By Tony Wilson
Copyright 2012 Tony Wilson
Smashwords Edition
Discover other titles by Tony Wilson at:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/tonywilson
www.smashwords.com/Road_to_Recovery
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.
If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
How long does true love last? Well in my case it now seems to be for about six months. Following the tragic death of my lovely wife Sheila in a horrendous accident almost three years ago, I became indecently rich, spent almost a year in various hospitals, and then almost two years getting my life back together again, but as I am now the ninth richest person on the planet you just knew that it wasn’t going to be quite as simple as that. I inherited a dilapidated airfield, engaged multitudes of staff, from ex-SAS to protect me, to my best friend Paul (who was fortunately an architect), to turn el Campo (the airfield) into a place worthy of kings. Amongst other things, I bought a boat, not your normal four berth yacht, but a Destroyer, almost complete with guns (but it does have a sting-er (or two) in her tail). As well as having an assassination and a kidnap attempt, I was also learning to fly, and life was definitely starting to get quite hectic, so I went on a Caribbean cruise, where I learned about the Lady S (my Destroyer/yacht), (and my limitations socially), and finally, almost a year after I had first been introduced to her (the Lady S), I was able to take her for a little trip – around Africa. On the way around we encountered pirates, and came to the attention of the Worlds press, then, as we scooted (it’s a nautical term – honest) into Gibraltar just ahead of a storm, I got talked into taking a couple of Royal Navy Sea King helicopters (as one does) out into the raging mid-Atlantic to rescue the crew of a stricken Tanker, along with a television news crew, that was when I met Sandra, their ‘anchor person’. After a ‘very’ public introduction we became inseparable, and for the first five glorious months it seemed that we never dined at the same table twice, we were definitely the ‘in couple’. From the President in the White house to the Pope in the Vatican City, from Father Christmas in Lapland to a very ‘friendly’ koala in ‘Kiwi land’. We were definitely the most sort-after, ‘must-have’ guests on the planet. Any excuse, no matter how feeble seemed to inspire an invitation. I had a Dutch deckhand on the Lady S so that warranted a state banquet in Holland, and my Filipino 2nd Chef got us the best seats in the house for a firework display, that must have increased the Country’s gross national debt by at least 50%. Fortunately things eventually started to slow down; at that pace I wouldn’t have lasted out the year. We had all the tee-shirts and videos that we could carry, and photographs by the thousand, taken with us next to just about every other person on the planet, but I started to sense that Sandra might just be starting to miss her former life. It was little things - like she started to never go very far without her passport – even to the loo, and every spare minute that we had ‘we just had to keep up to date on the News’, then it happened; the UK Parliament decided to cock-up yet another expenses exposé - big time, and she went apoplectic. Of course she had no intentions of leaving me - BUT ‘if she was over there’, she could definitely have done a better job of ‘that’ interview than Adam, and she would have definitely worn a more flattering outfit than Kay (meow), so finally (before she exploded) we sat down to have a ‘little chat’. It lasted about two minutes and ten seconds, and then she was on the last stage out of Dodge (in the guise of my ‘boys toys’ Grumman G450). Of course we would stay in constant touch, which we did, every hour on the hour, until the G450’s wheels connected with dear old Blighty, and then it was two days, then a week, and finally it was time for another ‘little chat’.
‘We would of course remain the best of friends’, after all Alice (my Daughter) and Algernon (her Son) were making plans for the wedding of the century, so we would of course meet up there (subject to the political situation), ‘and Mr Prime Minister when are you going to resign over this expenses debacle’.
I realised of course that the last bit had not been directed at me when a very flustered PM tried to tell me all about his latest revamp of the new ‘Inner City transport policy’, then I heard a very unladylike ‘oh sh*t’ and the microphone, nee mobile phone, went dead.
