BY BEAGLE TO TEHERAN

Pee Wee Judge was a test pilot of some standing and had at the time of which I speak joined Beagle Aircraft, the successor to Auster. He rang me one day with an interesting request: would I fly a Beagle Husky, which was a new high-wing single engine design, to Teheran. It would be ready in less than a month, and the delivery was urgent. James Milne, a senior executive with BICC (British Insulated Calendar Cables) required the aircraft to survey the terrain between Abadan and Teheran where BICC were engaged in running major electric power lines from the generating stations in the Gulf to the capital. Milne had flown an Auster many years before in India when he had been doing work in connection with the railways in that country. The power lines contract had been awarded to BICC as result of a competitive tender. The Shah was surrounded by French advisers, and his son-in-law was in charge of civil aviation in Iran. Milne had been told that the terrain from the hills south of Teheran to somewhere near the coat was impassable in the winter, and work would have to cease till the spring. This was disastrous, as the teams and the materials were scheduled to arrive and continue working. Milne needed to survey the territory for himself, by air.

I told Pee Wee I would do it. First, I had to find a co-pilot. Tom Storey had limited flying experience at that time but was a good VFR pilot, a formidable thinker, strong on logic, and I knew I could trust him to calculate fuel flows, weights and balances and general mathematics in a tight spot. He agreed to help me with the planning for the flight. We had to get a lot of approvals and visas. Tom went off to the MTCA (Min of Transport and Civil Aviation), and I went to see Loftur Johannsen. Loftur ran an Icelandic airline that did all sorts of strange business in curious parts of the world. Sometimes it was for the Red Cross, sometimes for the CIA. Nini was employed at this time as his secretary. I knew he would have some good advice about the route to Teheran.

There were political complications. The six-day war between Israel and Egypt had barely finished. Relations between the UK and Iraq had gone badly wrong. We could not get permission to land in Syria. The Lebanon was stable (ish), but Greece and Turkey were practically at war over territorial rights on the (Aegean?) islands and Cyprus. I decided we had to take a more northerly route through Turkey. Loftur filled me in about the weather and the mountains in Turkey in November. It sounded exceedingly dangerous, and landing anywhere other than an airport was an invitation to trouble.

We drew up two flight plans, one for the northern and one for the southern route. We had  about 500 miles max range with an additional tank behind the seats. We were limited to 15,000 feet maximum cruising altitude, 10,000 in reality without oxygen, and 100 knots True Air Speed. I decided Turkey was too difficult for reasons of weather and terrain, and concentrated on the fair weather route to the south. Iraq was problematic. We just did not have the range to reach Baghdad from Beirut. I consulted Douglas Bader (he of the famous tin legs) who I had met on committees at the Min. of Civil. Aviation dealing with customs and excise clearance for General Aviation at UK airfields. Douglas worked for BP. “No trouble old boy. There is a pumping station we call T2 out in the desert half way to Baghdad. I will arrange for some Jerry-cans of 100 octane to be there for you.”  I gave him the date. “No trouble old boy.”  That decided it, we would take our chances with the bureaucracy and the politics and take the southern route. Tom agreed. He had made great progress with the Ministry who had managed to get us some advance clearance for Iran, Lebanon, Rhodes, Cyprus and Greece. Iraq remained a problem, but they were working on it. There was a Kurdish rebellion and the new regime in Baghdad had just removed the UK Diplomatic staff by setting fire to the consulate. They had been lucky to escape with their lives and were now in Beirut. We then learned that the Commercial Attaché was none other than Geoffrey Hancock, a Tiger Club member!

All the visas we could get were in order and it was time to go. It was winter, and although we were heading for sunnier climes I knew that at night in the desert it could freeze, so we were equipped with fur-lined boots and all the necessary clothing to survive. We had spoken to Milne earlier when he was on a visit to London to tell him of the route and expected time of arrival, Pee Wee came to see us off from Redhill where he had delivered the plane to us. “Give him a test flight before you hand over the aircraft” said Pee Wee. Good point.

