Quite apart from anything else, in 1960 a Turbulent was one of the cheapest ways to travel. I used it whenever possible. Over the next 15 years and over 10,000 hours of flying in various aircraft I never once failed to arrive at my destination. Oh yes, there were just two occasions. Here is the story of one of them.

John Booth was the director of a large family business in the leather trade which kept him extremely busy, but every year he would take a holiday In Switzerland and, in the year I now recall, he and Juno went to Kleine Scheidegg for 2 weeks ski-ing. They asked me along "to keep an eye on the girls" for them. “Girls?” I queried. It turned out that Mysse (my secret love and their au-pair girl) and Sarah Tite (a beautiful accomplished painter and incredible personality) were going as well. I was not about to say no.  Mysse (pronounced Moussa) was a nickname, she had too many names to choose from.  One of my self-appointed tasks was to keep her out of the tabloid centrefolds at the time. Paparazzi were more polite in the 1960s than now so this was not always impossible.  The gold plated knuckledusters she kept in her bag were also a useful deterrent in tricky situations.

I told John I would meet them there, as I would be coming by air but in a single seat aircraft. I wrote to Hermann Geiger, who was the ultimate authority on flying in the Bernese Oberland, famous for rescuing people from impossible places. He gave me every tip on where to land and how to get there. At Redhill, I jammed some evening clothes into the small locker behind the pilot’s seat and set off wearing my ski-ing clothes, boots and a flying helmet.

I cleared customs outbound at Lympne very early in the morning, cleared in at Le Touquet and, after some delay while I pondered the weather situation and got permission to continue (conditions were uncertain), took off for my next stop which was Beauvais. Half way there I met a front of solid clag down to the ground. I decided to press on as far as just outside the boundary of the controlled airspace round Beauvais. If I was not in the clear by then, I would turn back to Le Touquet. Flying the Turbulent on limited panel (no artificial horizon - indeed no electrics and of course no radio) was possible if one was fully trained and practised in this, and I was. When the time arrived for the control zone boundary, I was still in cloud at 1000 feet and there was no indication that it was clear below that. I turned back and after some time emerged into clear air. But before I could get back to Le Touquet a solid wall of what looked like sea fog but which went up to join the overcast barred my way. I was cut off on both sides. It was winter and going to be dark in an hour or so. I looked for a field to make a landing, but the whole of Piccardie appeared to be ploughed up.

Eventually I found a field with a small hut in it,  not far from a village. I landed, taxied to the hut, tied down the aircraft and set off by foot across the fields in the direction of the church spire. On arriving in the village I was surprised to find that it appeared to be uninhabited. Thinking that everyone might be in church, I went up to the church door and opened it. With a terrifying noise that sounded like a banshee’s scream a stream of at least 15 cats of a mixture of colours  rushed out, between and round my legs. I steadied my nerves and looked inside. It was dark and there was nobody. I returned to the main street and walked along it. I picked a house and knocked on the door. There was no answer so I opened the door. The house was full of cattle.  Back on the street I continued my lonely perambulation. Then I saw a man approaching from the other direction. We got closer and finally stopped facing each other. He spoke first, in a language I did not understand.

At this point various thoughts went through my head. One was that I had made some weird mistake flying in cloud and been on the wrong heading. I dismissed this. The second was that I had crashed, died and was now in another life. But I was still wearing my ski clothes and boots and a flying helmet. I realised I must look pretty strange to the man facing me. Perhaps he thought I was from outer space. I remembered the famous description in Adamski’s account wherein he claimed to have met a Venusian from a flying saucer which started: “His trousers were not like mine”. My trousers were certainly not like his and were remarkably like those of Adamski’s imagined Venusian. I tried French:  

“Parlez vous francais?” 

He did, though not all that well. But he seemed much relieved and we shook hands. I explained I needed a telephone and pointed to the single wire which I had noticed on some poles. He understood and we followed the wire to a house. “La maison de M. le Maire” he explained. The mayor opened the door to us, the Pole explained how we met, the mayor invited me in. He was not a mayor of the grand variety, and he dressed as a local farmer. 

It appeared that the mayor and the Pole were the only inhabitants of the village. There was no telephone directory, and the mayor did not know how to use the telephone except for ringing one number - his brother-in-law who lived in Poix. I asked him to ring his brother-in-law and request that he inform the local Gendarmerie that I had landed here, having taken off from le Touquet, on a flight plan to Beauvais, that I was unhurt, that the plane (registered G-APTZ)  was undamaged, and that the the ATCC centre at Lille should be informed of this.

When that was done, the mayor opened a tall cupboard beside the kitchen table. It was empty apart from a piece of excellent cheese and a loaf. He reached behind the stove and came out with a bottle of red wine. From his trouser pocket he took a pen knife and cut some slices of bread and cheese which we proceeded to share while we discussed life in general.

We were getting on famously when half an hour later the door burst open and four or five Gendarmes rushed in, at least two of them armed with machine guns. It seemed clear that I should put my hands in the air, so I did so. They were shaking like leaves, and I did not want the guns to go off by accident. They searched me for weapons and then I slowly prevailed upon them to let me lower my arms and to stop pointing the guns at me. I produced a passport and the aircraft documents and flight plan. Eventually I was sitting at the table with one of the policemen going through the papers, another on the telephone, but two still holding their machine guns ready. I asked them to phone the Air Traffic Control Centre but instead they phoned the Ministry of Defence and the Elysée Palace.

