More memoirs from Peter Brett...
Having endured the ribbing I received for my unwitting part in the deception played by the so-called Wg Cdr Brown, I was accepted into the squadron and actually flew again on 25th September 1945. I did 35 minutes in a Spitfire IX for ‘Refresher Local Flying’. The next day I spent 1hr 25mins on an Air-Sea rescue search. I continued one trip per day, doing formation flying, aerobatics, and cross-country trips, until October the 5th when I started doing what the main job of 130 Squadron seemed to be, and that was ferrying German aircraft around.
Here I should explain that Kristiansand Airfield was staffed almost entirely by the original Luftwaffe occupants. Only the "Political" officers had been removed. Although there was a ‘’no-fraternisation’’ rule, it was virtually ignored and as soon as I found out which of the German pilots spoke English, I made a point of striking up conversations. It soon appeared that most of the pilots were more interested in flying than in politics and were quite happy that the Political Officer had been removed. We had many discussions about the relative merits of various aircraft. I was interested to learn that they thought that the Typhoon was a dangerous opponent in air-to-air combat whereas I thought that it performed very badly as a fighter!
On October 5th 1945 I was given dual instruction in a Fiesler Storch aircraft, a 40 minute trip to Lister, and I flew the aircraft back to base. The next day, I had a further familiarization flight in the Storch, this time 45 minutes solo. From then on, I only flew a Spitfire twice and during November 1945 managed to fly other German aircraft - notably a Messerschmitt Bf 109 and a Focke Wulf 190!
It was a long time ago, but I can clearly recall some of the impressions that these German aircraft left with me. The Fiesler Storch was truly an amazing aircraft. It was slow, ugly and noisy BUT it could keep airborne at the incredibly slow air speed of about 20 mph. I recall that on my first take-off I taxied into wind, put down 15° of flap, opened the throttle and after rolling forward what seemed to be a just few feet I was airborne. Landing it was a dream since the undercarriage, which was fixed, drooped down in flight like stork’s legs (hence the name) and there was a good metre or more of slack to take up before the weight of the aircraft was fully taken up by the wheels. Thus you could more or less fly the aircraft slowly down towards the ground and only close the throttle and ‘flare out’ after the wheels had touched the ground. I recall that on one flight when there was a fairly strong wind, I managed to slow down enough to actually fly backwards across the airfield. This was a thing that I also managed to do later with a Tiger Moth, but that is for a later chapter.
The Bf 109 and the F-W 190 trips were regrettably only of about 30 - 40 minutes duration each. The Bf 109 reminded me somewhat of a Hurricane to handle, whereas the F-W 190 was again a new experience. The noise and vibration were reminiscent of the Typhoon but there the similarity ended. The most noticeable thing was the incredible lightness of the aileron controls. It seemed that you had only to think of banking for a turn, then you were doing it!
Even on the short flight I had, I could not resist trying a roll with the result that I did two rotations before I managed to level off. I have often thought since that, having flown both the Spitfire and the F-W 190 that it should have been fairly easy for a German pilot to escape from a following Spitfire by rolling violently into an opposite turn. Although the Spitfire could turn inside the F-W 190 the rate of roll on the Spitfire was a good bit slower and the German pilot could be away before the Spitfire could line up again. This rate of roll would not be any great advantage in attacking and in those circumstances the superior rate of turn of the Spitfire would be an advantage.
The squadron did very little flying otherwise, since there was a shortage of tyres, and the rough concrete surface of the runway was very hard on the smooth tyres of the Spitfires. We worked more or less office hours and did nothing at weekends. Consequently I spent some time in Kristiansand socialising.
More soon... TOW