After clearing customs at Lydd we went straight to Paris and landed at Toussus-le-Noble, just west of Orly. We had a cheap room booked in Paris and went out to dinner. I ate a massive steak tartare. In the middle of the night I woke with the mother of all stomach upsets and vomited for two hours. As we were sharing a room, this did not go down too well with Tom, but he was understanding. Back at Toussus in the morning we discovered the aircraft covered in thick hoar-frost and the airfield closed with visibility less than a kilometre. We scraped the ice off the plane and waited. When the viz improved I went to file a flight plan. “It is below IFR minima” I was told by ATC. That meant that the visibility along the runway was insufficient to allow a take-off even under Instrument Flight Rules.

It appeared that IFR minimum visibility for Toussus was 5 km, excessively high. I asked the reason for this, and it was because the IFR landing minimum at Toussus was 5 km and aircraft were not allowed to designate Orly as their alternate for landing back (where the landing minima were lower due to the presence of radar and ILS). Therefore one could not take off unless one could legally land back again on the airfield.

That was a bit of a bummer. In mid afternoon the freezing fog thickened again. We returned to Paris “The guardian of European culture…” Tom insisted, “we should visit the Louvre.” The next day we were scraping an inch of frost of the plane and I had the feeling this could go on for weeks. At midday I went to see ATC. “Incidentally, what is the VFR (Visual Flight Rules) visibility for take-off” I inquired. “3 km” came the answer. “That’s lower than the IFR minimum!”  “Mais oui, évidemment, c’est vrai.”

I dashed out to find Tom. “Get ready to go” I shouted. “We can take off VFR!”. Tom raised an eyebrow, said nothing and got ready. We filed VFR to Nice and waited at the end of the runway till ATC reckoned it was just clear enough for a take-off. As soon as we reached 200 feet we were in thick cloud, as although the met office reported fog and no cloud, in fact the fog had lifted slightly and become cloud. But then we were out of it and at 800 feet were above all fog and cloud and in brilliant sunshine. This is known as “VFR ON TOP”  and is a nice way to travel, but we were not to see the ground again till we saw the peaks of the Alpes Maritimes just north of Nice. Even the Massif Central was covered in freezing fog with only one or two radio masts and Mont Ventoux to the East to give a clue that we were over the land. Unknown to us, down below on the autoroutes a great many people were dying in their cars in crashes or frozen to death or asphyxiated by carbon monoxide wafted in along with the hot air from their heaters as they waited day and night in monstrous traffic jams caused by pile-ups in the fog. It was dusk as we landed in the clear at Nice. The sun was setting, the runway lights were welcoming and I felt optimistic. From here on the weather should present no problems. I was almost right.

Next stop was Rome. We saw it off to starboard as we approached one of the airports.

“Ah, the Eternal City…”
“Just help me with these approach charts, Tom.”
We never saw the Eternal City close to as we had to do a racing turn-around at Rome Urbe Airport to reach Brindisi that night. Because we were flying East all the time, we were losing about an hour out of each day and in mid November the days are not that long.

Brindisi had a picturesque harbour. There is something about it which nags at the recesses of my memory, but I forget. Was their large statue there, once or even now? We found a hotel and then a bar. The locals eyed us with curiosity. We got the impression that this might be a dangerous place, as they looked a conspiratorial bunch. I locked our door from the inside that night. At breakfast I kept the room key with me.