It may be clear to the reader by now that all this was at the time when every gendarme and agent de police in France was on the alert for an assassin, probably English, probably arriving by air in a deserted area to avoid immigration procedures, to take out the Président de la République, Charles de Gaulle. But we know all this with hindsight. Frederick Forsythe had not yet written The Day of the Jackal and the elements of truth on which he drew to construct that work of ‘faction’  were not in the public domain. I was therefore bemused, not realising that for the gendarmes in question this was not just a matter of life and death but quite possibly of the Légion d’Honneur or the sack. I was not to understand all this until some years later.

Meanwhile I had a problem with my paperwork. On giving an account of my journey, it seemed there was an hour unaccounted for. Bear in mind that at this time they had no idea what sort of aircraft I had arrived in or how many seats it had. Instructions from the Ministère de la Défence were evidently formal - all movements and personnel had to be accounted for. Then I realised, looking at the mayor’s clock that my flight plan was in GMT, my watch still on English time - the same as GMT at that time of year, but the police were (naturally) on French time. They were also unfamiliar, I noted, with aviation, with things outside France, and quite possibly with life outside their region. And why not. I have never understood why any Frenchman or woman would bother to travel when it is so beautiful where they live. I explained the lost hour by telling them “In England we are an hour behind”. This seemed to ring a bell with my inquisitor and he accepted it. But worse was to come.

On examining the customs clearance stamps from Lympne and Le Touquet,  he turned to me and said: “But there is a day unaccounted for!”  I stared with disbelief at the date of the Lympne customs stamp. It was true! It was the day before the date of my arrival at le Touquet. I racked my brains for an explanation and in the meantime, to lighten the tension I joked: “In England, we are a day behind.”  Two of my inquisitor’s colleagues were by now looking over our shoulders. He hesitated for a moment. At that moment the phone rang. “Bon!” he pronounced, closing my carnet de passage en douanes and took the phone from the fourth gendarme.

“Oui Monsieur le…  Oui, je crois que… oui…. Oui je peux dire que…. Oui, nous l’avons verifié et…. Oui, toute en ordre et…. Oui, bien gentil…  Oui, je vais lui dire…  Oui, mon…  Oui, au revoir.

He turned to me, reassured: “It seems that you are who you say you are, and that your aircraft and your flight are in order. However we must now find the aircraft and guard it.” 

“Not necessary”, I told him. “It is quite safe for the night.”  He looked at me severely: “You have not understood. We still have orders from the Minister of Defence in person to find the aircraft and guard it till someone arrives from Paris.”

It was by now pitch dark, with a soft drizzle. I sat in the back of a car next to a man with a machine-gun as we sped out of the gate of the small courtyard. “Left or right?”  I did not know, but answered “Right”.  I tried to think of the general direction. We passed a gate into a field. “I think it is in that direction” I volunteered. The driver parked in the gateway and we got out. From the boot of the car they unloaded a portable searchlight and a heavy battery supply with a harness which one of the gendarmes put on. Three of us, myself and the man with the gun and another with the light, set off into the field. It was ploughed, and it was wet. We continued in the same direction for many minutes, crossing ditches, climbing fences, negotiating hedges. During this time I pondered on the missing day and came to the conclusion that what had happened was explainable quite simply. I had been the first person through the customs office at Lympne that morning, arriving before the customs officer. In his haste to see me on my way he had forgotten to wind the date stamp on from the day before when he stamped my carnet. I decided to keep this logical explanation to myself and hold it in reserve in case the matter was raised again.

My thoughts were interrupted by a cry from the darkness ahead. The man with the searchlight had been walking some yards in advance, probing the sky with its powerful beam which suddenly flashed around in the mist and went out. He had fallen into a ditch! I helped him out and we continued, but he was soaked from the waist down.

After about 25 minutes we came to a field with smoothish grass. By now I was carrying the searchlight on the end of the cable, about 3 metres long, attached to the battery which the soaked gendarme was still carrying. But the drizzle had turned to mist which turned to fog, so we could not see far ahead. Suddenly I almost tripped over a guy rope which appeared on my left. It was the plane! Beautiful, tiny, red, with the green cockpit cover on, snugly tied down for the night. “Voilà”  I cried triumphantly! They observed it. After some seconds they started to laugh. It was the laughter of surprise, then of relief, then of happiness. They had clearly expected something different, more dangerous, more military perhaps and certainly more valuable. This was a toy!

In a matter of seconds they decided that there was no need to guard it. It was undamaged, there could have been no other occupants, so in the mysterious lost day between leaving England and arriving officially in France I could not have smuggled any passengers. It was safe where it was. “Let us return to the village”  they suggested and report to the Chef. I took them back - no mean feat without a compass. Crossing a ploughed field the man with the gun tripped over a parked plough. When he stood up in the redirected beam of the searchlight he was chocolate coloured in front but blue behind. Both men were wheezing audibly by know as it had been a strenuous excursion for which they were not prepared. Since I was wearing ski-boots and waterproof clothing and about 22 years old, I was. I ended up carrying the light and the gun, for by now they had decided that I was certainly not a threat to their survival.

As we neared the village the fog cleared noticeably. The car was no longer by the gate so we walked to the mairie. The Chief of Police from Poix opened the door as we came up the steps and his eyes fell on my two companions, one soaked from the waist down, the other mud-coloured in front but, as he came through the door, quite presentable from the rear. The Chef de Police started to shake with uncontrollable laughter. It was an important moment for diplomacy. I continued into the kitchen to speak to the mayor leaving the three of them on the doorstep, coming from where I detected the sounds of a sense of humour failure of some proportions.

