Those magnificent men in their flying machines.

 

After a rather serious crash during a motorcycle race necessitating a period of hospitalisation and a diet of painkillers, I decided that it might be prudent to take up a safer sport. I cast about for something on which to expend my youthful energies and determined that flying might fit the bill.

 

I was no stranger to aircraft as home for me was directly under the flight path of Heathrow airport, so I lived with the roar of heavily laden planes frequently interrupting conversation at the table. I could identify a Trident from a DC9, or a Viscount from a Convair without looking up, so I thought I was suitably qualified to join those ‘Magnificent men in their flying machines’

 

One Saturday morning I presented myself at nearby Fair Oaks airfield, and a field indeed it was, complete with a Grass runway, populated by rabbits and the occasional sheep, sometimes making landing problematical. The man behind the makeshift desk in the wooden hut that served as office, control tower and tea room, took my particulars and informed me that flying lessons were £10 a session.

 

As I was earning the princely sum of £11/10/6p a week I decided that I could only sign up for one lesson a fortnight. We agreed a time and he informed me that I was lucky as Mr. Toms was due back from hospital during the week and he would be my instructor.

 

The following Saturday I met Mr. Toms. He was a taciturn man dressed in a well worn tweed suit more in keeping, I thought, with Grouse shooting or horse riding than with flying.

 

We walked out across the grass to a tiny single engine plane with ‘Piper Cub’ stencilled on the fuselage. It was standing outside a barn that now served as the hanger. Mr. Toms kicked the tires and ran his hands over some of the control surfaces, then we climbed into the cockpit and he started the engine. Over the roar of the engine he instructed me to keep my feet away from the pedals and my hands off of everything else.

 

Once airborne and at a satisfactory altitude he handed the controls over to me, and, following his monosyllabic instructions I managed to turn the aircraft to the left and to the right,  to gently climb a 100 feet or so and then sink back down again to our original height.

 

The hour flew (excuse the pun) and all too soon I was instructed to shape a course for Fair Oaks. At first he had to point the way but over the next few weeks I came to recognise the landmarks that guided us home.

 

Throughout that glorious summer we flew, once a fortnight, soaring and swooping above the geological anomaly known locally as The Hogs Back.

 

He still did the take offs and landings but once clear of the airfield I took the controls and under his direction I slowly gained confidence.

 

When we returned to the environs of the field I was allowed to fly the first leg of the ‘pattern’, as the circuit of the field is called, and then Mr. Toms would gently take over and turn us onto the final leg over the little farm house with the red door and the tidy yard, and then over the perimeter fence to glide our little plane down onto the grass strip, landing with hardly a bump and taxiing slowly across to the barn.

 

That autumn brought a series of storms and some Saturdays were spent in the hut, drinking tea and chatting about flying as the wind threatened to demolish the flimsy structure and the rain uncovered more leaks in the tar paper roof.  I learned during this time that Mr. Toms had been a flight instructor during the war, teaching young men to fly Spitfires. He lamented the fact that their life expectancy, once they joined their squadron, would be measured in days or weeks rather than months.

 

One Saturday in September I arrived for my lesson to be told that as there were thunder storms forecast for later we would not be flying. My disappointment must have been evident as Mr. Toms told me that I could learn nothing useful flying in stormy weather.

 

I walked to the open door and commented on the bright sunshine and the calm conditions. Mr. Toms joined me at the door and relented.

 

“We could try to get a short lesson in before the bad weather arrives.” He said.

 

As we strode across the grass to the hanger I looked at the blue sky and commented that there was no wind. The sun was warm on my back, but the light had a strange brittleness about it, in retrospect we should have taken the unnatural stillness as a warning.

 

The take off was normal but as we climbed to 1000 ft. and cruised to our exercise area we became aware of dark clouds gathering on the horizon.

 

I was soon concentrating on my instructor’s latest exercises and I was taken by surprised when a sudden gust of wind roughly twisted the little plane out of my control.

 

Mr. Toms swiftly took over and said. “Time to get back.”

 

I glanced around and saw a pile of black clouds rushing towards us, and with the wind behind us we were soon racing the storm back to Fair Oaks. It was like a fairground ride, with the wings dipping and rising in turn and the engine surging as it fought the gusts. This is what I had expected it to be like when I had first thought of flying, this was exhilarating, this was exciting.

 

By the time we had the airfield in sight the storm had caught us and it had us in its powerful grip, tossing the little Piper Cub about like a leaf.

 

We were soon in the pattern and as we turned onto finals the full force of the headwind became evident, I looked down at the farm house with the red door and the tidy yard and waited for the perimeter fence to appear beneath us, but it soon became obvious that all was not well as the farm house was not disappearing behind the wing strut as usual but seemed to be stationary. The engine note had risen from its usual murmur as we glided down, to a roar. A roar only heard at takeoff when maximum power is needed.

 

I glanced across at Mr. Toms and mentioned that the wind had got up a bit, I was surprised to see a sheen of sweat on his forehead, his right hand was wrestling with the wheel trying to counter the wind shear and his left hand looked like it was trying to wrench the throttle leaver from its housing.

 

“Only thing to do is throw it at the ground and hope it sticks!” He growled through clenched teeth.

 

In that moment I realised that things were serious.

 

If Mr. Toms was worried, maybe it was time for a prayer.