We made an early start for Athens. We had been warned to avoid Albania. An NDB (Non Directional (radio) Beacon) in the vicinity of Corfu was notorious for giving a false reading which led pilots to infringe Albanian airspace with dire consequences. We reached cruising altitude and settled down. I became aware of some discomfort in my left thigh, then pain. I gave Tom control, and loosening my straps I investigated my pockets. Heaving and struggling for a minute or two I extracted with great difficulty a large wood and metal pyramid a good six inches high. Written on it in huge letters was “Please do not remove this key from the hotel”. On another face of the Pyramid was “If you have taken this key by accident, please put it in the nearest post box”. On a third face was the name and address of the hotel. Tom said: “How on earth did you manage to get that into your pocket in the first place?” It was a good question. It was hard to see what else the wretched hotel manager could do to prevent people taking the keys by mistake. We kept ourselves amused by imagining the possible objects he might attach to keys in the future to avoid them being pocketed, but decided these would probably result in them being removed deliberately as mementos, leading to the logical conclusion that by the end of the millennium that keys would be attached to devices with bleeping radio-location bugs or weights with flashing warning signs, so heavy they had to be wheeled in barrows…. Evidently hotel keys were going to have to phased out, and a new technology used. We passed Corfu without incident. There seemed to be quite a lot of naval activity in Greek waters. Athens appeared in the distance.

Tom announced: “Athens! The Birthplace of Democracy, the….”
“Golf Alpha Victor Sierra Romeo this is Athens Approach, what is your position?”
“Sierra Romeo…….8 miles from the field heading 120, estimate overhead in 5 minutes.
“Sierra Romeo,  you are cleared for a visual approach, call downwind right-hand runway XX.”

We landed, parked and went to the customs office. There we were asked to produce our licenses, log-books, aircraft log book and engine log books. We obliged. Next they asked for the weight and balance schedule for the aircraft, its dimensions, certificate of airworthiness. We obliged, and also offered them the ‘Carnet de Passage en Douanes’ which was the only document they really needed and which we required them to stamp. They did not seem overjoyed, and asked for manufacturer’s address and the technical drawings of the aircraft. To their surprise, we produced them. After some time, when all had been examined, they gave up and handed the documents back, somewhat dispirited I thought. The fuel crew had refuelled the plane by this time and we went to ATC to file a flight plan to Rhodes.

“Your flight plan has to be approved by the Met office,” the ATC official told me. “They will give you a route forecast which you must bring back here with the flight plan, stamped.”

We went to the Met. Office.

“We would like a met briefing for Rhodes.” I showed the man our flight plan.
He looked at me. “The weather forecast is classified.”
“That’s alright, I have signed the official secrets act”
He looked at me, unamused.
“The meteorological information is a military secret. It is classified by the government.”
“We only want to go to Rhodes”
“Particularly in that area.”
“Its a lovely day.”
“You cannot leave without a route forecast, it is… mandatory.”
“I understand. In that case you really ought to give us one.”
He considered this.
“Do you have a piece of paper?”
“Yes,” I replied and produced one.
“And a pen?”
I produced that too.
“You write.”
I wrote. He told us, in meteorological language, that the forecast was thunder, lightning, rain, hail, snow, violent wind and severe turbulence most of the way to Rhodes. I wrote it all down.
“Read it back please.”
I read it back.
He then took the piece of paper, screwed it into a ball and dropped it into a waste paper basket beside him. Then he stamped the flight plan and said: “You can take this back to ATC. Have a good flight!”
I think there was a smile there, but his moustache made it difficult to be sure.

We were soon airborne and on our way to Rhodes. The odd thing was that his forecast was perfectly correct, except that in between the cumulo-nimbus, which we flew underneath and not through, there were areas of blue sky and shining sea. It was inspirationally beautiful, and though we got thrown about and spattered with every kind and quantity of precipitation it was a glorious and refreshing trip, and there were lots of interesting ships to be seen..

We landed at Rhodes and were arrested.