I was driven to Poix, to a hotel and a dinner, although the kitchen was in theory closed, which proceeded with some merriment. The next morning I was picked up by a police driver with a 2 CV, which I directed with the aid of a map to a road which passed the other side (from the village) of the field where I had landed. It appeared that an expert had arrived from Paris to approve or prevent my taking off. There were 10-15 present in the field when I arrived. It was a beautiful day. I was introduced to the man from Paris. He took me to one side. “Can you take off safely from here?” he asked me. I told him I could. We rejoined the group and he then spoke to the Chef de Police. “Mr. Baring says he can take off without difficulty, do you have any objections?”  The Chef de Police was cartesian: “He landed here safely yesterday; he found the aircraft last night in a thick fog, he found his way back again, everything he has told us has been correct, if he says he can take off, de mon avis, he can take off.”

I shook hands with everybody, which took some time, and prepared the aircraft. I swung the propellor myself. The engine started without difficulty in spite of the damp. I noticed a tractor driver was spreading lime in the field, working in from the far side, parallel to the direction I was about to use for take-off. He did not seem to have notice the aircraft, but this was no problem. I lifted off just before I overtook him, driving in the same direction, and as I swept past he saw me. I waved. His jaw dropped, and I realised that he had not expected this occurrence. As I climbed away he started to wave back. A few seconds later I looked back to my left and noticed he was still staring up after me. He was also approaching the end of the field. I turned starboard so as to circle the area where the assembled policemen, gendarmes and others were assembled, and as the field came back into view on my right my fears proved not unfounded. The tractor diver had driven into the hedge. However, on the ground below the assembled company had not seen that yet, as all eyes were on the plane and, in the classic manner of children’s books,  many a handkerchief was fluttering in farewell. I waved back emotionally, for by this time I felt I had lived an adventure with these people. But I still had no idea that there was any significance to these events beyond the aeronautical.

On arrival at Beauvais, I taxied in towards the refuelling pumps and was surprised to see several people coming out to greet me. I switched off the engine and climbed out. There were people here who knew me, so I felt at home. “Are you stopping or going on, James?”  “Going on to Switzerland” I answered. “OK, but you have got to be airborne in 30 minutes.”  No way,  I told them. I need to do some flight planning and take it slowly. “30 minutes, that’s all the time you have, then the airfield closes”. “Oh come on,  why are they closing the airfield?”  “Not just this airfield, all French airfields!”  “Why?”  “You don’t know?”  “Why should I know? It was not in Notams (Notices to Airmen) last time I checked.” “Because of you!” several voices chimed in chorus. I protested that I had done nothing other than land in a field, and that this had all been sorted out. But it appeared that my unorthodox arrival had caused some worries. In France, people were supposed to land at airfields, of which there were hundreds. All flying was to cease in France until some procedures were sorted out.

I decided that I could not possibly be ready in half an hour for my flight from Beauvais to the next stop on my way to Switzerland, so I opted to leave the aircraft in a hangar and proceed by train. There was just time to catch a useful one which connected well. I arrived at Scheidegg two days late.

“James, where have you been?” - this from Mysse and Sarah. “We expected you yesterday at the latest, you could have rung!”
“I got delayed” I mumbled, "and did not know exactly when I could get here till I was in a train, without a telephone".
“Just goes to show it was not easier and quicker by plane”  they teased.
“Well, there were special circumstances”  I started, then I gave up. I see, from this photo taken at the time, they forgave me

 “I will write about it one day” I told them. Tragically, Mysse died in a road accident 3 years later. It was not until 1971 that Frederick Forsythe’s ‘Day of the Jackal’ first enlightened me about some of the reasons why the French country gendarmes were so excitable at the time of my landing in Piccardie. The account above, finally assembled Sept 30th 2007, is from the detailed notes I wrote then. Pictures from Sarah's photo album.
We never forget you. See short story: The Put-Down

Back to http://revelstoke.org.uk/aviation.html

II     THE SCILLY SEASON

Guy Mansell rang me up one morning with an interesting request. Two Japanese astronomers had discovered a new comet, named (after them) Ikeya-Seki. The newspapers had been trying to get the first UK photographs of it as seen from London, but bad weather had prevented this. Guy had information that it would be visible early next morning before sunrise. Would it be possible, he asked, to go up in a plane and get photos for the Evening Standard? I could not resist the idea. I parked the Jodel Mascaret on the grass in front of the hangar at Redhill, ready for a night flight. At midnight, Guy and I left London central in the second hand (but immaculate) MGA which had replaced my Fairthorpe. There was an overcast, but it was not thick. However, the temperature was falling rapidly. As we passed the downs, the visibility deteriorated. By the time we reached Redhill aerodrome the fog was so thick it took 10 minutes to do the last 150 yards from the entrance to the front of the hangar. Armed with a torch I searched for the aircraft and found it. “Can we do it?” asked Guy.

I had been taught blind take-offs in aircraft that were more difficult to handle than the Mascaret, but there were two problems. The grass runway at Redhill was marked along each side by what were really boundary markers - about 3 to 4 feet wide and raised, with a triangular cross-section. To hit one would be disaster. It was therefore impossible to use the runway. The perimeter track on the far side of the runway was a better bet, but it only ran for 200 yards before it turned 90 degrees. Before the turn it passed a pump-house, only a few yards from the tarmac. The second problem was that my D.I. (Direction Indicator) and Artificial Horizon were suction driven, not by an engine driven pump but by a Venturi tube which needed airspeed to function. However it was positioned in the wash of the propellor, so there was a possibility to get the gyros spinning if I ran up the engine well on the ground. 

Guy was standing close to me since if we separated by more than a yard or two we would lose each other. “Yes,” I said. “We can do it, providing your nerves are good.”  “If it’s OK with you, it’s OK by me” was all he said. I thought carefully. I reckoned that if we could manage the take-off, the rest would be OK. We had 7 hours endurance. There would be no icing problems above the fog as the sky would be clear. We would be able to land somewhere eventually. I explained to Guy what we had to do.