Was I mortified over the loss of Sandra? Of course I was, well until I had poured three very hefty Bacardi and Diet Cokes down my throat, Itza (my Accountant) has a lot to answer for, as I used to just love my Glenfiddich, by the way do you know that there are no calories in alcoholic drinks if you mix them with a diet mixer, the same as there are no calories in chips (French fries for our Colonial Cousins) if they are taken from someone else’s plate, and there are definitely no calories in a bar of chocolate if you can eat it all without closing your eyes - but I digress, as Caroline (my Director without portfolio, and the wife of my Security Director - David) poured me my fourth almost neat diet coke I started to see her point of view. After the tragic loss of Sheila I had started to enter a black hole, emotions wise, and needed something drastic to snap me out of it, and one of the many words you can use to describe Sandra is drastic, along with devastating, and delightful, (but definitely not dainty), so, according to Caroline, she had been the right woman for me, at the right time, to ‘snap me out of it’. Apparently I was now over the worst, and after shaking off the hangover that I was deservedly going to have in the morning ‘the world was going to be my oyster’, and thinking of all the subtle (and not so subtle) hints that I’d had over the past two years I fell asleep thinking, ‘so many women – so little time’.
Caroline was wrong, which was almost unheard of - I didn’t have a hangover the next morning, in fact I awoke not thinking of hangovers, Sheila, Sandra or any other women, I awoke thinking of Hunters. I was remembering a conversation that I’d had with one of my peers a couple of months earlier, when we were looking over his airfield, when we were visiting on the other side of the pond.
--- those few months earlier---
We had just done the obligatory tour of the White House that every visitor to Washington just had to do (except that our guide was the present incumbent), and all the other touristy bits and pieces in the area, and were starting to be in need of some serious R&R, so we willingly accepted an invitation to have a few days ‘down time’ with a new best buddy. My new BFF was a bit like me, a bit of cash to spare, liked flying, lived on an airfield, so he decided that what I needed was some serious time with ‘boys toys’. Sandra was suitably distracted, and we disappeared off into a multitude of aircraft hangars. He started me off with really vintage aircraft, all string and canvas, not only looking at them - but flying them as well. Nope, they didn’t tickle my fancy, so we tried out some 2nd World War era aircraft, large and small; better, but still not quite there. Then it was an astronomical leap in technology, and I found myself strapped into a modern two seat fighter. I had once owned a house smaller than its engines, and we flitted around the skies with our backsides on fire, (in afterburners for the non-aeronautical) but still he could see that I wasn’t quite there, so after we came to a standstill outside yet another of his hangars he told me that ‘I would just love his Sabre’.
No he hadn’t taken up fencing; it was apparently a very shiny North American F86 Sabre, which on entering the hangar I totally ignored. Beside it was the most beautiful aircraft that I had ever clapped eyes on, and my ‘gooses’ started ‘bumping’ big time. I reverently approached this work of art, that must surely have been forged in Gods own workshop, and ran my fingertips tenderly along the leading edge of one of its sleek wings. I slowly made my way towards the cockpit and gently, so as not to disturb this sleeping beauty, climbed the ladder to peer into its fifties style interior, and it looked just about my size. My new best friend, who had been busy talking to himself for the past few minutes, saw the look on my face and told me to ‘try it on for size’, so I did - and it fitted absolutely perfectly. Eventually he cajoled me out of the cockpit and we slowly walked around to the rear of the aircraft, which was where I spotted something that was not quite right, ROYAL NAVY was blazoned down its side, and below its rear fuselage was a deck hook. I was almost 100% positive that the Fleet Air Arm had never operated Hawker Hunters from its aircraft carriers. Apparently I was right and wrong, they, the FAA had operated the beautiful Hunter in two forms, as the single seat GA11 ground attack fighter, and the two seat T8. Both variants had been uses solely by second line squadrons, never embarking on board an aircraft carrier, but they did sterling work in the background. Pilots honed their skills in dog fighting and ground attack in this versatile little aircraft, before they went on to the heavier and more complex Scimitars and Sea Vixens, and the two seaters were used for conversion training. Several of the T8’s were even modified to train up Buccaneer and Harrier Pilots and Observers on various pieces of new technology before they were let loose on the real thing.
‘But what about the deck hook?’ I asked, ‘isn’t that a bit of wasted hardware?’