After a half hour’s interrogation our inquisitors, who had been quite civil, had been unable to shake our story that we were just delivering the aircraft in which we were flying to Teheran. They found this hard to believe, and thought it far more likely that we were spies, though they were careful never to say so in plain language. It was of course true that the most significant military intelligence was the position of  the Greek and Turkish fleets, and in theory we had flown over the whole damned lot in the past 8 hours and could have photographed them; but we hadn’t.  They agreed eventually that we could return to the airfield at 3.00 am and leave for Cyprus. We drove into the town (forget the name) and noticed that while in England one drove on the left,  Americans on the right, the French in the middle, in Rhodes they had not yet decided to use one side rather than the other. When overtaking and when passing someone coming in the other direction, either side would do. The same applied to ‘islands’ in the road, which we circumnavigated in a random direction.
 
Tom produced some classical references and history, which I now forget, and we had a good meal with wine and went to bed. Our taxi driver returned at 2.45 GMT. When we arrived at the airfield gate the sentry spoke briefly with the driver. In retrospect I think part of what he said must have been to the effect that nobody on the airfield was awake, since as we drove in our driver gave repeated blasts on his horn. This produced a remarkable effect. From buildings all around in the darkness came sounds of shouting. Lights came on and men in pyjamas carrying guns poured out and surrounded us. One spoke to our driver. After a brief exchange voices were raised and much shouting ensued. They opened the driver’s door, dragged him out and gave him a severe drubbing. In spite of the pain that was clearly being inflicted he appeared to be convulsed with laughter. Eventually they threw him back in the car and slammed the door. He was still convulsed with laughter and it took him a minute before he could speak.

“They thought…”  He collapsed in laughter again. “They thought it was the invasion.”
“Ah yes, the invasion,” we intoned sagely.
He drove us to the aircraft. I think we had completed all the formalities the night before including the flight plan and we lifted off before the sun was up, en route to Nicosia.

On landing there were surrounded by a small crowd. Had we seen the  fleet? Was the invasion imminent? We were a mine of non-information. It appeared that in another crisis American civilians in Beirut were in a panic and being evacuated. We were assumed to be in the know, but we knew nothing, except that Beirut was our next stop. We refuelled and were soon on our way. A call to the RAF base at Akrotiri produced a classic RAF voice in response, calm and reassuring. They had us on radar, we could remain on their frequency till contact was lost or we were handed over to Beirut. I handed over control to Tom and tried to sleep.

On arrival at Beirut we were greeted by a man who said he would be our ‘handler’. He explained that we should give him about 12 copies of the ‘General Declaration’ form and of another which referred to the aircraft, and a pile of cash, and he would fix everything. Forewarned, we were forearmed and gave him exactly what he wanted. “Follow me” he instructed. We did, as he flashed around the various offices distributing forms, getting them stamped, talking as fast as an auctioneer. Eventually it appeared to be all over. “I can do all the rest later,” he said. “Now we will put your aircraft in the hangar.” We did that, and were soon in a taxi on our way into town. This was my first experience of driving in Beirut. It was terrifying. On approaching a cross-roads, the driver did not slow down, he just hooted. Since everybody did this, collisions were inevitable. By some miracle we were spared. Later on the hotel balcony I sat sipping a drink and listening to the noise of the city. The continuous revving of engines was punctuated by the sound of a horn approximately every second, a squeal of tyres on average every 10 seconds and the sound of a crash every 30-40 seconds, sometimes near, sometimes further away, sometimes echoing in from a mile or more. I was considering a calculation when Geoffrey Hancock arrived, and we joined him for dinner.

We told him that we had not yet received clearance to land at Baghdad. Since Geoffrey had just been lucky to escape from Baghdad unsinged this did not surprise him. He thought the only thing to do was approach the Iraqi consul in Beirut. “Perhaps you could assist us, even come with us” I suggested. “Good heavens no” said Geoffrey, “I am not allowed to have any contact at all, nor are any of our diplomatic staff here. But you could try for an appointment.”

