass (Jul 9, 2005)




----------



## FLYBOYJ (Jul 9, 2005)

I might of mentioned this before....

During the good ole cold war days when P-3 crews found Russian Trawlers close to the 3 mile limit, they would collect all the trash in the aircraft and put it in the "Freefall Chute." The chute would be used to manualy launch sono bouys. Anyway they would fly over the boat and launch all the trash on the deck of the trawlers!


----------



## evangilder (Jul 9, 2005)

hehe Ah the good old days!


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Sep 24, 2005)

More Photos! The fellow with me was known as "four-four." He was a Warrant Officer in charge of the maintenance dept, great guy, he's probably retired today.


----------



## Nonskimmer (Sep 24, 2005)

Nice pics. Here's how the rest of the CF-5's ended up. Chopped and lined up in a hangar in North Bay, Ontario.


----------



## Pisis (Sep 24, 2005)

..........


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Sep 24, 2005)

Nonskimmer said:


> Nice pics. Here's how the rest of the CF-5's ended up. Chopped and lined up in a hangar in North Bay, Ontario.



Arrow mentality?


----------



## Nonskimmer (Sep 24, 2005)

No, just the usual tight-fisted, short-sighted mentality.


----------



## evangilder (Sep 24, 2005)

Shame, did they get turned into Molson cans?

Nice shots, Joe!


----------



## Pisis (Sep 24, 2005)

evangilder said:


> Nice shots, Joe!



Oh, yeah!


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Sep 24, 2005)

Thanks guys - that was a fun trip!


----------



## Peter Pyper (Oct 15, 2006)

Hi,
My name is Peter Pyper and I live in Finland. I am trying to solve an aircraft identification problem. Google Earth has pictures of Kasane Airstrip Botswana and Francistown Botswana airstrip.
On both of these can be seen what would appear to be Vampire aircraft. However they could also be Cessna 337 as the wing span and length is almost the same. I personally doubt that they are Vampire aircraft, as I think the Botswana airforce has F5A jet aircraft. Anybody able to solve this problem please?


----------



## FLYBOYJ (Oct 15, 2006)

Peter Pyper said:


> Hi,
> My name is Peter Pyper and I live in Finland. I am trying to solve an aircraft identification problem. Google Earth has pictures of Kasane Airstrip Botswana and Francistown Botswana airstrip.
> On both of these can be seen what would appear to be Vampire aircraft. However they could also be Cessna 337 as the wing span and length is almost the same. I personally doubt that they are Vampire aircraft, as I think the Botswana airforce has F5A jet aircraft. Anybody able to solve this problem please?



They're Skymasters, I was there a few years ago and I didn't see any Vampires.


----------



## Clave (Oct 17, 2006)

More Lightning triva:

My dad was in charge of one of the Lightning Simulators at Coltishall back in the old days, and the switch from 'instrument only' to 'visual' was accomplished using a moving map with tiny models of the surrounding area and a camera which projected onto a screen in front of the cockpit. 

Now, as you know, pilots don't care _too_ much about crashing sims, but it caused a problem as the camera would actually crash into the map and snap off or break the tiny houses etc.. So an interlock was devised to stop you hurtling headfirst into the ground, which produced the most strange effect - you would _apparently_ be doing Mach 2 straight down, but then stop and 'hover' 100 feet above the deck... it was pretty funny...


----------



## Matt308 (Oct 18, 2006)

8)


----------

