Javelins at Ndola

From Great North Road

Javelins and other aircraft at Ndola

Javelin.

Javelin.

Javelin.

RAF Beverley.

VC10.

CAA Dakota.

CAA Viscount.

CAA Logo.

CAA Logo.

Photos of the Javelins at Ndola as well as a RAF Blackburn Beverley that was providing support.

Plus some other photos of interest VC10, Viscount and a Dakota.

29 Squadron RAF (Gloster Javelin) deployed from RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus to Ndola to provide air defence following the announcement of Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the Rhodesian government. Air defence radars and ancillary equipment were flown into Zambia by No.114 and No.267 Squadrons (Armstrong Whitworth Argosy). No.29 Squadron returned to Akrotiri in August 1966.

They flew south with a full load of six external tanks, raising a protest from the Egyptian government when they simply overflew Egyptian airspace to get there. Conditions were primitive, with one Javelin losing a Firestreak missile when a nest of termites crawled up the landing gear and ate the solid propellant out of the missile.

Air defence radars and ancillary equipment were flown into Zambia by No.114 and No.267 Squadrons (Armstrong Whitworth Argosy). No.29 Squadron returned to RAF Akrotiri in August 1966.

One of the aircraft from 29 Squadron, XH890, forced landed at Ndola and was damaged beyond economical repair, the aircraft was moved to a children’s playground in Ndola. Photos can be seen below.

Of interest, Salisbury Radar controlled all airspace in the region, after take-off the Royal Air Force flight leader would contact the ‘rebels’ in Salisbury Radar, Salisbury Airport for clearance to fly a border patrol along the Zambia/Rhodesia border.

I was at Ndola airport at least four or five times a week during the squadrons stay in Zambia and I don't know anything about the squadron’s activities in Lusaka. I did some research on the internet and the RAF History does not make mention of Lusaka. I did find a photo, though, taken from someone straddling the cockpit of a Javelin with the old Lusaka terminal in the background. The words LUSAKA are clearly visible on the roof of the terminal. The planes were definitely based in Ndola for the duration, however may have visited Lusaka on a regular basis. After all it took a Javelin approx. 30 minutes to fly there from Ndola to Lusaka.

Excerpt from Time magazine:

"Harold Wilson offered to send a token force—a squadron of R.A.F. fighters and a battalion of the Royal Scots—to the copper belt, some 250 miles north of the dam. Kaunda accepted the air protection (Zambia has only ten military aircraft of its own), but rejected the offer of troops unless they were sent directly to the dam. Into the copper-belt centre of Ndola at week's end swooped ten British Gloster Javelin jet fighters, accompanied by big-bellied Argosy and Beverley transports carrying the squadron's maintenance supplies. A brace of Bristol Britannia turboprop transports arrived at Lusaka itself. To the south, Smith was sardonically amused. "It is in our interest to have law and order maintained in Zambia," he deadpanned in a television interview."

To Quote Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Kennedy GCB AFC of the Royal Air Force:

“They made telephonic contact with our jets to offer our men best wishes and suggested that it would be fun to meet in the air. Our pilots needed no second invitation. On a few occasions Hunter’s or Canberra’s met the Javelins to fly along the Zambezi River in formation with crews waving and taking photographs of each other”. The odd pilot happened to stop over in Salisbury, allegedly taking leave to visit South Africa. Their passports were never stamped and a number of them met with our Prime Minster, Ian Smith. When, in August 1966, the British Government announced the withdrawal of the Javelin squadron, Rhodesians gave the RAF lads a grand farewell party at Victoria Falls."

Courtesy of Mervyn Blumberg.

RAF Javelin (Ndola, Zambia).

RAF Javelin (Ndola, Zambia).

The Javelin in Ndola Park, taken after I left Zambia by a friend.

Courtesy of Phillip Evans

I have enjoyed reading all the postings regarding Ndola Airport and Javelins etc. and it brings back many memories from the past. From about October 1965 until January 1968 I was the Engineer/Site Agent in charge of the Airport expansion works at Ndola Airport.

