I'm a sucker for old jet stories, especially the type of thing you just don't hear about in today's somewhat regimented flying - from the A-4 pilot who liked to fly up the slopes of Mount Fuji and then roll inverted going over the top (until the day arrived that he started his run without enough airspeed to make it) to the tale of the Canberra pilot who ejected on short finals and landed still strapped into his seat upright and with no injuries and without a deployed chute.
So I'll relay one that was told to me first hand, the story itself isn't all that amazing, it's the first hand part that made it special for me.
Way back in the day I was dating this rather attractive young woman from Southend, she came from a well-to-do family and mentioned that her uncle, a retired Wing Commander, lived in an equally mansion like house just around the corner from her parents pad. Being an eternal prop head I asked if we could go around for tea one day to say hello and she was only too wiling to oblige (as with most things as I recall
).
The day came and the door was answered by a lady with not one, but an entire tree full of plums in her mouth, she had the look of the most beautiful debutante at the ball - but 40 years ago. She ushered us into what I at first thought was a covered football pitch with carpet but which transpired to be their living room, and sat at one end was this elderly gentleman with the most impressive handlebar moustache I have yet to see in person. He was a wonderful old chap and talked about flying the Canberra in some type of formation for the Queen, commenting about some type of difficulty formation flying at a certain airspeed caused by "flutter vanes" I believe - forgive my memory, this was a long time ago.
With my encouragement he went on to describe his experiences as a display pilot in a Meteor. Apparently the controls were somewhat heavy, no hydraulics I'm assuming, and he was required to perform a hesitation roll down the length of the runway, in his own words (forgive the French) "well as I did the first 2 parts of the roll I felt my arms giving out, and bugger me if I didn't get the bloody thing inverted and couldn't roll it back again, so to my intense embarrassment I just flew down the runway inverted." His wife was most unimpressed with the language and he mumbled "sorry dear, slipped back into me mess language for a moment there". When he landed and exited the cockpit the crowd went wild with applause, of course they had no idea he had messed up.
Today I would have been asking about inverted flight tanks and oil considerations if you stay inverted for longer than 10 seconds, but I always worked on the basis that he didn't stay the wrong way up for longer than that. Suffice to say I loved the hour I got to spend with him.
He is without doubt long gone from us, but that old story has never left my mind.