First, we must not lose each other in the fog!

Next, we must get the aircraft over to the perimeter track, where I would line it up for take-off.

If all of that went satisfactorily and I was satisfied with the instruments, we would take off. 

With a torch, we made our way by foot to the perimeter track to make sure there were no runway markers on the path we were going to take. We made our way back (with difficulty). We got into the aircraft, and using the compass I set the DI. I warmed the engine and got the gyros spinning. We turned onto the heading to cross the runway to the peri-track and moved cautiously off. After what seemed an age we felt the wheels run off grass onto tarmac. I realized that we could see nothing outside the cockpit at all, not even our own wings. The fog was condensing on the outside, our breath had steamed it up on the inside. I swung onto a southerly heading and locked the brakes.

“I can’t be sure we are on exactly the right heading, Guy. I am going to get out and make a recce.” 

Leaving the engine running I opened the canopy door on my side. Immediately I saw the light from the headlight in the wing stabbing forward into the fog. I got out and with the torch established that we were in the middle of the narrow peri-track. I walked forward along the edge of the grass till I almost lost sight of the headlight. It looked as if I was almost straight. I made my way back and told Guy I was going to adjust it. Pushing the tail sideways I overrode the brakes and  moved the heading about 3 degrees to the west. I walked back, looking at the headlight beam in the fog, then forward along the take-off run. Finally I got back in the cockpit. By this time the cockpit hot air was functioning well, and I demisted the inside of the perspex, but still we could not see outside at all as the fog was settling regardless on all surfaces. I tweaked the DI and artificial horizon time after time to ensure they were erect and spinning. I must have checked as many times again that I had left them uncaged, that is free to move relative to the aircraft. I was unable to check radio reception as there was nobody to talk to but all indications were that the radio was serviceable. The intercom was live.

Now was the time to have one last think about the wisdom of the exercise. Were there any unknown factors? I was very familiar with the aircraft. Built at Bernay in Normandie, I had met all the designers and engineers personally who had been responsible for it. A feature of the aircraft was its ‘all-flying’ tail plane. This allowed for a substantial allowable range in the centre of gravity, which was necessary. In its semi-aerobatic configuration, only the two wing tanks could be filled, but behind the two side-by-side seats and beneath the large luggage shelf was a 20+ gallon fuel tank that gave the aircraft another 5 hours endurance. The all-flying tail with its full-width trim tab would act as a marginal load-bearing surface when this tank was full. I knew that for take off in this configuration the trim tab should be set almost fully forward.  As for the engine, I had spent most of a day with Potez in Paris. It was a masterful piece of engineering, with much finer tolerances than the American Continental 100hp flat four engines of similar size. There was imaginative use of phosphor-bronze in the construction. All in all it was a “Rolls Royce” amongst engines of this class, and I hoped to convince Rolls Royce in the UK to partner Potez in the construction of this engine for a whole range of light aircraft. Sadly I failed in this, and Rolls eventually went on to produce the Continental engine under licence. A great opportunity was lost - as is usually the case with British engineering when it comes to political and economic decisions. Another innovation on the engine was coil ignition. While this was universal in automobiles and had been for years, aircraft engine ignition was achieved by magnetos. These were independent of all other electrics and batteries. Driven by a gear-train from the engine they produced and timed the high voltage spark to the plugs, two of which were always used in each cylinder. Coil ignition was considered less reliable, subject to effects of damp and also the fact that with increasing engine speed there was no increase, rather a potential decrease in the voltage achieved. It would also be more dependent on the general electrical system of the aircraft. Potez overcame these objections by careful design and an emergency circuit that could bypass the battery and electrical system and fuses and feed the twin coils directly from the generator. I never had to use it, but this evening I tested it. The last worry was the possibility of water in the fuel, caused by condensation in the tanks when they were not full. I had already taken every possible precaution to verify that there was none. 

“Do your harness up tight, lap strap first, then shoulder harness.”

Guy complied and I checked both our harnesses.

I checked all the controls and instruments, fuel cocks and supply, dual ignition.

I checked the carburettor hot air for carb icing. It cleared some.

I checked for maximum power. We had it.

I selected ‘take-off’ setting for the flaps

I checked again that the elevator trim was almost fully forward. 

“OK?”

“OK”

“Here we go…”

I released the handbrake and glued my eyes to the DI.  I had to keep it fixed within a degree, the width of the pointer or, if it strayed a further degree, to equalize any deviations so as to remain on the peri-track and on the exact heading.

I had decided not to get the tail wheel off the ground, but to fly it off in the three-point attitude and thus avoid any rotation. The critical moment would be the seconds after lift-off. Any mistake then would be catastrophic. As we passed the half-flap stall speed, still on the peri-track, I felt all was going well. The artificial horizon had not, as I feared, precessed to show a false degree of bank. Next moment there was a bump and an intake of breath from Guy. We had hit the grass but, before I could think, we were airborne, slightly right-wing high. I levelled the wings and scanned the airspeed and attitude on the A-H. We had hit the grass because we had reach the point where the peri-track took a 90 degree turn to the left, so that was not surprising. I now had almost 10 knots in hand above the stall speed so I jinked the stick back a fraction then centered to hold a slightly more nose-up attitude. My right leg was shaking uncontrollably causing my foot to vibrate the rudder, but that was not a problem. We were climbing away. All I had to do was make it a perfect climb.