Apparently not, as operational fixed wing naval aircraft of old came fitted with deck hooks, Royal Naval Air Stations (airfields) had arrester wires at the end of their runways to stop any aircraft that suffered from a brake failure on touch down, from trundling off the end, as opposed to the Royal Air Force’s system of nets. ‘Catching the wire’ caused no damage to the aircraft so it was easier to fit the GA11’s and T8’s with hooks, rather than equip all their runways with nets ‘just in case’ of a brake failure. History lesson over I died and went to heaven, well almost, I went for a trip in his T7 (the RAF version), and although it was only a two seater, it still got my juices flowing.
Later on that evening, as I was looking out over the airfield, re-living those memories, second by glorious second, Sandra came over and cuddled up beside me, and seductively asked me what I was thinking about. Instead of doing what any red blooded Englishman would have done and lied, ‘thinking of page 27 of the Kama Sutra my darling’, or ‘just remembering that vision of loveliness as you stepped out of the shower’, I told her the truth, about that lonely little Hawker Hunter sat in its darkened hangar. I think that was the beginning of the end. She flounced off, but before I could chase after her to grovel her forgiveness, mien host, and two former US Presidents collared me, the subject ‘what was I going to spend my money on?’ They of course had ‘hidden agendas’, but I naively explained that I was spending it quite well ‘thank you very much’ on El Campo, Lady S, various properties around the globe, and my efforts at reducing my carbon footprint.
‘Yes’ they agreed, but apparently I was only spending it on ‘living expenses’ plus a ‘small’ guilt trip, I wasn’t really doing ‘anything’ with it. That got me, I thought I was doing it spectacularly well, but apparently no, I was not, I wasn’t sponsoring museums, or football teams, or sporting events, or ….., but they of course had a couple of ideas for me - or rather my wallet. I looked over at the opulent dining table and thought, ‘no such thing as a free lunch, even over here’ then chuckled to myself, changed the subject (back to the Hunter) and after boring them for an acceptable period of time, I went off to make it up with Sandra.
---back to reality---
That next morning, as I lay in bed with a surprisingly clear head, my thoughts were back with that lonely little Hunter, and they just wouldn’t go away. In desperation I clambered out of bed and stood under a cold shower for a good ten minutes, dried myself in my new-fangled towel-less drying machine (weird - not like the real thing) but found that I was still thinking of that beautiful little aircraft. In desperation I strode out onto my own personal patio (that fortunately wasn’t overlooked by anyone as I was starker’s) and watched a gaggle of birds swooping around in front of me – don’t they just look like Hawker Hunters? Usually, when I find myself in a situation like this, I eventually accept that my sub-conscious is trying to tell me something, so I made myself a hot ‘Leche de Almendra’ (Almond milk drink), which I had gotten a liking for when the hospital had started weaning me onto more conventional foods, sat down in front of my little black box, and Googled ‘Hawker Hunter’, just on the off chance that there might be something of interest to browse through. In seconds I was close to TMI (too much information), there were pages upon pages of it, and the most prevalent statement re-occurring was ‘the most beautiful jet aircraft ever to leave the ground’; perhaps I wasn’t alone in my thoughts. As I surfed the net, I was amazed at the information I could glean on this beautiful little fighter, its pedigree, development, and more importantly, just how many of them were still, or close to being airworthy, and then I made the fatal mistake - I Wikipedia’ed. Page one, photo two, sixteen black Hunters in a perfect diamond formation. I quickly copied the photo, pasted it into Photoshop, played around with it for a while, and then printed off an A4 photo of sixteen British Racing Green Hunters, which was the colour that I had finally settled on for the Lady S.
