Days long gone.
Chugalug,
Thank you so much for my "Pilot's Notes". After a cursory look-through, note that (as amended to 1970), much has changed since my time 20 years before (in particular, Intentional Spins are now prohibited - and a good thing, too !)
How did we learn all this stuff in a few days ? I have signed a certificate (as we all had to do, and a copy sits accusingly in my log), to the effect that: "I fully understand:- (1) Fuel and oil, (2) Hydraulic, and (3) Pneumatic Systems, (4) Emergency Operation of Flaps and Undercarriage, (5) Action in the event of Fire, and (6) Method of abandonin (sic) aircraft, in respect of Meteor 7 and Vampire aircraft".
They'd covered themselves pretty comprehensively, wouldn't you say ? (what had the poor Electrical System done to be missed out ? - but to compensate, they'd thrown in the Vampire, which I'd never even touched !)
Now anything which happened to the aeroplane must be my fault..........D,
mmitch
Too true they do !........(Absent Friends)......D.
Geriaviator,
What a feast is laid before me !......Where to start ?..... In order, therefore:
Dad will be right (but 25 bob was a lot of money - say £60 today).......
The whole thing has a strange feel of being just an extension of peacetime (the "Phoney War"?). The F/Sgt hadn't taken it in that they were in a life-or-death struggle - he was in peacetime mode still......
Now I sit up with a jerk (almost spill my cocoa): if it looks like mustard, sprays like mustard etc, it certainly was mustard. Pongos were sprayed ! (No, surely not - this cannot have happened ?)
And how come I'm doing exactly the same thing six years later in Cannanore ? Do we ever learn ?.........D.
now the lovely photos:
Was there ever a longer canopy - you could put two more chaps in there. Gunner has got his Vickers G.O. in with him ? Looks like a loaded 11 lb practice bomb rack under the wing, yet something odd about it. What put the neat hole in the fin - mice ?.............
Again the quiet, relaxed, "summer afternoon" feel about this. Your dad is still in his old "button-up", the Sgt-Pilot has swung rank on the store-basher. Belts are worn tight this year. Cary Grant (aka Tomes) looks v. debonair. Anyone for tennis ?..............
Am I alone in seeing disembodied head over Gunner's canopy ? Your dad - Officer Material if ever I saw it ! Heighton, where did you get the swagger stick ? Theobald, wouldn't stand around like that for long, if I were you !........D.
God rest ye , merry Gentlemen all, now - and (especially) then,
Danny.