So we did, and we got one. After a short wait we were shown into the consul’s private office, accompanied by his interpreter. He did not speak any English, but the interpreter appeared to be translating the questions and answers adequately. Most of the questions came from the consul, concerning the reason for our trip. After 15 minutes he asked us to come back at the same time the next day. We left, and spent the day as tourists with the benefit of Geoffrey’s advice. I think we went to Byblos. The next day we spent about half an hour with the consul. He sent for tea and biscuits, and even spoke a couple of words of English. We went into some finer details of the route, our refuelling stop at T2, and also gave him more information about the aircraft. He seemed more at ease, even interested. Again he asked if we come again the next day, which we did. This time he told the interpreter to leave the room. When the door was closed, he spoke to us in perfect English. “I have seen the plane”, he said. “You have come from England in that? This is the plane you are taking to Teheran?”  “Yes,”  we told him.

“This is a great adventure. This is How the West was Won. This is how the Empire was built!” he enthused. “I am a great admirer of Winston Churchill. I must tell you that things are very bad in Iraq at this time.” He went on to describe what had happened over the past few years and then got down to the arrangements he had made for us. He gave us a personal document signed by him to present on arrival at Baghdad. He had contacted his people in London. He gave us another piece of paper in case we force-landed in the desert which we should show to anyone that approached us. “So they don’t cut our balls off” said Tom. “Exactly!” Finally he wished us good luck and shook us warmly by the hand. We left in high spirits and went to the airport to arrange everything for a take-off on the following day. Then we went to see Geoffrey and celebrate. “I think diplomacy is often much better left to amateurs” was Geoffrey’s comment, “Why not try a trip to Moscow next.”

But the next morning a telex from the Ministry of Aviation in London said they were still waiting for confirmation for something, and ATC would not clear us for take off. We sat at the holding point with the engine starting to overheat as the sun rose higher, and our daylight time diminishing. Eventually jeep drove up and a man got out bearing a telex or telegram print-out, the salient part of which said:  ….re authorisation for Beagle Husky G-AVSR: “PERMISSION GRUNTED”.

We were given take-off clearance and climbed away towards the Golan Heights, with instructions to call Damascus when in range, for we had to overfly Syria and this was a part of the route where we were in an ambiguous situation. We had either not been able to get visas for Syria or landing permission, I forget which, one way or the other it had to be avoided but we had to fly over it. I called Damascus and gave them our details. “Roger Sierra Romeo”  the voice from ATC was perfect, cultured English, loud and clear. “You are cleared to Damascus airport, report at the VOR.”  After some further exchanges it became clear that he was telling us we had to land at Damascus. This was not a good idea, even though the controller sounded friendly and efficient. I decided not to pursue the details but to keep going. After some time I noticed that the VOR beacon we were using to navigate by was fluctuating. Then it went off the air completely. I called Damascus and told them. “Thank you Sierra Romeo, I will contact the engineers.”  Over the next half hour we exchanged messages on the state of the VOR transmission, during which time we overflew Damascus at 10.000 feet. Eventually it was transmitting again satisfactorily, and we were asked what our position was. “Sierra Romeo is leaving your airspace at this time en-route to Baghdad”. “Roger Sierra Romeo, thank you and good day.”  It appeared that diversion of the failed VOR, which was also the landing aide for all commercial and military flights into Damascus, had pushed all thoughts concerning our landing out of their minds and since we were now out of their airspace it was no longer an issue.

