G-CHOC
G-CHOC .
Mark Langford had been desperately trying to put together a deal selling one of our fleet machines, probably G-BCWM or G-BCEU (Glendyne ). However, another machine was bought by Cadbury instead, at a lesser price. This was to prove false economy as there were numerous problems with the C of A and the additional work was far more than the saving. This did not help with the relationship .
G-CHOC was one of those machines that always managed to leak a small amount of oil and would be messy and very difficult to identify the source. Clean it all, ground run, all ok. 1 hour flight all clean. 2 hours and all oily again!
One Friday afternoon Roy said Cadbury had been on the blower and would like me to check out CHOC on my way home. I was commuting from Salisbury daily and could call in on my way. I duly arrived at Cadbury’s bungalow in Preston Condover about 6:30pm on a dark windy, wet evening. I knocked the door and we went up to the hangar. We Pulled Choc out past an Islander onto the hardstanding and were getting ready when a sleek piston twin gave a low pass and all the runway lights in the hillside came on. Very impressive, he said who it was (his son I think) in their plane, but he was landing somewhere else and was just buzzing.
Anyway we got CHOC running and I was torch in hand, ear defenders on panels open having a look to see where the oil was coming from. She was on low skids so not too difficult to have a good shifty. After a couple of minutes I started to smell burning and was looking for smoke when I looked down and saw the janitrol heater had been fired up and had been torching its way through my clothing. Coat,pullover,shirt only my vest to go!
I was tired wet and cold so when I opened the pax door and told him it was a bad idea lighting up the heater (I can’t remember my exact words)he got the message. He was nearly apologetic and after we put CHOC back in the hangar he proudly presented me with an old well worn Lillywhites jacket 2 sizes too small and called it quits.
About 2 weeks later John Akkers came visiting and said that Mr Cadbury had decided he would give me £20 instead and he wanted his jacket back. No point arguing.
Our fleet machines all used to sustain regular damage from seat belts being shut out of the passenger side where they would hammer against the honeycombe tub and dent it. G-CHOC was the only aircraft where we repaired damage from seat belts sustained on the pilot’s door side !!!