I realised that I had been browsing for more than three hours when my stomach started to grumble, so clutching the photo I decided to catch an informal lunch in the greenhouse – the staff canteen, cafeteria, or restaurant, depending on their pay grade (same food, same seats, different title, that was all). I could of course eat in my bed-sit, I once called it that within Pauls hearing and he’d had a purple fit on the spot. ‘With all his time (and my money) that he had spent on my rooms they were my ‘suite’, ‘quarters’, even ‘my sleeping area’, they were DEFINITELY NOT A BED-SIT – END OF STORY’. I could also eat in my private dining room, my family dining room, or my larger formal dining room. I could eat at the ‘nineteenth hole’ club house, on my very own golf course, and even eat at the bar in the middle of my swimming pool, and I had innumerable number of patios and BBQ areas to choose from, but my favouritest (one of Alice’s favouritest words) place to masticate was in the greenhouse. If I felt a bit lazy, or wasn’t in a chatty frame of mind I would go up to the mezzanine dining area, along with my senior staff, to be waited on and ‘people watch’, but normally I would just ‘queue jump’ at the cafeteria, pick out a starter, and then take it to a table that was already occupied; I just loved chatting informally to my staff. Apparently it was a bit nerve-racking for the new comers but I learned all about their jobs around El Campo, their families and their aspirations, and I think it also kept me in touch with reality. So far no one had abused the situation and bent my ear, but I daresay it was bound to happen one day.
I was just about to step into the glass bubble that served as my personal lift when I felt a breeze around my nether regions; oops I was still starker’s, so another quick shower (with real fluffy towels this time), put on some clothes, and a phone call later I walked quickly through my lift, and out onto the walkway around the atrium. After watching Caroline and Cindy lazily swimming up to the mushroom fountain and settling themselves down for a mummy/daughter cuddle (ahhh!) I walked around the glass walkway to the ‘senior staff quarters’. At this moment there was only one full time resident in one of the suites, it was Marcel, my Chef. He had never taken me up on my offer of living ‘off camp’, in either a rather nice villa, or a luxury apartment, as befitted his station; he just didn’t want to be too far away from his beloved new kitchen. The end of the corridor led out onto the mezzanine dining area, where I hoped to find two people in particular, and my timing was perfect, not surprisingly as I had just accessed Teddy’s diary (he is my flying instructor) on my ‘all seeing’ black box, and I knew that he was always punctual, especially where his wife was concerned; ‘he was definitely late at his peril, for lunch with Beryl’, and Inma was just taking their orders as I arrived.
‘Hi Boss, care to join us’, Teddy chirped.
‘It is ‘Mr Michaels’ to you Edward, and yes would you please care to join us Mr Michaels’.
I hadn’t realised that they were coming apart, but I sat down anyway, feigning surprise at finding them there. Inma took my order; I was feeling adventurous so I went for a Spanish tuna salad starter, followed by an egg, bacon & chips combo. Marcel would of course hit the roof again, after all he, the finest Chef in Spain (he’s very self-disparaging), who had the finest staff in Europe, creating gastronomic delicacies in the finest kitchen in the World, just to solely cater for the finest Patron (Boss in French) in the galaxy, and all he ever seemed to want was egg and chips, and the moron (French for moron) didn’t even have the courtesy to call them French fries.
As we slowly sipped our wine and/or zero alcohol beer and waited for our starters to arrive I casually mentioned to Beryl that I had heard on the grapevine that she had been moaning to all and sundry about the crap organisation in my household, and that she thought she could do a better job herself, with one hand tied behind her back. The actual statement had been that she thought that the floral arrangements on the tables were very nice, but she felt that she could have done just a teensy bit better.
Teddy choked on his beer, and Beryl went an awful shade of white (I must stop starting conversations like this, someday someone might take me seriously) then I went on to explain, I had a vacancy for a Senior Manager in charge of table decorations; and all things horticultural, did she want the job? She could have a staff, designer greenhouses (the type that grew food, not served it) and a ‘large’ small holding to enable her to grow fresh food and flowers for the house. Why on earth was I bothering about potatoes and pansies when I had Hawker Hunters to think about? - I needed Teddy full time. Recently he had hinted, in our little chats as we careened around the skies in various aeroplanes that Beryl was starting to comment on how quiet the villa was without him, which was a subtle way of saying that she was getting bored, and that she was missing the kitchen garden at their cottage in the Cotswolds. In other words ‘spend more time with me or we are back off to England, and so no more flying in the sunshine, for you, sunshine’, so he had cut down on his flying hours, minusculey, and tried to involve her more in El Campo life, i.e. lunch in my greenhouse, but his plan didn’t seem to be working very well, hence my dastardly plan that I had hastily concocted half an hour ago over a conference call with Maria (P.A.) and Eddy (ex-Clerk of Works), who was now firmly ensconced in his new position as Estate Manager. If I could just get Beryl on board then Teddy would be a pushover, and by the end of our starters Teddy was on his third zero alcohol beer and Beryl was asking where ‘her’ greenhouses would be situated, and if she could employ their neighbours José and Luisa.
