Hello my Pprune friends:
Geriaviator has been grounded for the past couple of months in a hangarful of ancient specimens awaiting major overhaul. There’s a big maintenance backlog and Chiefy says that four hydraulic hoses require replacement.
As spares for us vintage models are no longer available he intends to remove lengths of suitable piping from Geriaviator’s landing gear and assures him that he can be signed off for normal service after 6-8 weeks.
In these circumstances, this superb thread is even more entertaining than usual. Wander00, as a youngster at Binbrook 1949-1951 I did hear the story of the ghostly airman, but it related to one of the satellite fields at Ludford Magna or Kelstern, can’t remember which. I wonder if younger people sense a melancholy atmosphere around so many derelict airfields, or is it just we oldies?
binbrook, I think swan TOD would depend on fuel load, ie the amount of grass, weed and frogs scoffed in the previous hour or two, of course excluding the use of DATO (dog assisted takeoff). We watched in horror as a snappy little terrier chased the swans in our local park, fortunately catching only a few elevator feathers as Mrs Swan demonstrated near-VTOL performance.
Unfortunately for Fido he failed to watch his own tail so did not see Mr Swan diving into a perfectly judged beam attack. We couldn’t see whether beak, wings or feet were used to tumble the terrier at least 10ft over the bank into the pond and a group of paddling cygnets. Big mistake. We last saw the dog running for his life surrounded by a furious formation of angry mother swans.