We droned on over the desert. It was immense, and featureless. There was a non-directional radio beacon at T2, but it had a range of only 25 miles, so we had to fly accurately. After a while, looking down, we were amazed to see a man, walking. I did not understand how, from 10,000 feet, we could see a single person, but that was what it appeared to be. We had not seen a single structure for ages. Where could he be going to, and where from? No doubt people who know the desert well will know the answer to this sort of thing. Then I noticed something else! Directly below us, circling around at high speed, were a couple of MIG jet fighters. They performed figures of eight, weaving about, and always thousands of feet directly beneath us. I pointed them out to Tom and we both watched, trying to figure out what they were doing. Then we figured it out. They were looking for us, but at the wrong height. Somebody had us on radar, but with no altitude information. They had assumed a small aircraft flying at 100 knots would be at 2,000 feet or around that height. Even as these thoughts crossed our mind they must have figured it out too and they spotted us. In less than a minute they were approaching us from astern, one either side. They flew past us and turned for a second look. This time they managed to slow down enough to stay in view along side. One of them waved, but as he did so his aircraft, unable to fly at 100 knots, stalled and dropped away. It was the same for the other one. They gave it one more try, waving again, and we waved back not able to see if the signal was friendly or not or a signal to follow them. As they dropped out of the sky for the second time they sped away in a southerly direction. We did not see them again, and assumed it had been a friendly identification flight. Perhaps the consul in Beirut had friend in the Iraqi air force. I recalled that I had trained with some Iraqis in the RAF and had got on well with them. On one occasion I had been given the task of giving them a drill session on the parade ground. I had a word with them secretly before hand and explained that it was not a test of their drill standard (they tended not to take it seriously) but of my capability to take command, and if they drilled really well it would be good marks for me. They drilled better than they had ever done in their lives, and I was grateful. Perhaps the pilots we had just seen had been amongst them.

After a lot of tuning and tweaking we identified and locked onto the T2 NDBeacon. It was a relief, as we could not afford to waste time if we were make it to Baghdad before sunset. When we got their, we saw a hut, a marked area that looked like a runway, and what looked like a small pile of Jerry-cans. As we taxied in, we saw that it was indeed just that, as Douglas had promised. Tea and egg and cress sandwiches worthy of an English picnic were waiting for us in the hut, where we were greeted by the few people who maintained the station. A funnel with a chamois leather to filter the fuel had been placed carefully next to the Jerry-cans. We topped up and were on our way in 15 minutes.

Baghdad, the town, did not show up from the air and I was getting uneasy until I discovered we were staring at it.
“The Cradle of Civilisation…” Tom intoned, “The …..”
“Help me find the sodding airfield, Tom. Everything is the same colour.”
The setting sun might have given some helpful shadows, but for some reason the atmosphere had gone hazy. The field was near the town. We were cleared to land and as we parked a re-fuelling bowser and a jeep pulled up beside us. This was service indeed! Refuelling was charged to our BP carnet and completed in no time. We were driven to the terminal building. The officials accompanying us as we walked in asked for our passports and it looked as if they were going to look after all the paperwork but suddenly they stopped in their tracks. “You are British, not Russian?”

I suppose with our boots and wool-lined jackets we could just as easily have been Russian, and presumably only Russians were expected at that time, but the aircraft registration was British, we were speaking English, and our Passports were definitely British. There was clearly a problem.

“How did  you get here?”  - We were being interrogated by three officials.
We explained, though we minimised the role of the Iraqi consul in Beirut so as not to get him into trouble and instead produced all the paperwork we could, including the telegram with the “PERMISSION GRUNTED”.
“How did you find your way?”
    We showed them our maps.
“Where did you get these maps of our country?”
“They are standard aeronautical navigation charts. These are based on aerial photographs taken over a period of time, with the aeronautical details and various features updated by information form many sources. These ones are essentially American”
“We do not have maps like this here.”
“You can buy them in shops in London.”
“We will have to take these maps.”
“We will need them back if we are to leave, as without them we cannot navigate.”
“You cannot stay here in Baghdad.”
“We do not need to stay. We have to get to Teheran. But we would like to leave in the morning, not now.”
There was some consultation. They took the maps away and the passports, and we waited. Eventually:
“You can stay one night in Baghdad.” They named the hotel and said we could go there straight away. We must take off for Teheran at 6.00 local time and fly above 12,000 feet, or we could get shot down as we were flying through a war zone. The Kurds were in rebellion against the Iraqi regime and irregular but full-scale hostilities were in progress.”

