And ‘Eject’ meant carrying out the ejection sequence. ‘Pull’ required pulling up to gain as much height as possible. ‘Punch’ meant jettisoning the drop tanks – and the extra weight of their fuel. Reflex memory reminded me – ‘punch, pull and eject’ - the actions drilled into us every morning in the pre-flight Emergency Session. I didn’t know what had happened, but I knew instantly that I had to get out of the aircraft. The Sabre was rattling so badly that I could not read any instrument when I looked inside the cockpit to ascertain what had gone wrong. Just as soon as I retarded the throttle there was a loud noise and shaking of the aircraft. Approaching the correct position I retarded the throttles to match my speed with the other formation members. Our low level speed for the mission was 360 knots, so I was a good 60 knots faster to make up the lag. Not wanting my instructor to fire a volley of verbal shots at me, I accelerated to 420 knots to catch up and get in to position. Was I in the correct battle formation (element lead) position at the time? Of course not, I was lagging behind a little. At the time of setting course, the instructor had already joined the lead in the wingman position on his right side (somewhat closer than 600 feet). After 150 degrees, the course was set for the first leg, gradually descending to 250 feet AGL (distance from the ground). An uneventful take-off was accomplished with a right hand turn out of the traffic area. A three-ship formation with Flying Officer Tariq Awan in the lead for a low-level mission No 2 on his wing was my instructor, Flt Lt Farooq Zaman, and I was detailed as No 3 to fly low-level battle formation with the lead. It was perhaps the most bizarre experience of my life. “The time I brought a badly damaged F-86F back to base happened during my fighter conversion course, but the details come rushing back, just as if it happened today. If you decide to donate to the Hush-Kit blog (because you like this kind of thing and want to see more) you can donate here. In his second interview he shares his dramatic experiences of a low-level Sabre mission that went catastrophically wrong, and his rebellious response to an order to eject. Wing Commander Irfan Masum (Rtd) flew the Sabre in the Pakistan Air Force.

Jettison canopy rescue