‘VICTORY’ I thought, and then she twigged, ‘what’s the catch?’
‘I want Teddy to become my full time Director of Aviation.’
‘Oh you can have him’ she said ‘I was only getting a little bored, now that I have something to do, you can do what you like with him - when can I start?’
‘Can you wait until we have had dessert?’ I asked.
Teddy was just starting his second alcohol laden Guinness and third ‘mind blowing’ dessert when it finally sank in. ‘You only have two corporate jets and half a dozen light aircraft’ he reminded me, ‘that hardly warrants a full time Director of Aviation’.
‘You are forgetting about my squadron of fighters’ I politely reminded him.
‘WHAT BLOODY SQUADRON OF FIGHTERS’ he spluttered, had I finally gone around the bend.
‘These’ I said, and turned over the photograph.
‘SH*T’ he said.
‘Language Edward - not in front of Andrew’.
At last, someone else that will be calling me by my Christian name.
Among his many postings in the Royal Air Force, Group Captain Edward (Teddy) Heslop had had a stint with the famous Red Arrows Aerobatic Display team. He started as an ordinary team member then proceeding quickly on to flight commander and singleton (solo display specialist), and then finally going on to lead the team for two seasons, before a promotion meant that he had to leave them temporarily. Three years later he was back with them as the Team Manager, so if anybody was going to get me an aerobatic display team it was Group Captain ‘Teddy’ Heslop (retired).
Think about it, it’s really very easy, I say ‘get me a display team please Teddy’, and he says ‘OK, here it is’ - I think not, so we went into his new office, in my vast emporium I had a couple or three offices going free, and we didn’t see the light of day for about two weeks. Where the Hawker Hunter is concerned you really are spoilt for choice, so it was decisions, decisions, decisions, and what we finally settled on was that, subject to availability, the basic team would be made up of sixteen aircraft, twelve of them mark F6 single seater fighters (or GA11/ export equivalents) and four two seater T7’s or T8’s, with, if we could get them, one of each as spares.
Early on in our deliberations we contacted ‘Hawker Hunter Repair Ltd’ (HHR) who sent a couple of their design team hot foot over to assist us, and quickly we all agreed that the basic F6 airframe and the Rolls Royce Avon engine were outstanding, so no major changes there, but the radios, instruments, and various 1950’s era electrics were definitely passing their sell by dates, so would inevitably be letting me down on a fairly regular basis. This led to our (my) first major decision: - inside the cockpit the flight, engine, flap, and undercarriage controls would all remain original (the bits down the sides), but the instrument panel (the bit in front) would be turned into glass. All the cluttered fifties style dials and switches would be removed (and safely stored for refitting if a future operator was a purist) and a modern day so called ‘glass cockpit’ would be retrofitted in its place. My pilots would have the best visual displays, the most up-to-date navigational instruments and the latest communications equipment, and it would also ‘standardise’ all the cockpits, ensuring that every aircraft was identical. Any pilot would be able to fly any aircraft without wondering where the ‘watzit’ switch was. Purists may scream blue murder but I had an obligation to provide the best possible working environment for my pilots. One of the few down sides to the Hunter as a fighter had been its limited range, so an absolute must for all my aircraft were ‘Mod.228 wet wings’ with its distinctive leading edge ‘dog-tooth’, as all my aircraft must be able to carry a full internal fuel load, plus four drop tanks when transiting, for example from El Campo to the UK. I didn’t want them having to stop at every motorway services for a quick top-up.
