No Gain without Pain (Comment on recent Posts).
Ormeside28,
"...It took me five hours to solo but then it was O.K..." It took me 4.15, (much the same): that was about par for the Course.
"...The Harvard, as all who flew it know, would bite you if you didn't watch it until you stopped after landing..." Too right - it'd ground loop on you at the drop of a hat !
Once again, I can only gaze in envy at the freedom and travel opportunities you had in your BFTS training, compared with our "all work and no play" regime in the (first few) Arnold School Courses. Perhaps they loosened up later ?...D.
harrym,
But even if we were worked hard in the Army Air Corps, it was in Florida and Alabama (which could even be a bit chilly in winter, as being well inland). At least we were spared the possible loss of extremities by frostbite, or death from hypothermia !
"...navigation plot had to be maintained on a Bigsworth Board, a contraption apparently from the dawn of aviation history..." "Biggles", you may remember, was (in full): "Captain James Bigglesworth of the Camel Squadron". Did Capt. W.E.Johns adapt the name for his immortal creation from the Board, do you suppose, or was it the other way round ?
"...at the crucial moment he had run back towards the tail, thus creating an out-of-trim condition responsible for our luckless pilot's downfall..." It could, I was once told, be of some use on occasion. I heard from a B-24 skipper that, if the brakes failed on landing (and if there was enough level ground ahead !), the thing would run for 11 miles before stopping.
Accordingly, if the brake failure had been diagnosed while still airborne, the crew were mustered amidships with instructions to rush in a body to the tail as soon as the mains were on. Apparently, the additional aerodynamic braking would at least shorten the overrun. (Could he possibly have been "pulling my leg" ?)
".. About a third of us graduated as Pilot Officers and the remainder as members of that vanished breed the Sergeant Pilot, of which I found myself one..." I, too, was a member of that honourable, but now almost forgotten, body, and count myself lucky to have had a year's valuable experience in the rank (which I've previously described as "the bedrock of the RAF").
It was true that a minority of the long-service non-flying SNCOs, who had toiled up the promotion ladder for fifteen years or more before reaching the Sgts' Mess, did actively resent us "Johnnies-come-lately", but most were generous enough to welcome the winged newcomers (and after all they could always console themselves with the distinct possibility that we might well vanish as quickly as we'd come). Even so, open hostility on the scale displayed by your Discip. Sgt. was unpleasant, quite uncalled for, and hopefully rare. I'm surprised that your CFI and SWO did not swiftly get rid of him, for a SFTS was no place for a man like that.
"...I had possibly not impressed the Station Commander in the final interview; for I recalled that he had looked rather sour when given a negative response to questions on my attitude to Rugby Football..." I remember that this was a hurdle which damned many a promising career. I myself fell foul of it when in front of C-in-C Fighter Command (the redoubtable Sir Basil Embry) in the matter of transfer to the General List. (As events turned out, it would have made no difference in the final outcome, anyway).
"...I count myself fortunate to have known them ("my companions"), the good ones far outnumbering the less praiseworthy, and the memory of their comradeship is for me one of the more worthwhile recollections of the war..." I'm sure all of us here would say "Amen" to that..."...D.
Cheers, both. Danny.