Danny gets stuck.
A Funny Thing happened to me one day.
Open cockpits are fine in the summer in Florida, and you're glad to have your canopy open in places like India. English weather is different - you keep it closed or freeze to death. But there is the odd warm day, and this was one of them. I slid the canopy back. You normally flew with your seat as high as possible, so as to get the best all-round view (of marauding CFIs!), so your head is usually only an inch or so under the perspex.
My goggles (pushed up on my head) flew off. Held by the band which is buckled to the back of the helmet, they fluttered madly about in the slipstream. I slammed the canopy forward. It shut - with the goggles still outside, but now with the band jammed in the frame, and consequently with me pinned to the top of it by the scruff of the neck! My head was so close to the canopy catch that I couldn't get my hands behind to open it.
Now what? I could see by squinting sideways, and reach the spadegrip at full stretch. I could still fly, but I certainly couldn't land. Not the brightest pebble on the beach, it took me a few seconds to realise what to do. Take your helmet off, idiot! Done, now to retrieve the goggles. It would be a bit of a struggle with the canopy catch as the band was jammed in it.
Now my readers are settled back in delighted anticipation. You know what's going to happen next, don't you? The canopy flies back, the goggles act as a pilot chute and pull out the helmet, which acts as main chute and takes out mask, oxygen tube and then yanks out radio flex and plug! All overboard in half a second!
Stop grinning, it didn't happen, I'm not as thick as that. I secured my end of the flex, and now I could get both hands on the two "butterfly" catches (leaving the Spit to fly itself for a bit). With some difficulty, I got the canopy open and "all was safely gathered in". I was not to go down in RAF legend as "The Man who Managed to Lose his Helmet in the Air"; (although years later it seemed for a while that I might be "The Man who Lost the Corpse he was supposed to be Looking After", but that must be a story for another day).
Changing the subject, you might be interested in the tale of the Dual Spitfires.
I first heard of these in the early sixties, but didn't really believe they existed until I saw one for myself at Coxyde (Ostend), looking very sorry for itself under a tarpaulin in the rain. For who on earth would want such a thing? Apparently some people did, and I was told various stories. They all agreed in that the RAF had nothing to do with them, apart from supplying a number of Mk. IXs for the conversion. I have heard several figures, but 20 seems to be about right. First I was told that someone like Marshalls of Cambridge or Oxford Air Services had done the job. Now I believe that they went back to Vickers, which seems more likely, for it would have been a tricky conversion. Who was the customer, though? First I was told that it was the Belgian Air Force, which tied in with the Ostend specimen I'd seen in 61.
But quite recently I've been whiling away some time in a Hospital waiting room, and picked up a dog-eared copy of "What Car". In it , James May gives an account of a ride in one, and he puts the finger on the Irish Air Corps - it figures! (and no, it's no use setting the Race Relations police on me, with my name I can crack any Irish joke I like, and they can't touch me!). Seriously, the best known example (the "Grace" Spitfire) is a heartening story in itself.
Why would the Irish (or anyone else) want them? Anyone who's been trained to Wings standard in any Air Force can surely jump into a Spit and take it away? As an advanced trainer, perhaps? Why, when the world was full of redundant Harvards? Doesn't make sense. And the aircraft's C of G must have gone walkabout, for they put a panel, seat and pilot with controls where just a radio set used to live. It can't have been pleasant to fly.
That'll do for the time being,
Goodnight, all,
Danny42
Why do Kerry dogs have flat faces? - from chasing parked cars!
Last edited by Danny42C; 4th Apr 2012 at 16:18.