HHR Ltd readily agreed to strip all the aircraft that I could obtain down to their component parts, have them refurbished, fit the all-moving tailplane that had been fitted to the later aircraft (if it wasn’t already fitted), install the new instrument panels (and get it certified), have each aircraft resprayed inside and out and presented back to me in a guaranteed better than brand new condition, for a better than brand new price. HHR Ltd had just started making skilled fitters redundant due to the recession, now they could reverse the trend and perhaps see it out with my order, and I was definitely about to start spending some serious money, well at least Kermitt would be happy.
Where do you find sixteen assorted Hawker Hunter Mark 6, 7 and 8’s, certainly not at your local second hand aircraft shop, well that was not quite true. In between major policy decisions I had a specialist team set up to start scouring the world for suitable aircraft, and within days they picked up three that were up for sale, and the world’s financial crisis was yet again working in my favour. Luxury toys were now becoming an unnecessary drain on capital expenditure, or some such boring thing, so along came a few more, and then there were the gifted amateurs who had sunk all their savings into a couple of surplus aircraft and set up small display teams on a shoestring, hoping for big bucks from the display circuit. Wrong, even the big display organisers were feeling the pinch so were cutting back, and even the one off ‘birthday treat’ trips had all but dried up, so after making a couple of these teams ‘offers that they couldn’t refuse’ I looked out of my bedroom window on day ten of the ‘hunt for Hunters’ at four single and two two-seat garishly painted aircraft parked in my front garden, the bit that was pretended it was an airfield, but then the flood turned to a trickle, and finally it looked as though we would fall short of our target, until a bright young thing on the hunting team came up with a brilliant idea. They (the hunting team) had all, almost overnight, become experts on the Hawker Hunter and all its variants, but not all the available aircraft that they had scrutinized had met with my strict criteria, but they still knew where they were, and Air museums around the world had an amount of almost flyable and non-flying (but still in reasonably good condition) F6’s, but were reluctant to let them go, unless it was for silly money, so how about some wheeling and dealing, so an air museum in Australia accepted an airworthy ‘low mileage F4’ as a straight swop for its static display ‘passed its sell by date’ F6, and so it went on, and in just over three weeks I had my aircraft, including the two spares, on paper anyway. Now all I needed to do was get them to Dorset - enter the Lawyers.
That was the easy part out of the way, but early on I realised that obtaining the aircraft was only going to be the first of many steps. To operate the aircraft efficiently I would need a ready supply of spares, handling and specialist support equipment, maintenance crews, and pilots, then three seemingly insurmountable problems reared their ugly heads, drop tanks, starter cartridges and brake pads. With sixteen aircraft needing four drop tanks each, that meant that I needed a staggering sixty-four individual drop tanks at least, and we had less than half that number coming with the aircraft. Brake pads for the Hunter were as scarce as rocking horse doo doo (according to Teddy), but starter cartridges suddenly became less of a problem when one of the designers remembered that there was a modification that could be carried out on the Avon engine that enabled an electric starter to be fitted. As I was having a modern heavy duty battery fitted in all my aircraft, it would take the strain of everyday routine starts, and we could save the doo doo cartridges for air show mass start-ups, but that was tomorrow’s problem; there were six Hunters parked in my garden, and it was party time. Part of the deal with the two ‘all but destitute’ private display outfits was that I would first hire them lock, stock, and barrels of aviation fuel for some personal self-gratification as all the paperwork was going through. The only downside was that they had to relocate to El Campo for at least two or three weeks. It was tough but somebody had to do it. Not only did this unexpected influx of much needed cash help their cash flow situation, but they also