A Coventry Kid's Tale

Chapter 9: 13 years old

On the child's first flight, he was strapped into his parachute and waddled out to the Chipmunk like a duck, this being because the parachute is strapped so tight it folds you over, the parachute, hanging from your bum becomes your seat in the aircraft. Climbing into the seat behind the pilot you then strap yourself in with a safety belt. Now this safety belt's buckle is the same as the parachutes buckle???
The cadet is taught to release the safety belt buckle on the command of the pilot to say they are going to bail out of the aircraft. If you hit the wrong buckle, then you are left in the aircraft with no parachute on but still strapped into the seat, which by now is plummeting towards the ground, the pilot already gone after counting 1, 2, 3, to give the cadet time to bail out!!!! It's no wonder the R.A.F. have a "padre" on the camp! (Padre being a vicar).

Taxiing to the runway was a great thrill as this was the child's only second flight in an aircraft, the first being in the Rapide. Waiting at the end of the runway the pilot said over the radio "murph bings ot tisk boing" the control tower answered back "blomff iff wat u" the poor child could not understand a word that was said. However the pilot opened the throttle and down the runway they went (the pilot must have known what was said). Off they went, climbing into the sky for a bird's eye view of the countryside. All too quickly they started to descend for landing. Runway in sight the child quickly pressed the switch on the inter-com. "Excuse me" said the child "but is there no chance of any aerobatics?". "Aerobatics?" said the pilot "Thank goodness one of you like aerobatics, I'm fed up just flying around". At this the pilot opened the throttle and raised the flaps and headed back for the sky. After climbing to a good height the pilot levelled out, but no sooner had he done that he headed straight back down for the ground (the child thought he had picked a suicidal manic for his first flight). Once they had built up speed the pilot pulled back on the stick and they went zooming up into the child's first loop, followed by another loop. On the third loop the pilot did a half roll at the top of the loop so now the plane was in level flight. All this was then followed by barrel rolls, more loops and a victory roll. At the end it was back to the airfield to give another cadet a chance to fly. The child on that day had a longer flight than anybody else, and did he enjoy it.