Venoms
Fate is a funny thing. I was at Sharjah when an old friend, who was a pilot on the ferry squadron at Benson, got stuck when his Venom went unserviceable and he was left behind by his three oppos.
When my navigator was carted off to sick quarters with a severe dose of squitters Bill A offered to act as second crew member on a one day Firq - Saiq airlift.
i was supervising the team of local villagers unloading 15' long wooden poles (Chargles?) on the last rotation of a very long day. Bill was sitting in the right hand seat of the Twin Pioneer parked on the end of Saiq's SE strip with the engines running, configured for take off, when one of the loaders lost control of his wooden poles, almost smashing them into the lowered flaps close to the rear door. I rushed up to the flight deck and retracted the the flaps to avoid damage.
Following an early morning two hour flight from Sharjah to Firq we had completed six round trips to Saiq and refuelled twice from four gallon flimsies in 40C when I started the last take off run. Two thirds of the way down the 500 yard strip I pulled back on the control column at 50 knots. Nothing happened and we were running out of runway when Bill shouted FLAPS and pushed the flap lever into the first notch.
We staggered of the end of the strip with no room to spare, the port main wheels passing between a line of large rocks running along the cliff edge next to Suraijah village..
I completed the two hour flight back to Sharjah feeling very chastened, aware that if my navigator had been in the RHS i might not have been around to tell the tale!