“We are OK, Guy” I said

I do not recall his reply, but less than half a minute later we must have emerged from the fog at 200 ft as the airflow over the canopy was clearing the condensation from the outside. The stars were above us. I could now see our wingtip lights. I turned left and a very faint glow indicated the lights of Nutfield on the port side. The fog must have been much deeper than I thought. I took up a heading for Farnborough NDB (Non Directional Beacon) and called Gatwick Approach. There was no answer. I called Gatwick radar on another frequency. There was still no answer. I called London Information. I called Heathrow. No answer. I called London Information again. There was no answer. Then…

“Go ahead Kilo Lima”.

“Kilo Lima is a Jodel out of Redhill on a photographic flight. We are over Redhill at 1200 feet, estimate Farnborough NDB at 0320. When clear of the TMA we’ll be climbing  to flight level 40. We have been unable to raise Gatwick or Heathrow radar.”

“Kilo Lima there are no civil airfields open at this time. Stand by for further information.”

“Kilo Lima standing by.” 

It dawned on me, and was to be confirmed progressively, that the fog blanketing the south of England was more extensive than I had supposed. It turned out that the nearest civil airfield open was apparently Rome?

“Kilo Lima London”

“Kilo Lima, go ahead London”

“Kilo Lima, Heathrow military radar available on 129.43”     (I forget actual frequency)

“Kilo Lima Roger”

“Kilo Lima, will you be contacting them?”

“Kilo Lima, that frequency does not correspond exactly with my tunable range but I will give it a go.”

“Roger Kilo Lima, return to this frequency if no contact, otherwise good-night to you”

Civil frequencies were only at 50 kc spacing. Nobody knew that better than I as I had represented both the International Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and the Fédération Aeronautique Internationale at endless committee meetings in London and Paris in a rearguard action to keep those frequencies that were on the whole numbers (e.g. 122.7, 118.1) available at all airfields and critical flight information services. By achieving this we hoped to enable impecunious private pilots (in those days most private pilots were impecunious - we bought a pair of shoes once every three years) and all the flying clubs and training fleets to continue to use their existing radios. Of course there was the problem that these would break through onto the 50kc channels so there was an added subtlety of introducing the new 50kc channels initially in the higher reaches of the civil spectrum only, and then geographically located so as to achieve a mix of separation criteria. It was immensely complicated, involving technical, manufacturing, political, national and military interests, expenditure and future planning. The most we could do was to give users a breathing space before they had to re-equip in order to allow the extra channels required by expanding ATC requirements to be fully implemented. There were also some established military frequencies which were not on the 50kc channels or even on the 25kc channels which were to come. One of these was the one open at the Joint ATC centre where the only radar available that night was in operation. I reckoned that it was close enough to 129.45, so I tuned that and called. The reply was instant, loud and clear. 

“Good morning Kilo Lima. We may have you on radar. Climb to 2000 feet, turn right onto 360 for identification.”

I complied, and asked if they were receiving our transmissions clearly. They were. 

I was relieved. One of the key ingredients to safe flying in a controlled environment was having microphones, headsets and radios that were crystal clear with no background noise. To achieve this meant investigating the minutest details of all the equipment, matching impedances and voltages, noise cancelling properties of the microphone and positioning the microphone perfectly relative to the speakers mouth. Nothing gives an air traffic controller more confidence than hearing a clear, articulate voice on the first contact. He or she knows they will not have to repeat instructions or struggle to hear if they have been correctly acknowledged or read back if required. Many commercial aircraft of the era had either poor or badly adjusted equipment or pilots who did not know how to use it properly, frequently both.

“Kilo Lima, you are identified. Climb to flight level 40, report Farnborough NDB”

Guy was now relaxed and enjoying himself. In the subdued red cockpit lighting I saw he was sorting out his camera and had produced some biscuits and a thermos from the back shelf. We reported our arrival at Farnborough and awaited the arrival of Ikeya-Seki. But we saw nothing. After an hour or so we heard London Radar talking to an airliner coming over from the America. He was going to Rome. At his altitude of over 30,000 feet he would see a bit further over the horizon than us. The controller, who by now was informed of our purpose, asked him if he could see a comet from up there. There ensued a short conversation at cross purposes while the pilot sorted out the fact that he was looking for an astronomical phenomenon, not a Comet airliner on a collision course, then he confirmed that he could see nothing unusual. We waited patiently.

“Kilo Lima contact Gatwick now on 119.6, they have traffic”

“Kilo Lima Roger”

“If no contact revert to this frequency - good day and good hunting”

“Thank you, Kilo Lima Out”

“Traffic?” said Guy, “How can there be traffic at Gatwick?” 

By now the glow of dawn revealed a cotton-wool covering extending as far as the eye could see. I agreed it was unlikely.

“Gatwick this is Golf Alpha Sierra Kilo Lima”

“Good morning Kilo Lima. We have a Dove lined up for take-off on runway 09. The Astronomer Royal is on board, he wants to know if you have seen the comet.”

“Negative, not a sign of it yet”

“Roger, Kilo Lima, remain this frequency”

Guy said: “He’s not going to do a take-off like we did, surely?”

No. It was not totally dark now and with their facilities and ground crew they would be able to see out and see some high intensity runway lights, vaguely at least. The runway was very wide, with a lighted centre line (we learned later that they had lined up the aircraft the evening before). Even so I knew it was going to be a hairy take-off for them too.

A few minutes later we were told the Dove was taking off, to hold in the Gatwick area.

Bit by bit the dawn arrived. It was stunningly beautiful. The cotton-wool mantle that covered the ground, even the Downs save for a radio mast or two, changed colours from purple to rose to gold. Guy shot off rolls of film. There was no comet to be seen. Eventually the sun was up and the fog below was a blinding white. We had to think about where we were going to land!

