REG , more photos please, you must have plenty of photographs of interest.
Before I start , I suggest you obtain a print out of all, or just your contributions. Just click on thread tools, second orange line down, then click on printable version . You will save on paper and ink, using this method, and I am sure your relatives would appreciate a copy.
ANDY, I think your Uncle , in the photograph is wearing American helmet and goggles,, so must have been at an Arnold flying school when the pic was taken. Amazing we could smile in those days, and whistle the latest tune as we walked along.
I have received a very nice P.M from an aviator who wishes to remain anonymous , who’s father was the pilot of a Stirling , K.I.A in 1943. He also sent a very interesting book of verse written by his father whilst still flying. Hope to append one below.
My last effort described the 100 M.P.H gun sight, so will try and stick to flying training, for a while. In December, we had a “check ride” with the chief instructor, and a two thousand mile navigation "exam" Two cadets in each aircraft, taking turns in navigating, and flying, Before taking off my instructor asked me to watch the other student carefully, as my instructor didn’t have much confidence in him telling me to “ put him right” if necessary. ( but more about that later) On take off I felt I was flying in the wrong direction, so checked my compass for deviation. This was easy, as I have said before, all the roads ran N.S.E or West. I found the compass was way out. As I had haddd previous lessons in deviation and the deviascope in civvy street I knew how to adjust compasses , but adjustment would have ;been difficult while flying, and frowned upon by the management, so I decided to make a deviation table. I flew North and then South, noting the two amounts of deviation, and ditto East and West, then made a deviation table on my knee pad. I must have been somewhere near as we hit Waco O.K.. A few of us arrived at the same time and stacked up waiting for permission to land on the Army Air Corp field . When we were given permission to land, my oppo was piloting , and unfortunately decided to land down wind. On the base leg I was wondering what to do, after my past decision never to interfere with another pilot ( see ground loop , with Hardy) a loud voice screamed in our earphones. “all American airplanes clear the field, there’s a bunch of God damn limeys landing every which way”. In their mess that night we were royally entertained, but the banter never ceased. With the benefit of hindsight (which is a very exact science ) I realized I should have warned him, but he had signed the form 700 ?.. I would think the telephone lines to Ponca were red hot, but we heard nothing further.
On our next leg, It may have been to Corpus Christie, can’t remember but it was an airfield on the Gulf of Mexico quite a few A.T 6s landed about the same time It was dark but the airfield was lit up like Piccadilly Circus , the airfield controller instructed the first pilot landing (we were all landing without wing landing lights) to switch on his wing landing lights, which he did. We had never landed before using landing lights ,and for some reason this created problems for us. The first pilot had to adopt the over shoot procedure ,as did the second and third. We eventually called the tower and asked for all lights to be extinguished, except the runway lights. After some argument lights were extinguished, and we all landed safely, they thought we were all mad. (no comments please) I can remember seeing the twin towns of Dallas and Fort Worth.,and think we may also have landed at Albuquerque, but nothing else. We returned to Ponca O.K , with no one getting lost, no prangs, in fact nothing to laugh at all.
Below is a poem written by the aforementioned Stirling bomber pilot, written shortly before he was K.I.A. I cannot make this bigger despite scanning numerous times. Max size in scanner, max size in Picasa. max size in Photobucket, then on transfer to pprune we have a small pic.(Clifford must try harder).
On my computer (M.S Vista) I can increase print size by punching Control and plus sign repeatedly . Note reference to goose necks in Night Take-off. They were sometimes referred to as paraffin flares, and resembled an Aladins lamp. Will study Photobucket further when I have recovered.