The Airport runway at that time was 5,000 ft. long fully tarred with a further laterite (untarred) overrun of 350 ft. Because of the landing requirements of the Comet.....a large and very fast passenger jet plane which had no other way of slowing down and stopping other than the use of the wheel brakes it required about 5,000 ft of runway to land safely. The Government decided to extend the tarred length to 8,000 ft. with a 500 ft. laterite overrun. Messer’s A.E. Denovan (Pty.) Ltd., Kitwe was the main contractors and was the company I worked for at the time. Messrs. Tarmacadam Ltd. were the resurfacing contractors (bitumen premix) and Drake and Gorham Ltd. were the runway lighting contractors. The contract was started in September 65 and completed for January 68. Basically we had to resurface the existing 5,000 ft. with a 2" binder course and a 1" wearing course (total 3" premix) apart from a further 3,000 ft of new runway. All the tarring works were carried out 7 days a week from 10p.m. to 6a.m. The additional 3,000 ft. of construction was carried out during daylight hours....however, every time a plane landed or took off we had to remove ourselves 200 ft. either side from the edge of the runway. This was something of a hassle with up to 8 Viscount flights a day the odd Zambia Air Force Caribou a plane which had the unique advantage of when it missed the turning off the runway it could by altering the propeller pitch reverse its way back up to the taxiway turning and in fact all the way to the parking area in reverse gear. There were several RAF fat bodied transport planes....Beverly I think was one of them. Then there were the Flying Club planes and finally some 10 C-31 Hercules planes each of which flew twice daily to and from Dar-es-Salaam...copper out, fuel in.

The reconstruction contract was completed without a hitch although we had near misses with more than one Javelin attempting to land on our long lines of tipped road material. Accidents were narrowly avoided by everybody gesticulating to the pilot to take off again. The Javelin was an all metal, very heavy fighter aircraft that landed with its nose 45 deg. in the air. When it got into trouble landing or taking off the pilot would hit the afterburner which practically doubled the planes power but it also played havoc with the 2" to 0 or 1" to 0 x 50 ft. long fillet which Messrs Tarmacadam had to leave at the end of each nights bitumen overlay. First thing every morning I would drive down the runway in my pickup with a gang of workers and a tar sprayer (hand pump) pick up any slabs of premix that the Javelin Squadron had dislodged at their 6 a.m. take off and attempt to stamp them back in place before the 6.30 a.m. Viscount arrived. We had some close calls but fortunately no disasters.

The two major mishaps at Ndola Airport at this time were the Javelin coming into land which found it could not get both wheels to go down, one remained up. The pilot was low on fuel so that was OK but he was carrying air to air missiles, he made the decision to land in the grass about 200 ft. from the edge of the runway. The pilot held the plane up until the last moment on one undercarriage wheel and a nose wheel only swinging the plane in a circle to throw the weight on the one undercarriage wheel. The plane flopped on the ground. The missiles did not go off and this is the plane that ended up in the park. Sadly it was used as a toilet and was removed from the kids’ park for health reasons.

The other incident of note at this time was a C-31 Hercules having landed and taxied down to the new unloading area and copper storage hanger... it was travelling a little too fast. The pilot, something of a cowboy, swung his plane round through 180 deg. far too fast and touched the wing tip of another plane being loaded at the time. There was a huge static spark... and both planes went on fire. Within seconds the 20 odd tons of fuel that had just arrived started pouring out of the blazing plane and a third plane was caught up in the inferno. Although the fire engines raced down in seconds all three planes were burnt out before any meaningful quantity of foam was pumped on them.

There were several other instances of C-31's turning round after landing but for some reason they managed to run many yards off the runway into the soft wet soil where they were stuck for days. The pilots on the Hercules planes in my opinion were a bunch of cowboys. Still I suppose it got us through.

Nobody seems to have mentioned the fact that at least one RAF pilot went AWOL and in fact was later found to have joined the Rhodesian Air force.

In 1966, December I think or possibly early 67, the first VC10 landed at Ndola Airport. It was empty; it made a very short landing and the take off was even more impressive about 400 yds, with an incredible climb into the clouds after that. If anybody does have any question to ask about Ndola Airport in those days I'll try and answer them if I can. One thing that I find amusing these days is the amount of security checks etc. etc. to get near an airport. In the late 60's I just roared up to the side gate hooted a couple of times on the way, the guard flung the gate open and shouted "Morning Mr. Foster" and when he wasn't there he left the gates wide open for me.

In later years Costains Ltd. added a further hectare of concrete parking area for the planes and Messrs. ZECCO extended the taxiway by a further 1,000 ft.

Courtesy of Gordon Foster