quickly twigged that if I was purchasing sixteen airworthy aircraft, then I would almost certainly be hiring sixteen type qualified pilots to fly them, and they were just about to get a head start in the hiring stakes, then Teddy started to turn into the proverbial pain in the rectal orifice. For two days I had six very keen pilots trying to get me into an F6 (obviously trying to gain Brownie points), and all he could do was send me off on ‘bumps and circuits’ in one of the T8’s. Admittedly on the last two trips I had been ‘bumping and circuiting’ with an empty seat beside me, but it was still in a two seater. He agreed with me that my logbook no longer had that brand new look about it, and I had all the necessary bits of paper to get me into a single seat jet, ‘BUT I really must take it slowly, I didn’t want to bend one of ‘his’ new aircraft now did I’. He had now used the word ‘his’ three times, the first time he had quickly apologised and corrected himself ‘sorry ‘your’ aircraft’, but the last two times he hadn’t, and as I clambered out of the cockpit everybody but Teddy could see that I was starting to get a tad pee’d off, so one very brave soul, who was later to be rewarded, and become one of my Flight Commanders, suggested to Teddy that ‘wasn’t it about time he took up a single seater’. Before Teddy could say anything I totally agreed with him and headed full steam towards a purplish apparition (with green stripes) that was parked nearby. Just because it wasn’t the right colour didn’t mean that it wasn’t a lean, mean flying machine, so after a quick walk round, waggling a few things on the way, it was time to ‘kick the tyres and light the fire’, and as I sat there firmly strapped in, I braced myself and thought ‘now comenceth a journey that I will remember for the rest of my life’ - and pressed the button – nothing.
‘It must be something to do with the heat’ a rather embarrassed soon to be ex-owner muttered. I checked all the switches (just in case it was finger trouble) and pressed the button again, and still nix, zilch, nada, nunca, nowt. I looked along the line of aircraft and thought ‘one down, three to go’ and clambered out.
Number two was a bright lemon thing with large red and blue spots all over it; I nearly gave it a miss – and quickly wished that I had. I pressed the button and the jet pipe temperature gauge needle tried to screw itself out of the instrument panel, and a quick glance in the rear view mirror showed a lance of flame streaking out of the jet pipe, and halfway across the airfield. In the nick of time I remembered that:-
(A) The ejection seat was not a zero/zero rated one (zero forward speed/ zero height).
(b) There were no cartridges in it anyway. Civilianized Hunters normally had their ejection seats de-activated, although hopefully mine wouldn’t, so I didn’t pull the handle, instead
(c) I closed the throttle and the low pressure fuel cut off valve.
‘Viola’ total silence - and not a funeral pyre in sight.
Two down, two to go, was someone trying to tell me something?
The next in line looked fairly normal, although it was covered in white on red crosses, not a good omen; it was an ex-Swiss Air force aircraft that had not yet been re-painted. Perhaps it was going to be third time lucky, but before I could do the dirty deed and press the button Teddy flounced up the ladder to ‘GIVE ME’ my last minute instructions, again.
’Climb to 2,000 feet, raising the undercarriage and flaps as you go, throttle back slightly to 7,800 RPM and do a gentle left hand circuit, then undercarriage and flaps down again, and ease the aircraft gently onto the runway’. ‘Taxi slowly back to the dispersal (remembering the brake pads situation), shut down the engine and then we will de-brief’.
I nodded benignly to him and he reluctantly got down, thinking as he went that they should really have a second seat in single seat aircraft, just to cover situations like this. Then the ladder was removed and I was on my own.
I sat there for a few moments savouring the moment (yet again) then pressed the button, this time the Avon worked as advertised, just like a Swiss clock – only louder. Ground locks and chocks away, and I quickly taxied out to the end of the runway (sod the brake pads; I was paying for them after all), and yet again sat savouring the moment, then after a quick chat with Chalky in the tower it was on with the power, off with the brakes, and onwards and upwards, on the journey of a lifetime.