Gatwick ATC were working on this problem without success, but I knew we were in good hands. Gatwick still had GCA radar as well as the new ILS system, and I remembered the occasion when one day I had landed there in what was effectively zero-zero conditions, but not as thick as this and in daylight. It  had happened like this.

My father had been in London and needed to get back to Lambay Island. It was a beautiful morning and I drove him to Redhill. There was not a cloud in the sky. I loaded his bags into the Mascaret and after the usual preparations we took off. I called Gatwick approach and requested landing for customs clearance.

“Roger Kilo Lima, contact Radar on 118.6” (or whatever it was).

I did so.

“Kilo Lima you are number one to land. There is no cloud base, the visibility…..”  at this point I have to admit I must have failed to pay attention, possibly because my father interrupted by digging me in the ribs and saying “I don’t understand how you can make any sense of all this…” - by the time I had shut him up the controller was saying “Check your minima.”

“Kilo Lima Roger”

“Kilo Lima this will be a precision approach to runway 27, turn right onto heading 150, maintain 15 hundred feet, set QFE 1020” (that set my altimeter to read height above the Gatwick runway threshold). Great, I thought, a bit of GCA practice. The controllers at Gatwick were probably checking out the equipment. I relaxed and looked forward to being massaged onto the runway. We proceeded as expected. As we intercepted the extended centreline I noticed some low cloud ahead but did not attach much importance to it.

“You are on the centre line, maintain your present heading, commence your descent now at 500 feet per minute”.

I selected half flap and a few seconds later we met the cloud and sank into it. There was not a breath of wind and after the slight twitch as we entered the cloud the aircraft seemed to be motionless. We might as well have been sitting on the ground with the engine running in a fog. I carried out the pre-landing checks and the controller’s voice continued: “You are on the centreline, on the glide slope, you should make no further acknowledgments of my transmissions, talk down will continue to the threshold, check your minima….you are on the centreline, you are on the glide slope……..you are on the centreline, you are on the glide slope, you are descending through 800 feet, you are two miles from touchdown…..you are on the glide slope…”

My father appeared to be asleep. That was all to the good.

The talkdown continued, with two very minor corrections of heading and none of rate of descent.

Eventually: “You are descending through 100 feet, look ahead for the runway, check your minima, talkdown will continue, you are on the centreline, you are on the glide slope….your are 50 feet from touchdown… you are at the touch down, talkdown out, contact the tower on 118.1

In fact I had seen the runway in time to see that I was on the centreline and in time to round out, but then I was in difficulty as I had to find my way to the right taxiway. I called the tower and they appeared to have some ground radar and guided me to the correct taxiway. The buildings were just visible as I came in to park. My father had woken up as we landed, and I realized that it had been the hypnotic voice of the GCA controller that had sent him off to sleep.

I snapped out of my reverie with the realization that this was all past history,  that Guy and I were airborne over Farnborough at 7.30 am in the morning and that the fog at Gatwick was too thick for even a combined GCA/ILS landing, though possibly it would clear before we ran out of fuel, but that all UK and nearby European airfields were still closed. I set the revs for max endurance.

The Dove pilot was in the same position. We both decided to wait. Then Gatwick announced: “Southend is clearing. They should have half a mile visibility in an hour”. The Dove pilot decided to head for Southend and I followed. On the way we flew over Biggin Hill and looking down, suddenly there were the runways, apparently clear. I called Gatwick and told them we were landing there, thanked them for all their help and called Biggin.

There was no answer but I did not expect one. We spiralled down and turned to land on the Easterly runway as indicated by the signals square. As we turned into the sun, I realized that my relief was premature. We could see bugger all. I flew overhead again to verify our exact position and then did a dead-reckoning circuit, lined up on what I estimated was the correct approach, checked the altimeter setting and settled on a slightly steeper than normal approach, to land well down the runway. At about 150 feet we saw the airfield. I was high and not quite lined up, but with full flap and a quick manoeuvre dropped it safely onto the threshold.

We parked and went to the clubhouse café for breakfast, but the whole field was deserted and we had to wait before the catering people arrived. We tucked into bacon and eggs and the rest and one by one people arrived. At about 10 o’clock someone said “I don’t think there is going to be any flying this morning.”  Guy said: “We have been flying all night…”  I kicked him savagely under the table. “Oh yes, that was yesterday” he mumbled. I did not think it was politic to go into the details in public. We went to see Janet in the control tower who let us take off soon after and we were back at Redhill in time for lunch in the pub..

The Rollason Druine Turbulent had an Ardem engine, which was a modified Volkswagen flat four. Frank Hounslow, Rollason’s chief engineer, was largely responsible for the development of the Ardem, and in the early '60s I met and talked with him often. There was no oil-cooler as such, but the engine oil passed through a block round the induction manifold next to the carburettor. This heat-sink both cooled the oil and prevented icing in the engine intake. There was also a hot-air collector behind the rear cylinder which could be fed in to counter carburettor icing if this should occur. To avoid the effects of vibration which might have loosened or fractured rigid metal pipes leading the engine oil into the cooling block, a flexible length of plastic, wire-reinforced piping forming a loop less than 10 cm in length was used. 

The ARB (Air Registration Board) in their wisdom decided this flexible pipe was a fire risk. It was theoretically possible that in the event of fire in the engine area, this could melt. The board decreed that it should be replaced by a rigid u-bent pipe in bronze. Frank argued against, as did I, but they insisted and the approved modification was installed on the next Turbulents, including one belonging to the Chairman, Norman Jones. For some reason it was his aircraft, not mine, that I flew up to the farthest shores of Scotland, along with other club members, where we were to put on two days of air-displays, parachuting and joy-rides for the people of the region and in particular the staff of the nuclear power station at Dounrae. [Date please, somebody!] Passing Leicester I developed an oil leak.  I landed at Rearsby.  Though it was deserted on a weekend I found a workshop with tools and managed to tighten the joints round the rigid oil pipe that had worked loose. Nothing was broken.

