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Old 22nd Jul 2004, 02:40
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Milt
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Canberra Australia
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Blackbushe and Farnborough Confusion

Perhaps Blackbushe has kept a count on the increasing number of time it has been confused with Farnborough,

Here is another humorous account from the 50s when I was doing ETPS at Farnborough.

From Memoirs

Confusion often occurred with air traffic control instructions despite the care taken by the controllers to use standard words and phrases with clear English diction for the benefit of foreigners on ETPS courses..

It was not uncommon for pilots to mistake Blackbushe, the civil airfield 10 miles from Farnborough, for home base. I found myself doing an initial approach on Blackbushe one misty afternoon. I soon recognised my error as the layout of the airfield became clear. Not so with the Egyptian, Vickery Zarr, He followed through to land and when he went to turn off the runway on to a taxiway with which he was familiar at Farnborough, the resultant radio chatter became really hilarious.

It was normal practice under these circumstances for Farnborough to retain control over the offending pilot whilst liaising with Blackbushe over a telephone tie-line. So those of us on the same frequency became party to a fascinating sequence of instructions and responses.

Blackbushe was base to a fleet of civil Ambassador type aircraft and it became obvious that one of these was preparing for take off at the holding point when Farnborough said to Vickery " Take the next runway exit left and then the taxiway back to the holding point." Vickery said " I do not understand where I am and what I should do. I have some fuel left and can fly again for 20 minutes." Farnborough came back with "Roger, taxi straight ahead to the Ambassador." Vickery did not respond so Farnborough repeated the instruction. Vickery then came back in a faltering voice with "Please, please, I do not er er I do not wish to see the Ambassador today."

One of the tutors on the radio broke in with " Vickery you idiot, he means the Ambassador aircraft waiting for take off at the holding point." Meanwhile the rest of us had convulsions of laughter at the expense of the hapless and confused Egyptian.

We Australians were sometimes confused by different meanings given to words. The RAE were experimenting with a rapidly configurable inflatable aircraft capable of being carried around on a light road vehicle. The wings were inflatable and normally folded into a container. The engine was fitted with a small air compressor which inflated the wings and fuselage to maintain form and strength of its delta shape. Some intrepid test pilot would occasionally take it for a flight. The craft was always referred to by the British as the Durex Delta. This to us conceptualised a delta aircraft held together by Durex brand transparent sticky tape as marketed in Australia at the time. But the British did not have Durex sticky tape. Their Durex was a brand of condom.

I soon learned about this when my comments in mixed company one evening about having seen the Durex delta flying that day were followed by someone repeatedly kicking me in the shins beneath the table.

Flying in the northern hemisphere often puzzled me as I found I was less able to instinctively know where north should be. I had to take extra care to refresh my orientation with the compass. To this day I am unable to specify the basis for having some in-built directional capacity whilst in the southern hemisphere.
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