As one door shuts another closes

We do try to avoid a dull life. Occasionally it gets a bit too interesting.........but that's the way it goes.

Saturday 13th July started quite interesting and subsequently became very interesting.
I am aware that the date was the thirteenth of the month, but, since I was born on Friday the thirteenth superstition has never played much part in my life.

Steve and I had been invited to visit a private landing strip in the Cotswolds and since our hosts (Bob and Phyllis ) always make us most welcome and Phyllis keeps a superb table, it promised to be a memorable day. It was.

Our route out was via the twin Radio 4 masts at Droitwich. There are a couple of places to watch out for as we should fly close to Cosford RAF and Halfpenny Green (Wolverhampton airfield ) and of course the Radio 4 masts which stick up a bit.

Birmingham

We should also be flying down the Western flank of Birmingham International...we should need to listen on their frequency and employ a particular Transponder code to advise them of our passage. Onward then to the Cotswolds skirting around the restricted area of Pershore airfield which is now a location for the dreaded Laser beams. They are not keen on aircraft flying close to them!. Well, we can understand that since within living memory Laser beams have blinded pilots! Some by accident, some on purpose. (did you see all those green ones flashing around Cairo in the recent news).

I appointed myself Captain for the outward journey...with Steve to be Captain when returning. The journey was of about an hour's duration, and the journey is a substantial percentage of the total pleasure.

Enjoyable

We had a most enjoyable sojourn at Upper Harford and since Bob does not now keep an
aircraft, I took him for a little " Jolly " around the Cotswolds.

Phyllis excelled herself with her magnificent hospitality and we gossiped of old times and Continental trips and funny incidents there from.

All too soon it was time to return to Cheshire as I had made prior arrangements to take Anne to dinner and I did not want to be late. We arrived home a little later than was intended and as is my custom I rang our hosts to advise them of our safe arrival.

Bob & Phyllis were of course pleased that we had arrived home safely and hoped our journey had been event free, though interesting. As I wrote earlier, Steve was Captain and I was passenger.

Absorbing

Well no ,it had not been event free, it had indeed been very interesting and absorbing. On very hot days such as this the heat rises from the corn fields and factory roofs in big lumps which does throw the aircraft around. It does no real harm though it does tend to require concentration.

We came over the Cotswold escarpment and were flying over Evesham at about 1300'. Sitting in that little greenhouse it was unbelievably hot even with all the vents open. Just then an almighty bang rent the air.

Well, there is one place you don't wish to be when bangs rent the air, and we were right there. Immediately we observed that the rubber seal between the Perspex windscreen and the bulkhead had pulled free by about three inches. With a very few revolutions of the propeller the seal pulled off further until very quickly about 15 " of rubber was thrashing about around the screen.

It was very distracting and our Captain instantly reacted by reducing speed and engine power and introducing one stage of flap. We were now flying at about 65-70 knots thus lessoning the danger of the whole rubber bead pulling out and the possibility of the whole screen cracking and flying off.

I re-acted by looking around for a suitable place to put this aircraft upon the ground.
In front of us were three wonderful looking runways , but alas they belonged to the ex RAF Pershore and we should surely not be made welcome.

One doesn't really or consciously revert to lessons taught and learned in the far distant past......but some time later we did examine our actions in retrospect and concluded that we had by instinct been drawn to the lesson "Aviate.......Communicate.......& Navigate " in that order. We still had a viable aircraft though not a comfortable one.

Wallowing

"Find us a place to put down and be quick about it." Said our captain whilst adjusting to the wallowing aircraft and the infernally distracting din of the rubber beating itself upon the bulkhead and sounding like a machine gun.

The glass cabin cover of a small aircraft despite being heated, is never quite warm enough on a Winter's day, and by the same token and despite being vented it is always too hot on a Summer's day.

This day was close on 30C outside and quite that warm inside. However, if the screen should lift and blow away the excessive heat problem would be cured in an instant but would bring other problems literally in its wake.

Quickly examining the possibilities, what did we have? Birmingham was 25 miles on our Starboard side, though I did not relish the idea of declaring an emergency to them. You can imagine the disruption to people's holiday flights while they held all traffic away or grounded until we could very slowly bring in our crippled craft. So that was ruled out.

