Sir Kenneth Hayr - RAF Hero and Kiwi Display Pilot
May 14, 2023 0:22:52 GMT 12
ZacYates and 11SQNLDR like this
Post by Dave Homewood on May 14, 2023 0:22:52 GMT 12
I just came across this great article featuring Sir Kenneth Hayr in The Press dated the 16th of November 1988.
Sir Kenneth Hayr - he knew that was it
TONY VERDON, in London, meets a New Zealander who has risen steadily through the Royal Air Force ranks and has become deputy leader of its Strike Command. During the Falklands War, he had to learn deployment of forces in ways that had not been predicted:
From the moment a 17-year-old Auckland Grammar schoolboy took off from Mangere Airfield in a tiny Tiger Moth, he knew flying would be his career. Now, 36 years and many flying hours later, the sixth-former who made his first solo flight in school uniform, has been appointed Deputy Commander in Chief of the Royal Air Force’s Strike Command, and second-in-charge of N.A.T.O.’s air forces in the United Kingdom.
Air Marshal Sir Kenneth Hayr sits back in his office at Strike Command Headquarters at R.A.F. High Wycombe, 64 kilometres west of London in the Buckinghamshire countryside, and recalls with relish his first solo flight over Auckland.
“It was marvellous, the air was silky — it was a perfect first solo,” he says. Since then, he has flown some of the most advanced jet fighters in the world, commanded R.A.F. bases in the U.K. and overseas, and played a crucial role in Britain’s victory in the Falklands, while at the same time quickly rising through the R.A.F. ranks. In spite of his high rank and his 53 years of age, Sir Kenneth still keeps his eye in as a fighter pilot, with occasional spells at the controls of an R.A.F. Phantom Fighter.
Although he has served with the R.A.F. for more than 35 years, he regards New Zealand as home and says his accent quickly returns if he spends any time with fellow Kiwis.
He was born in Whangarei but moved with his parents to Wellington when he was five years old. His father was a teacher. Sir Kenneth remembers the occasional word of a submarine being seen in Wellington Harbour. He recalls seeing shiploads of soldiers heading off to the war.
“I remember vividly taking practice air raid drill, putting rubber bungs in our teeth and leaning up against a vertical embankment in the school grounds.
“I remember, too, the crackly news bulletins of the war my father used to listen to on the radio.”
Five years later, his father was appointed to teach at Auckland Training College; 10-year-old Kenneth went to school in Mt Eden before going on to Auckland Grammar. Sir Kenneth now believes the discipline he learned at Auckland Grammar helped him in later life. He has fond memories of his time at the school.
“I learnt as much about standards as I did about academics,” he says. Academic standards were high, and he had to work hard to retain a place in the A-stream. “Over all, the masters I think were a very principled lot — they were gentlemen, if you like. They were the sort of people that I have since been fortunate enough to spend most of my career with.”
Even before he began to fly, young Hayr had developed a fascination with aviation, keeping scrapbooks of cuttings. Through the Air Training Corps at the school, he won a flying scholarship which gave him 30 hours of flying lessons free. He went out to Mangere Airfield as often as possible, staying there at week-ends, trying to cram in as much flying as he could.
“Once I had flown I knew that was it.
“It was a perfect airfield to start flying from, because it was grass, it was surrounded by water on three sides and had a small clubhouse.”
He often flew before school and remembers his first solo flight was during one of his preschool day lessons. “It was a lovely clear morning, and we cranked open the hangar door, and lifted the tail of the Tiger Moth out.
“There was just a hint of mist around, just rising from the water, and a clear sky.” Throughout his sixth and seventh form, he pursued his ambition to fly. He worked during the school holidays to earn enough money to pay for lessons when his scholarship ran out.
At the end of his sixth form year, he applied to join the Royal New Zealand Air Force as one of its entrants to the officer training courses at Cranwell, in Britain. As a sixth-former, he missed selection for a place and returned to school for another year. But he noticed that the Royal Air Force was also selecting candidates for the course in New Zealand. He won a place in the R.A.F. at the end of his seventh form year in 1953, and became a member of the R.A.F. from the time he left New Zealand.
“I wasn’t keen to leave New Zealand, and I hadn’t really cast my future in my own perceptions at the time totally for a working life away from New Zealand, but I knew I would fly better or more interesting airplanes with the R.A.F.”
