Library Reference Number: 126
Reciprocal Bearing
I hope seasoned veterans won't mind me posting a small entry here but something about a recent story added to the website (Ref 122 - Aircraft Recognition) reminded me of a discussion I had with my late father and about how long hours and perhaps tiredness could and did lead to tiny errors with serious consequences. My father worked in RAF Signals and Ciphers at Prestwick, Lossiemouth and East African locations at Mombasa and Eastleigh in Nairobi. As such, neither he nor I can qualify as being aircrew yet the story he related to me does have a strong aircrew connection and which I should like to share with you. By virtue of my webmaster status and unique associate membership, I hope my entry here does not cause offence.
The discussion began when I quizzed my father about a feature of early radar and aircraft guidance systems, a feature in which ATC radar operators could accidentally provide the reciprocal bearings and headings leading aircraft on an entirely incorrect course. I asked him about this because I had been reading a book written by an employee of BP who had encountered the crashed wreck of a B17 Flying Fortress deep in the dessert of Southern Egypt during the early nineteen sixties.
The details concerning this aircraft, listed as missing following a mission to Italy and launched from Wheeler US Air Force Base in North Africa, had remained a mystery for many years. Sadly, it seems they were given a `reciprocal bearing' in error and followed this direction until they ran out of fuel. The account I read explains how the expedition examined the wreck and concluded the aircrew believed they were near Wheeler and began to walk towards where they thought it might be. Wheeler was over eleven hundred miles away and, with limited water and resources, I guess we know what happened.
Although I have worked with electronic systems for the bulk of my life, I couldn't see how this could have happened.
On leaving Italy, the pilot sought the bearings and which would have carried him back to safety at Wheeler but was somehow given the wrong heading and direction with disasterous consequences. My father knew the answer and explained how easy it was to make such an error during the early days of radar.
He went further and described how an American flight of fighter planes escorting a cargo plane carrying pilot belongings en route from Keflavik (sp) Air Base in Iceland was also given reciprocal bearings in error. By the time the error was discovered, the planes had insufficient fuel to complete their journey and disaster was averted using an airfield in Northern Scotland and far from Lossiemouth. Fuel tankers were driven to the location before the jets could take off again and complete their flight to an eventual destination in Germany.