The next possibility was Halfpenny Green near Bridgenorth. But that was 38 miles distant. Not a readily available prospect .......though it did have some plus points as a haven.
We had their radio frequency to hand ......Since our journey home was planned quite close to the field we had a course to steer and a navigation line upon our Satnav.

It is a small provincial airfield and unlikely to have such a great weight of traffic that we should be a major disruption. However, we thought that the means of making a repair to our aircraft would be available there. If we declared an emergency immediately we would be at the extreme edge of radio contact and with a fairly long slow journey to get there.

So by common consent we decided to gently advance towards the twin radio masts at Droitwich. They also with their radio signal would provide a position fix when the time came to shout for help.

Battled

In the mean time Steve battled with a difficult aircraft , trying to keep it flying though slowly and wallowing a bit and accompanied by a persistent rat tat tat upon the bulkhead like a machine gun was being fired at us. It was quite distracting.

I have discovered on two occasions that it is quite the most difficult exercise to sit there doing nothing whilst others dealt with an emergency. The only use that I could be was to change radio frequencies when needed and keep a track of where we were and how far we had managed to make good our course and to monitor the position of the flailing rubber bead and reporting to the captain if any more of it had broken free.

We had by now crept 10 miles towards the Droitwich masts ......visibility was excellent, and we had resolved to make our Pan (emergency call ) whilst passing the masts.

We made our Pan call and exchanged information with Halfpenny Green tower. They advised us that the runway in use was 34 which was good, as we would be ready lined up for it from our present track. Their altimeter setting was passed to us and they advised us that they had cleared their circuit in preparation for our arrival. The fire crew had been alerted and all was ready.

Our landing was quite uneventful and easy but it was a great relief to be free of the confounded noise of our flapping rubber bead.

Repair

We were provided with the means of making a repair to enable us to fly onward home.
Our thanks to the tower staff and fire crew were made known and surprise, surprise, they thanked us for giving them an opportunity to give air control and fire crews staff a real emergency to practice with and no harm coming to anyone or anything.

In addition there is an almost universal agreement in the UK that should an aircraft find itself in trouble any airfield will assist as far as they are able, without the normal landing charge being levied.

I naturally make comparisons with other incidents, some of which happened to me, others I have read of. I am reminded first of some of the pearls of wisdom written in letters large along the inside eave of the RAF Ternhill hangers.....They may be still be there for all I know but it would be about 1950 when I encountered them: " TRY TO LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES OF OTHERS....THERE ISN'T TIME TO MAKE THEM ALL YOURSELF " was one.

Descent

Returning from a Canary Island holiday and about 30 minutes into the flight I said to Anne " This aircraft has made a considerable descent.....I can feel it in my ears." Within a couple of minutes the Captain announced that he had descended from his assigned height and shut down the Starboard engine (There were only two ). He added that in the circumstances he was headed for the nearest point of land which was Faro in Portugal and 35 minutes away.

A quick calculation told me that we were about 300 miles out into the Atlantic and on one engine.To make matters doubly difficult it was now dark. So to make the rest of the journey with asymmetric thrust (only one engine pushing and needing coarse rudder to keep straight ) and follow this with making a night landing, this guy had his hands full. He dragged it in along a rocky coast and managed to keep it on the runway. We were chased down the runway by ambulances and fire engines and were very thankful to exit the aircraft on the apron.

Expertise

Our Saturday adventure did not compare with the expertise displayed by that Captain.
He had that day earned his salary for many years to come and his ultimate pension too
That was another occasion when I was obliged to sit quiet and take no part in the proceedings.

Asymmetric flight (with the engine pulling to one side) is something I have encountered.
Some years ago, and in my previous aircraft, I took off out of Sondeborg on the Jutland peninsula to fly to Copenhagen only to discover at lift off, that a spring which gave pre-tension to the rudders had jammed. I very quickly found that I could only keep airborne and straight with full Right rudder.

From that I went on to discover that my leg ached with the effort. So I made the rest of the journey with both feet on the right rudder. We subsequently landed safely and snicked the spring back into its appointed slot.

Then there was the occasion when the window through which the captain was steering blew out and sucked him half out of the window. His first officer made an emergency landing whilst other crew members hung on to him by his legs as he hung half out of the window. That was much worse than our episode.

As I say , it isn't a dull life. Even after all that, I arrived home in good time to scrub up and take Anne to our dinner date.
Don't tell her will you!
Geoff.

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