We flew on and the Turbulent team of 4 reached Perth before nightfall, where we stayed with one Sandy McLennan, a club member and owner of a local garage business. Next day we reached Wick and then Castletown, near Thurso, where we parked all the aircraft and where the displays would be given. Our hosts in Caithness were Colin Campbell and Horace Henderson, two of the most wonderful characters it has been my privilege to meet.

James Gilbert decided to take a Turbulent over to the isle of Stroma, but managed to break six inches off one end of the propellor on landing in a small field. He borrowed a saw from the light-house keeper and took six inches off the other end, then tidied each end in an attempt to balance. He did not do a bad job, but on take off he reached almost 4,000 rpm instead of 2,800. I had no choice but to use this plane to lead the formation in our display as it was clearly impossible for any other role! The noise was like a chain-saw.

The night before the main display we had been partying in Thurso and Wick, and when the bar closed  I discovered I was in the wrong place, as my bed was in Scrabster near Thurso. I decided to walk back. It was July, so it never got dark. It was a bit over 25 miles and I completely wore out the soles of my shoes. Arriving at Horace Henderson’s house I sat down at the dining room table, and explained to Horace’s wife I had walked from Wick. She immediately surrounded me with coffee, toast and a beautiful grilled fish, which I devoured. Moments later Horace came in. “Ya ate ma fish!” he exclaimed. I protested my innocence and his wife defended me, but when I went to get to my feet to see if I could get him another one, I discovered I could not. I had completely lost the use of my legs. I had to be carried to bed. We were due to put on our most important display that afternoon. I slept.

Over the next days, whenever there was a lull in the conversation, whatever the circumstances, whatever the place or the company, Horace could be heard repeating: “Ya ate ma fish!”. As for me, I had to be carried every where for the next 12 hours. For the display I was lifted into the Turbulent with the sawn off propellor. Fortunately the rudder controls were very light, and once my feet were on the pedals I could use them. The display started with a fly past of all the aircraft, maybe 15 or more, with Sandy McLennan following on at the end in his Cessna 210 (with his mother and her sister or his grandmother on board?). As I led off, I saw a blanket of low cloud, like a fog, moving in on the airfield from the east. This was the dreaded ‘haar’, a sea fog well known in the area. I speeded up the fly-past and just managed to get them all back on the ground except Sandy. With only 200 yards for Sandy to go to touchdown the cloud rolled over the end of the runway and the airfield had disappeared. He had to return to Perth, as Wick was under the blanket too.

The cloud base beneath the haar eventually settled at twice treetop height, with enough visibility beneath to see across the airfield. So what did we do? We put on the display. Including the parachuting and joy-riding. If I did not know there were witnesses, and that this has been documented elsewhere, I would not expect the reader to believe this.

I think we did another display on the Sunday, and then one evening we went on a huge celebratory drink visiting all Horace’s friends and haunts along the north coast of Scotland. For the second time in my life I overdid the whisky and the next day I thought I was dying. Eventually I asked for Lucozade, and drank several bottles of it. It saved my life. While I was doing this some Jehovah's Witnesses arrived and were sent up stairs to see me. I am told they reappeared shortly after ashen faced and said "There's noo saving him!"   I don't remember what it was I said to them.

Then we had to get back South. At least I did, as I had to appear in court to defend myself on a case that had arisen out of parking in Denmark Street. So did Neil Williams, as he was a busy test pilot at Farnborough. It was fortunate indeed that he was flying about half a mile behind me at 4,000 feet over the mountains near Brora when the oil-pipe that the ARB had insisted on broke, as it was bound to. Neil noticed a thickening cloud of smoke behind me and decided to close in. I noticed the windscreen turning black, and when I tried to look round it, my goggles oiled up.

A gap in the mountains ahead. Far below, a blue loch and next to it just a single field.. It was my only chance. I descended in a spiral. Too late, I saw it was full of sheep. Normally one can fly over sheep to herd them to one end of a field, but in this case I could not rely on engine power. I had to land in one pass. Fortunately the wind was 30 knots. The field was not flat. I fact it had a surface of rolling folds, impossible for landing at a still-air landing speed without smashing the main spar or the undercarriage. But I managed somehow to avoid the sheep and because of a ground speed on touchdown of less than 10 knots, handle the terrain. In less than a minute, Neil had landed his Tiger in the same spot, his undercarriage making light of the bumps, his landing roll being less than 10 yards in the strong wind. We surveyed the damaged pipe and decided it was not reparable without brazing or welding gear.

Neil’s aerobatic Tiger was a single seater, so we removed the front hatch which covered a fuel tank and I put my feet in, so that I sat on top of the fuselage holding onto the struts supporting the top wing. In the 30 kt wind the take off was less than 20 yards with a forward speed that was hardly more than running pace. A fold in the field threw us into the air. We flew to Inverness. From there Colin Campbell picked me up and I went back to Thurso, while Neil and several others flew on down South.

Colin was also able to calm down the controller at Inverness, who was about to send a serious report to the Ministry in London about my unorthodox arrival and the unorthodox departure of everybody else. When he had announced that the airfield was to close in 5 minutes, everyone scrambled to their aircraft and took off, and this was not what he had in mind! Colin talked with him for some time and then put the report into the waste-paper basket.