“We agreed, and got transport into Baghdad. There were two English, or at least English speaking people in the bar where we soon found ourselves. One was the representative of BOAC (British Overseas Airways, the main international arm of the UK national carriers, the domestic and European carrier being BEA). The other was a journalist who was so well known in Baghdad that his presence was apparently tolerated regardless of the political situation. They told us they were the only two left. We sank some whiskey and headed for bed.

“Awake! For morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight, and lo! The Hunter of the East has caught the sultan’s turret in a noose….”
Not having a stone to fling or a noose to hand I caught Tom with a pillow; but he was right, or almost so. The dawn was about to burst upon us. We scrambled downstairs and got a cab to the airport.

Our passports and maps were returned to us and soon we were climbing away on track to Teheran. We went to 10,000 feet, and then eased up gradually. We did not want to be affected by lack of oxygen, but it was unlikely that 12,000 feet would be a problem. Besides, there were some high mountains that we had to cross.

When we reached the mountains, they were not snow covered but of remarkable colours. It seemed to me that there were huge quantities of minerals of all sorts. We were now in Iran. We had not been shot at or at least we had not been hit if we had been. We had no weather problems and in due course Teheran came in sight and beyond it the incredible EBURZ mountains, rising to 15,000 feet and blinding white. I took control from Tom for the landing. Teheran was 5,000 feet above sea level, and I had been taught that when landing at a high ‘density altitude’ one must be aware that true airspeed is significantly higher than indicated airspeed. I had never yet put the knowledge to the test or witnessed the symptoms or results of this condition. I was about to find out. What the textbooks and instructors had not pointed out was that the increase in true airspeed was not the only or even the most important change. The space required to change direction, to arrest a rate of descent, and to effectively ‘round out’ for a landing are greatly increased. I had been ready for a high-speed landing as far as the wheels on the tarmac were concerned. What actually happened was that as I went to flair to arrest the rate of descent and prepare to settle down for a ‘three-point’ landing (one where the tail-wheel and main wheels touch at the same moment, as the aircraft passes below the stall speed) we continued on down, even though the nose came up and we were not stalled. We landed immediately on the runway with a thud, on three points and devoid of lift, rolling at high speed. “Brilliant!” said Tom. “How did you do that?”  I  did not mean to do it, I explained. I meant to land 50 feet further on! In fact I was profoundly shocked by the whole experience. It took me some time to analyse and get to grips with it.

Milne was their to meet us after we had cleared customs. He was ecstatic. We had got there on time. But there was a snag. The Iranian authorities would not allow him to  fly the aircraft on the British register. It had to be imported, granted an Iranian validation of its certificate of airworthiness and be put on the Iranian register, with new registration letters, before it could be flow internally in Iran. I realized that this was probably deliberate obstruction, engineered by the Shah’s advisors and enforced by his son-in-law who was in charge of civil aviation. Perhaps they had lost out on a huge back-hander because the contract had gone to BICC.  

I told the Iranian officials: “The aircraft can not be imported for the moment. I have to do an acceptance flight with Mr. Milne before I can hand it over. Until that is officially completed to his satisfaction, the aircraft remains the property of the manufacturer, and I am the manufacturer’s representative and the pilot in charge of the aircraft.” They had to agree to that, as we produced paperwork to prove all of it.

The next day Milne and I went flying, and we went a long, long way. Far enough for him to see that the terrain to the south through the mountains was not flooded, not impassable or impossible. As we returned, unknown to us a northerly wind of increasing strength set in. It was logical really. To the north were the freezing Eburz mountains, to the south the warming desert. As the day went on, cold air started to rush down the frozen slopes to replace the rising air over the desert. We had no way of checking groundspeed over the featureless desert. We just kept pointing at Teheran and wondering why we never got there! We made it with 20 minutes fuel remaining.