Sir Kenneth says it was also “quite common” in those days for New Zealanders to join the R.A.F., often on short service commissions. After three years training at Cranwell, he was posted to R.A.F. Aklington, in Northumberland, where he flew Hunters and Vampires.
Very early in his career, he experienced active operational flying because he was sent to one of the world’s hot spots — Cyprus. He was sent there at a time of terrorism on the island. The I.O.K.A. movement was very active, and the situation was so tense airmen were not allowed to leave the base. If they did leave they had to carry revolvers for their own protection. The station was under the command of another New Zealander who rose to high rank in the R.A.F., Air Commodore Bill Tacon, who now lives in retirement in Auckland.
Sir Kenneth also experienced operational flying when he was later posted to Aden. During this tour, he married an English girl and learned to flying Lightning fighters.
His tour in Lightnings was cut short by a term at the Central Fighter Establishment, which for most officers means time on the ground. But Sir Kenneth found himself flying the Delta Dart jet fighter on an exchange programme with the United States Air Force, as well as spending a short time flying the Mirage jet fighter with the French Air Force.
He later set up the squadron charged with training R.A.F. crew to fly the Phantom jet, which involved months in the United States working with the manufacturers of both the aircraft and its weapons systems.
By 1968, he was a squadron leader. He was overseeing the introduction to the R.A.F. of the Phantom when an even more exciting aircraft came on the scene — the Harrier jump jet. He took command of R.A.F. Number One Squadron, and quickly changed to the revolutionary new vertical take-off and landing jet fighter.
“I then entered probably the most exhilarating phase of my life,” he says. For two years, he and fellow officers and ground crew established just what the Harrier could do.
“We broke new ground, both literally and figuratively,” he says. “We were going all over the place in an environment which was totally new. Nobody could tell us how to do it because nobody had done it before.
“We were in and out of fields, in and out of the United Kingdom, from the snow and ice of Norway to the heat of little strips in the Mediterranean, to the air shows in Paris and at Farnborough, and onto the carrier Ark Royal to show what the aircraft could do there.”
He believes his squadron astonished even the manufacturers by demonstrating just what the aircraft could do. “All fighter pilots want to fly fighters and they want to command their own squadron, and I was given the most amazing aircraft in the world and the most amazing challenge, and nobody to tell me how to do it.”
He went on to establish the R.A.F.’s flight safety directorate. In 1981, he became Assistant Chief of Air Staff and was promoted to Air Vice Marshal for operations. That job meant he was in charge of running the Ministry of Defence’s part of R.A.F. operations, a crucial position to be in since the threat of the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands loomed.
“When there was a threat of invasion of the Falklands, I was a member of a tri-service committee, and we had to consider what might be possible and very soon after that it became a requirement.”
The R.A.F.’s entire philosophy had been concentrated on Europe. “It was a N.A.T.O.-oriented air force, and 8000 miles is a long way to project that capability, so we had to cobble it together,” he says. “The things that were achieved were quite remarkable, even though I say it myself.”
As on previous occasions in history the British had not been well-prepared for war. “The British are never prepared for anything — look at the last World War, plenty of warning but the country wasn’t all that prepared. There are plenty of examples of it, and the Falklands is another one.”
“But where the British are marvellous is that when the requirement is there, they can react very well — there is a very good staff reaction.” Sir Kenneth ran the R.A.F. operations in London. He had to start developing quickly the capability to deploy the R.A.F. in ways that had not been conceived of before.
“We had to put refuelling capability into any aircraft we wanted to go down south, we didn’t have any air-to-air refuelling capability on the Vulcan ... we had to put it on to the Hercules, both as a transmitter and as a receiver.”
The R.A.F.’s Harriers had to be modified so they could be carried on container ships and could be flown at sea, while new weapons had to be fitted to many different types of aircraft.
“It all sounds very straightforward, but to modify these aircraft in a couple of weeks...
“It was close, the whole thing.”
His contribution to the victory was acknowledged with the award of the Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) for out-of-theatre operations in the 1982 campaign. “I would rather have been down there flying a Harrier, but the next best thing I suppose was the sort of involvement I had, not in any way glorifying the warfare aspect of it.”
As Air Officer Commanding 11 Group, Sir Kenneth went on after the Falklands war to take responsibility for the air defence of the United Kingdom. He held the post from 1982 until 1985, and during that time managed to fly all aircraft types in the group. He soloed in eight of them.
