Disabled Pilots

[Dave Homewood]

This question really stretches across the entire history of the RNZAF and NZPAF. Not just postwar.

How many disabled pilots have flown with our air force?

Bryan Cox's book 'Pacific Scrapbook' records on Page 96 about pilot Wing Commander Dick Webb DSO DFC, who flew with No. 485 Sqn on Spitfires during the war, and he lost an eye in combat. However he returned to flying with just one eye, which must be unusual.

He later flew Corsairs with No. 14 (Occupational) Squadron postwar, and converted onto the Meteor at Ardmore. He was killed when co-piloting a Bristol Freighter NZ5908 and hit a hill in cloud near Blenheim on 27/5/1953.

Have other New Zealand military pilots returned to operational flying following the loss of an eye, or and arm or leg or whatever?

[lesterpk]

What about they guy who took a birdstrike in a Skyhawk in the USA while training and ejected, the front seater bought the aircraft back. He lost an eye didnt he? and maybe he returned to flying?

[Dave Homewood]

That was the late Ross Donaldson but I don't believe he flew again. He did continue his career though.

[Dave Homewood]

Well, how wrong I was, all those years ago.

From aircraft to ‘think tanks’

By NIGEL MALTHUS

Group Captain Ross Donaldson, for the last three years commander of the R.N.Z.A.F. base, Wigram, will retire at the end of July to forge for himself a second career.

Group Captain Donaldson, aged 49, will study at King’s College, London, for a master’s degree in defence and strategic' studies, then try to find a place in one of the many “think tanks” which abound in Europe and the United States.

He believes his nationality will be an advantage In beginning a new career, because of new international interest in New Zealand, through its foreign policies, sport and business 'achievements, and the growing strategic importance of the South Pacific.

Group Captain Donaldson will leave behind a varied and sometimes dramatic Air Force career of more than 31 years, which Included his being the first R.N.Z.A.F. pilot to fly a Skyhawk, while on exchange with the United States Navy In Florida.

He remembers that first Skyhawk flight “very well indeed.” It was July 16, 1969, the day Apollo 11 blasted off for the first manned landing on the Moon.
“I was right there, flying round Cape Kennedy, watching from about eight miles away. Bloody impressive it was too.”

In December that year, however, came an accident which effectively grounded him. Still in Florida, but by then instructing United States Navy pilots, his Skyhawk hit a duck at 450 knots — about 800 km/h. The duck crashed through the canopy and hit the then Squadron Leader Donaldson full in the face. Blinded, and thinking the plane uncontrollable, he ejected and parachuted to ground, luckily suffering no further injuries from a landing he would not see to control.
The student pilot, meanwhile, brought the plane back under control and landed it safely. Group Captain Donaldson lost his left eye, but Navy surgeons, then highly skilled at dealing with Vietnam war wounds, managed to save the right.

Since then, he has maintained an interest in flying, in spite of being allowed aloft only when with a second pilot.

During the last three years he has learnt to fly helicopters, logging about 100 hours on the Sioux. In the late 1950s and 1960s, Group Captain Donaldson had been regarded as one of the Air Force’s best pilots, doing solo flying displays in Vampires and Canberras, and later leading the Yellowhammers aerobatic team.
He also saw active service in Borneo during the confrontation - between Indonesia and Malaysia in 1965 and 1966. 14 Squadron’s role in the conflict was to patrol the border between Indonesia and Borneo.

He was, for a time, on the Unification Staff, set up in a widely resented attempt to unify the three services. He is also one of the few R.N.Z.A.F. officers to command two bases, having commanded the Woodbourne base near Blenheim, from 1977 to 1980.

He relinquished command of the Wigram base in April, but will stay until the end of July working for the new R.N.Z.A.F. Museum.

The Press, 28 May 1987.