Milne doubled the £250 plus expenses fee he had agreed for the delivery flight and wired it to our bank accounts. I asked him to wire some of mine to Athens, as I had to return via that city to see Caroline Watson. He also told us we could stay at the Teheran Hilton for at BICC’s expense for rest and recuperation, as long as we wanted. But we could only stay 3 days. Tom had to get back for accountancy exams, I had to get back to the studio. The Teheran Hilton was very comfortable, apart from the fact that the very dry cold air outside, combined with the air conditioning inside, created an environment such that by walking along the carpeted corridors we became statically charged with a voltage that could jump almost half a centimetre when putting a hand to a door-handle. I kept forgetting this and was continually shocked. Apart from that, life was good and we consumed much vodka and caviar.

Before leaving we stocked up with the best grey caviar, which was available and cheap. What I brought back would today probably cost over 1,000 pounds. Milne was proceeding with the task of putting the plane on the Iranian register, but he told us it had already saved BICC an astronomical sum of money, so we considered that the operation had been a success. I think it was by Quantas that Tom and I made our separate ways back west.

Athens! With some money to spend! And the lovely Caroline Watson, who’s telephone number I had been given by Tony Haig Thomas. “She works in the embassy there, James, and I am sure she could do with a visit from a countryman.” So I had made her acquaintance briefly during an FAI conference in Athens and was going to see her again now on my way back. There were troubles in Greece of course. The ‘Colonels’ were mounting a military coup. I cannot remember now at what stage all this had got to, but it became clear that Caroline had to be available 24 hours a day at a moment’s notice. She was the only person who could decode the foreign office telegrams. So wherever we went, for lunch, in the evenings or on the week-end, the embassy had to know. I ate rather well as a result, as when she got rushed away in the middle of dinner on the back of a motorbike I would finish off her half eaten lobster or whatever. She got back for the cheese and coffee.

I was staying in the Athens Hilton, which was even better than the Teheran Hilton as far as architecture and comfort, though not so good for caviar and vodka. They advertised a picnic basket, made up for guests to take out on tourist excursions. The weekend, I thought, we might get a respite from the Foreign Office coded telexes. I planned an appetizing basket and on Sunday we drove to the top of a mountain called, if I remember rightly, the Hymettus. The weather was beautiful. We opened a bottle and unwrapped the goodies. Many hundreds of feet below we could see the traffic, not too much in those days. As I watched, I noticed a motorcycle turn onto the road that led towards the mountain. A little later I looked again. Far below, it was taking the route that zigzagged up towards us. Nothing conclusive about that I thought but then it was the only motorbike, indeed the only traffic on that road and it was being driven purposefully. The driver was in a hurry, and was not stopping to admire the view. Before it was half-way up and before I could even hear the noise from its engine I knew the worst. We ate the picnic in Caroline’s flat later that evening instead.

Back at Redhill next weekend Pee Wee had another bright idea. “Before the war, we used to do formation aerobatics in bi-planes.” We looked at him, surprised, as in 1960 the only formation aerobatics we had seen, indeed imagined to be possible, were those performed by the RAF in modern high performance aircraft which were now jet powered. Pee Wee explained: “The leader has to change his power settings from throttled back in the dive to full throttle in the climb to enable the wing men to stay in position during a loop, but it’s possible.” Neil Williams and Peter Philips thought about it, then disappeared quietly. An hour later they were back in the club house, covering the blackboard with chalk and arguing. I was called over to give an opinion. “Right,” said Neil, “it can be done. Let’s try it with three now.”

* * *

UPDATE AUGUST 15th 2007
I have received a communication today from Steve Holwill telling me G-AVSR retains its original registration and was repatriated to the UK.
 
"The Husky was bought from BICC and flown back to the UK by Tony Young in 1971 who owned it until 2005.  He rebuilt it and it won several competitions.  It now lives at a small farm strip on Exmoor, where it goes for journeys around the south of Britain and is still in good condition.  As I understand there are now only 5 flying in the UK."
Here is a photo. Click to get a BIG ONE.