There were 4 parachutists who had to get back to London as well as me. Horace lent me his Wolsey Mini and with me at the wheel we set off. There were no motorways in those days. I drove non-stop, flat out, all the way without sleep, stopping only for fuel. I think it took about 50 hours. I picked up a spare oil pipe in Croydon from Frank, appeared in court in London, won my case and drove straight back to Thurso in Horace's mini with Dave Allan, an Australian club member who was to bring back a Stampe aircraft which was still in Caithness. These days, when we are surrounded with notices telling us we should not drive for more than 2 or three hours at a stretch, and that we must be strapped in even if we are moving at 20-30 miles per hour, I wonder why we have to treat the entire population as geriatrics. Or are young people all incompetent or drugged?

We drove to Brora and found ourselves beside the loch, with another pilot whose name I forget, but the field where we had left the Turbulent was on the far side. A shepherd was leaning on his stick, contemplating it. As it was the ‘neck’ of the loch, it was only about 120 yards across, but there was no sign of roads on the other side or a way to get there. We spotted a small white rowing boat on the far side and shouted across to the shepherd. He understood, and attempted to launch the boat but failed. “Going to git ma boots!” he shouted and with that he set off into the distance. When we saw that he was apparently climbing a 3,000 foot mountain it was time to look for another solution. We discovered a rowing boat on the near side and tracked down the supposed owner in a nearby cottage. Yes, he would row us across. But there were no rowlocks so we had to make some with saplings and string. When he got into the boat he sat down facing the open water and pulled violently on the oars. This propelled us suddenly into the bank and at this point I realised he had never rowed a boat, so we took over and left him on the shore.

In the field we found the aircraft miraculously unharmed by the sheep. I fitted the new oil pipe and studied the field. There was no way in the slight wind that I could take off on the rolling patch I had landed on, but there was a level track leading from the gate on the eastern fence right into the field for 200 yards. With the fuel I had on board and no luggage and what wind there was coming from the east, I believed I could lift off just in time for the wings to clear the gateposts, even if the undercarriage might hit the top of the gate. The solution was to open the gate for the take-off.

Over on the north side of the lock we suddenly saw Bill Chesson, the club’s display promoter who had somehow found the place, and some friends. Our companion took the boat over to pick them up. We shared the news of the past few days in Scotland and down south. Then David opened the gate and I committed myself to the take-off. My wings cleared the gateposts and I might even have just cleared the gate with my wheels had it been closed, but I was glad we had not chanced it. Back at Thurso, Horace welcomed us warmly and took as for a celebratory evening during which we again visited friends and drinking places all along the North coast but I was careful not to overdo it. The next day we took the Turbulent and the Stampe together back home to Redhill.

Back to http://revelstoke.org.uk/aviation.html

A fire engine was roaring towards me across the runway. It was unable to stop as it crashed downhill, wheels locked, through the fence at the boundary of the cornfield. In the distance behind it was an astonishing sight. The huge crowd of spectators had been so wound up by the commentary and the events of the last 5 minutes that they had spontaneously burst through the barriers and were flooding across the runway before they could be brought under control. It seemed that the rush had been started by the many reporters from the national press who were present for the occasion. I waved to show I was OK, and with this news the commentator managed to regain control of the crowd. But the newspaper men pressed on and soon I was surrounded by notebooks and paper and photographers.

The least I can do, I thought, is to get some publicity for my business so that I can help pay for the repairs. At the time I was equipping the recording studio in Denmark Street with a new transistorised mixer, desperately needed to improve the quality before Andrew Oldham put our name on another Rolling Stones LP, so I replied helpfully to all the questions as to my identity and occupation, realising that the front page of a few tabloids would save me thousands in advertising.

The reporters were all busy writing and the spectators were back clear of the runway when another Tiger Moth commenced its take-off run. Someone was taking advantage of the lull in the programme to leave before the weather got even worse. Over the shoulders of the reporters my eyes followed its progress. As it  rose a few feet into the air. Then the pilot lost control and crashed into the refreshment tent which minutes before had been filled with people. Fortunately my own crash had brought out even the catering staff, who had emerged to find out the cause of the immense roar that had gone up from the crowd.

“Who’s that?” chorused the assembled reporters. “Just someone going home, or trying to", I guessed. Then a voice from somewhere said: "It's Dick Emery!” Emery was at the time a leading TV comedy star. Two pages of notes were ripped off and abandoned on the spot as the newsmen flipped to a clean page of their ring-bound pads and charged like an American football team back over the runway and on toward the remains of the refreshment tent where Dick was surround by rope, canvas and broken tea urns. My attempt at free publicity was spiked, and no mistake. The front page of the tabloids next day were filled with Dick Emery. My plan for a scoop was thwarted. The strange thing is that for years afterwards Dick always told the story the other way round, that I had pinched his tabloid coverage, but the important thing was that moment of chance, of uncontrollable coincidence, that a tea-tent which moments before had quite a few people in it had emptied to see the crazy flying show and at the end of it even the ladies in charge had rushed out to see what was going on, so loud was the gasp from the spectators. There were no casualties.

I wrote to Norman Jones, the founder and Chairman of the Tiger Club, to offer my miserable apologies for damaging G-ACDC, the oldest flying Tiger Moth. He was amazingly understanding. “Just one of those days, James. The weather was impossible”,  was all he said at the time and all he had to say on the subject ever. An aeronautical 50^th anniversary to remember, as luck would have it.

POST SCRIPT: It has been brought to my attention that the above, the most witnessed accident to Tiger Moth ACDC in its long life so far, is not mentioned in:
http://www.johnjohn.co.uk/compare-tigermothflights/html/tigermoth_bio_acdc.html 
I am thankful for small mercies but deny all knowledge of any discrete censorship (or of the authors of that website) !