As Commander of British Forces in Cyprus on his last tour, he had control over the army forces stationed there as well as the airmen. He left Cyprus in April, and took up his present post in June. That month, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. The Air Marshal, whose wife died last year, has returned home about every five years.
Sir Kenneth Hayr - he knew that was it
TONY VERDON, in London, meets a New Zealander who has risen steadily through the Royal Air Force ranks and has become deputy leader of its Strike Command. During the Falklands War, he had to learn deployment of forces in ways that had not been predicted:
From the moment a 17-year-old Auckland Grammar schoolboy took off from Mangere Airfield in a tiny Tiger Moth, he knew flying would be his career. Now, 36 years and many flying hours later, the sixth-former who made his first solo flight in school uniform, has been appointed Deputy Commander in Chief of the Royal Air Force’s Strike Command, and second-in-charge of N.A.T.O.’s air forces in the United Kingdom.
Air Marshal Sir Kenneth Hayr sits back in his office at Strike Command Headquarters at R.A.F. High Wycombe, 64 kilometres west of London in the Buckinghamshire countryside, and recalls with relish his first solo flight over Auckland.
“It was marvellous, the air was silky — it was a perfect first solo,” he says. Since then, he has flown some of the most advanced jet fighters in the world, commanded R.A.F. bases in the U.K. and overseas, and played a crucial role in Britain’s victory in the Falklands, while at the same time quickly rising through the R.A.F. ranks. In spite of his high rank and his 53 years of age, Sir Kenneth still keeps his eye in as a fighter pilot, with occasional spells at the controls of an R.A.F. Phantom Fighter.
Although he has served with the R.A.F. for more than 35 years, he regards New Zealand as home and says his accent quickly returns if he spends any time with fellow Kiwis.
He was born in Whangarei but moved with his parents to Wellington when he was five years old. His father was a teacher. Sir Kenneth remembers the occasional word of a submarine being seen in Wellington Harbour. He recalls seeing shiploads of soldiers heading off to the war.
“I remember vividly taking practice air raid drill, putting rubber bungs in our teeth and leaning up against a vertical embankment in the school grounds.
“I remember, too, the crackly news bulletins of the war my father used to listen to on the radio.”
Five years later, his father was appointed to teach at Auckland Training College; 10-year-old Kenneth went to school in Mt Eden before going on to Auckland Grammar. Sir Kenneth now believes the discipline he learned at Auckland Grammar helped him in later life. He has fond memories of his time at the school.
“I learnt as much about standards as I did about academics,” he says. Academic standards were high, and he had to work hard to retain a place in the A-stream. “Over all, the masters I think were a very principled lot — they were gentlemen, if you like. They were the sort of people that I have since been fortunate enough to spend most of my career with.”
Even before he began to fly, young Hayr had developed a fascination with aviation, keeping scrapbooks of cuttings. Through the Air Training Corps at the school, he won a flying scholarship which gave him 30 hours of flying lessons free. He went out to Mangere Airfield as often as possible, staying there at week-ends, trying to cram in as much flying as he could.
“Once I had flown I knew that was it.
“It was a perfect airfield to start flying from, because it was grass, it was surrounded by water on three sides and had a small clubhouse.”
He often flew before school and remembers his first solo flight was during one of his preschool day lessons. “It was a lovely clear morning, and we cranked open the hangar door, and lifted the tail of the Tiger Moth out.
“There was just a hint of mist around, just rising from the water, and a clear sky.” Throughout his sixth and seventh form, he pursued his ambition to fly. He worked during the school holidays to earn enough money to pay for lessons when his scholarship ran out.
At the end of his sixth form year, he applied to join the Royal New Zealand Air Force as one of its entrants to the officer training courses at Cranwell, in Britain. As a sixth-former, he missed selection for a place and returned to school for another year. But he noticed that the Royal Air Force was also selecting candidates for the course in New Zealand. He won a place in the R.A.F. at the end of his seventh form year in 1953, and became a member of the R.A.F. from the time he left New Zealand.
“I wasn’t keen to leave New Zealand, and I hadn’t really cast my future in my own perceptions at the time totally for a working life away from New Zealand, but I knew I would fly better or more interesting airplanes with the R.A.F.”
Sir Kenneth says it was also “quite common” in those days for New Zealanders to join the R.A.F., often on short service commissions. After three years training at Cranwell, he was posted to R.A.F. Aklington, in Northumberland, where he flew Hunters and Vampires.
