My memoirs
Chapter 9
High Wycombe... First flying.
I was posted to High Wycombe and happily Chas was still with me. The course was 12 hours flying on Tiger Moths. We were expected to go solo at about 8 hours. This course would decide whether we would be selected for Pilot, Navigator, or, I hate to think what. The weather at this time had clamped down and I remember waiting day after day for the cloud base to lift sufficiently for us to be taken on our first air experience trips. One day! This was it, my Instructor said get ready and there we were, airborne, climbing through the drizzle, it seemed for ages when suddenly we broke cloud and I saw the most wonderful sight I had ever seen before. As far as the eye could see was the pure white rolling cloud tops, capped by the clear blue sky above. It was very cold of course because in a Tiger Moth your head is outside and there is no heating system. At one moment my Instructor pointed out to me a lovely picture. It was the shadow of our aircraft on the cloud with a rainbow surrounding it. That day, that view, is for ever in my memory.
The weather cleared and we got down to the task of learning to fly. It was quite exciting. I remember one day when I had been learning Stalling, my Instructor said I must be more positive in pushing the stick forward to recover from the stall. So I was! I pushed the stick forward so hard we finished up in a vertical dive. I was terrified. I thought it was the end.....A quiet voice said “Well that was positive" as he pulled us out of the ensuing dive.
As we progressed there were all the stories of our achievements or failures at the end of the day in our billets. Of course there were the line shooters, the born pilots who were having no trouble at all, and would have soloed that day, if only.. If only. Then there were the miserable ones like me who couldn't land the blessed aircraft. I either thumped the ground with such a bang we bounced back up to circuit height. Or I held off so high I scared the Instructor silly. Of course the inevitable happened Chas came in and said "Soloed yet” knowing of course that I hadn't but he had. "Never mind, he said, you might be lucky enough to be my Navigator".
At eight hours there was a Flight Commanders Check. By this time I had realised that my upper air work must be O.K or I would have been out on my ear by now as some already had been. My problem was landing. However we came in for the landing on my Check Flight and bingo! It greased in on all three perfectly. The Flight Commander was quite impressed. I had passed. My Instructor came storming into the crew room saying “Right... Grogan lets see one of these greasers of yours”. Well up we went but I was back at my old tricks again and still couldn't land. This state of affairs continued until my final Check with the Squadron Commander. Of course most of us were scared of failing these checks because there was no second chance. Once again I pulled off a greaser. I can only, on reflection, think that I was so scared on landing that I sat petrified on the stick and the airspeed decayed naturally to produce a normal landing. With hindsight I do think that a better Instructor should have understood my problems and reached a solution. Anyway I hadn't Soloed and Chas had. It looked as though I was going to have to learn Navigation.
I cannot leave High Wycombe without a mention of the Flight Sergeant I seem to remember his name as Flood. What a terror he was. He used to stand outside his hut near the main gate and the slightest fault would alert him. I'm sure he had eyes in his back. If you were caught out, no mercy, it was not at all difficult to lose your weekend off and that was serious stuff because by this time I had my first girlfriend. Thelma........Nuff said.