I had my flying selection at the same college as Bergerie but 4 years after he graduated. The instructor was very good but the syllabus was without taxying and I was unsure of which way the rudder pedals operated having read Kermodes flight without formula..I did well as I was the only one to be shown and to try aerobatics but come day three I lifted the tail rather abruptly which I was unable to control with rudder so I reversed it nearly taking out a 4x8ft marker board the cherokee landing adjacent to us. I did have a trouble landing as there was a dip followed by a hump which I continually flew into but after a rollocking he twigged I wasn't looking at the horizon..something that I was to replicate on jets.
My next lot of flying was with a flying club founded by a scrap metal merchant with mainly assistant instructors..one got into airline flying but destroyed a couple of darts and spun an aircraft in; the other was a Walt who ended up in the CAA and was responsible for the prosecution of Glen Stewart which led to his suicide. I got into a PIO on my first solo as I hadn't been taught what to do in a bounced landing and was told do not do more than one circuit. Basically a useless pair which led me to becoming an instructor after I joined BEA.
My hamble experience was marred by two instructors who couldn't teach forced landings, another who was
petrified of aerobatics including spinning plus a mentality of hiding incidents which continued into the airline. What happened before I joined was an air traffic controller resigning because of the dangerous procedures which led to the death of two cadets plus two of more coursemates had a mid air which they survived..the investgator was in the same squadron as the guilty instructor so he wasnt blamed..nowt changes.
In the airline I got a loan and did a rating under Joan Hughes...what a pilot and instructor..my test was with an ex RAF current BOAC captain whose briefed you won't get a Cherokee into a spin..after a couple orf turns each way we went back to Blackbushe and he said give my regards to Joan.
I got checked out on a tiger moth by two airline mates..one was brilliant the other nervous.
After I lost my medical I eventually got into gliding and like light aviation there are good and bad..one of the stupid things is the CAS require a trail lesson and not a baptism in the air as the frogs call it with the syllabus requiring a stall demonstration..and if you didnt do it you could be prosecuted! BUT even worse was the winch instruction ...having had a fight in my english club regarding the dangers of what they were teaching I quit but was already instructing in ireland where I turned down becoming the CFI (I was flying in the alps a lot of felt I should be there most of the year). We had a couple of tug accidents which you could put down to the tugmaster,
I dropped a glider off at Gransden a couple of years later and read that there had been another two winch fatalities so I wrote a letter to the gliding mag titled "accident. Xxxxx or culpable homicide" with a detailed analysis of what was wrong and how it should be changed..Ignored so I sent similar to the big boss who also ignored me but I met him the following week at Biscester and said that if you didn't change the teaching and I appeared at an inquest the association would cease to exist..a few months later it was changed and the ten year stats show an accident reduction of 50% whilst a french cfi recently said how the brits are the best at winching.
Back onto the subject I failed my final check on the VC10 and was given one for an hour to play with at Stansted with an early Hamble graduate training captain..I learnt the square root of eff all and on my second or third roation with a check into Beirut I the skipper said let go of the stick..the aircraft pitched and he said you aren't effing trimming it. He enquired of the base instructor with another expletive and he tecommended another check..the VC 10 trimmed to a centre neutral rather than conventionally to the position you held the stick. (I had been off sick for more than a month).
Has it changed..doubt it as paragliding instruction varied a huge amount - there is so much to learn and a couple of years barely scrathes the surface.
Best one was an ex luftwaffe starfighter pilot along with Bergerie's school mate who went onto Concorde, competition aerobatics then paragliding.
Last edited by blind pew; 5th June 2025 at 18:12.