Very early in his career, he experienced active operational flying because he was sent to one of the world’s hot spots — Cyprus. He was sent there at a time of terrorism on the island. The I.O.K.A. movement was very active, and the situation was so tense airmen were not allowed to leave the base. If they did leave they had to carry revolvers for their own protection. The station was under the command of another New Zealander who rose to high rank in the R.A.F., Air Commodore Bill Tacon, who now lives in retirement in Auckland.
Sir Kenneth also experienced operational flying when he was later posted to Aden. During this tour, he married an English girl and learned to flying Lightning fighters.
His tour in Lightnings was cut short by a term at the Central Fighter Establishment, which for most officers means time on the ground. But Sir Kenneth found himself flying the Delta Dart jet fighter on an exchange programme with the United States Air Force, as well as spending a short time flying the Mirage jet fighter with the French Air Force.
He later set up the squadron charged with training R.A.F. crew to fly the Phantom jet, which involved months in the United States working with the manufacturers of both the aircraft and its weapons systems.
By 1968, he was a squadron leader. He was overseeing the introduction to the R.A.F. of the Phantom when an even more exciting aircraft came on the scene — the Harrier jump jet. He took command of R.A.F. Number One Squadron, and quickly changed to the revolutionary new vertical take-off and landing jet fighter.
“I then entered probably the most exhilarating phase of my life,” he says. For two years, he and fellow officers and ground crew established just what the Harrier could do.
“We broke new ground, both literally and figuratively,” he says. “We were going all over the place in an environment which was totally new. Nobody could tell us how to do it because nobody had done it before.
“We were in and out of fields, in and out of the United Kingdom, from the snow and ice of Norway to the heat of little strips in the Mediterranean, to the air shows in Paris and at Farnborough, and onto the carrier Ark Royal to show what the aircraft could do there.”
He believes his squadron astonished even the manufacturers by demonstrating just what the aircraft could do. “All fighter pilots want to fly fighters and they want to command their own squadron, and I was given the most amazing aircraft in the world and the most amazing challenge, and nobody to tell me how to do it.”
He went on to establish the R.A.F.’s flight safety directorate. In 1981, he became Assistant Chief of Air Staff and was promoted to Air Vice Marshal for operations. That job meant he was in charge of running the Ministry of Defence’s part of R.A.F. operations, a crucial position to be in since the threat of the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands loomed.
“When there was a threat of invasion of the Falklands, I was a member of a tri-service committee, and we had to consider what might be possible and very soon after that it became a requirement.”
The R.A.F.’s entire philosophy had been concentrated on Europe. “It was a N.A.T.O.-oriented air force, and 8000 miles is a long way to project that capability, so we had to cobble it together,” he says. “The things that were achieved were quite remarkable, even though I say it myself.”
As on previous occasions in history the British had not been well-prepared for war. “The British are never prepared for anything — look at the last World War, plenty of warning but the country wasn’t all that prepared. There are plenty of examples of it, and the Falklands is another one.”
“But where the British are marvellous is that when the requirement is there, they can react very well — there is a very good staff reaction.” Sir Kenneth ran the R.A.F. operations in London. He had to start developing quickly the capability to deploy the R.A.F. in ways that had not been conceived of before.
“We had to put refuelling capability into any aircraft we wanted to go down south, we didn’t have any air-to-air refuelling capability on the Vulcan ... we had to put it on to the Hercules, both as a transmitter and as a receiver.”
The R.A.F.’s Harriers had to be modified so they could be carried on container ships and could be flown at sea, while new weapons had to be fitted to many different types of aircraft.
“It all sounds very straightforward, but to modify these aircraft in a couple of weeks...
“It was close, the whole thing.”
His contribution to the victory was acknowledged with the award of the Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) for out-of-theatre operations in the 1982 campaign. “I would rather have been down there flying a Harrier, but the next best thing I suppose was the sort of involvement I had, not in any way glorifying the warfare aspect of it.”
As Air Officer Commanding 11 Group, Sir Kenneth went on after the Falklands war to take responsibility for the air defence of the United Kingdom. He held the post from 1982 until 1985, and during that time managed to fly all aircraft types in the group. He soloed in eight of them.
As Commander of British Forces in Cyprus on his last tour, he had control over the army forces stationed there as well as the airmen. He left Cyprus in April, and took up his present post in June. That month, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. The Air Marshal, whose wife died last year, has returned home about every five years.