I remembered the bit about the flaps and undercarriage, and I even remembered to ease the throttle back slightly, and then I had serious lapse of memory. Varying neither right nor left I was quickly going in an upwardly direction, and upward, and upward. I quickly passed 2,000 feet, and then 5,000 feet. 10, 20, and 30,000 feet slid by effortlessly, and then finally it was the turn of 40,000 feet. Then I started to ease the nose and the throttle forward at the same time, and I was quickly hurtling back down towards terra firma at a forty degree angle. The altimeter quickly started to unwind, with the ASI (air speed indicator) heading in the opposite direction, and then suddenly the inevitable happened – BANG, I had finally gone solo through the sound barrier, and it was a fabulous feeling. As I was heading towards terra firma at Mach one I reluctantly eased the throttle back, and when it was safe to turn without ripping the wings off I did a quick 180 degree turn and headed for home, and as I requested permission to join the circuit and land, Chalky had a chuckle in his voice, ‘I heard you had a good time Boss’ but I don’t think he was looking forward too much to having Teddy as his new ‘Line Manager’.
As the Avon wound down and the ladder was clipped into place I reluctantly vacated the cockpit, and then spotted Teddy bearing down on me with a face like thunder, so I quickly turned my back on him, moved up to the nose of the aircraft and gave it a big fat kiss, and in a voice loud enough for him to hear I said ‘thanks for a wonderful ride baby; you were worth every one of MY pennies. YOU certainly won’t be going back to Blighty just yet’, then I turned defiantly to face Teddy.
Swallowing hard he forced a smile on his face and asked if I had enjoyed my first flight in a Mark 6 (actually it was a Mk 58 export variant but who was arguing).
‘Yes it was exhilarating’ I said. ‘I think I might just go up again later’.
If I’d had super vision I would have seen Chalky rolling around in his Control Tower, binoculars dangling from their neck strap, tears streaming down his cheeks and howling with laughter, perhaps he wouldn’t be putting in his notice just yet.
Over the next few weeks a steady stream of aircraft started to arrive in Dorset and HHR entered into the spirit of the things with gusto, I even approved overtime and a limited night shift. I was going to keep the Swiss single seat Mk 58 and the T7 that I hadn’t grown to hate, as play things until some modified ones turned up, but Teddy fortunately changed my mind, I kept them all. The two unserviceable aircraft had had relatively minor problems, which hopefully would never re-occur after the re-fits, and I also diverted a further two flyable F6’s from Dorset, which meant that I had half my aircraft at El Campo, unmodified, why? Well first off you cannot have hangars full of aircraft (Teddy had purloined X and Y hangars over the other side of the golf course), without crew rooms full of pilots and maintainers to go with them. Not unless all you want them to do was sit and gather dust, so a Team Leader and four Flight Commanders were the first positions up for grabs, and as word had finally got out about a new display team that was about to be formed, I was starting to get sacks full of unsolicited mail, usually including a current C.V. and a copy of a flying log, especially after Teddy made a few surreptitious phone calls.
Paul had once told me that Councils had to advertise and hold interviews for staff positions that became vacant, even if they had already decided to promote the person that was ‘temporarily’ filling the post. ‘Bureaucracy’ and ‘political correctness’, meet ‘union might’. Now please meet P.I. man – political incorrectness man, we scoured the C.V.s and placed each of them in one of three piles.
(1) Possible leaders, for us to deliberate over.
(2) Possible team members, for them to deliberate over, and a
(3) Not a hope in hells chance of anyone deliberating over them pile.
Although I did like the one from a young man who had nearly four hours solo, and once saw a Hunter at an air show.
What I hadn’t realised was that pilots the world over, especially aerobatic pilots, were very skilled and well educated people, and usually had egos twice the size of a jumbo jet, they were certainly not backwards in coming forwards, so in pile (1) we surprisingly ended up with not only eight ex Red Arrows pilots but also three each that had flown with the Spanish and Portuguese national teams, two French ex team members, five Americans from various teams ‘over there’, four civilian team members, and a rather pretty looking young Russian girl. Teddy had taken one look at her enclosed photograph and placed her details straight onto pile (1), not checking the C.V., not consulting me, it was straight on the pile; perhaps the gentleman preferred blondes, I would have to have a serious word with him later. It would have been a waste of time and energy to advertise so Teddy contacted each of the twenty-six by phone, explained what we intended to do, and as this was now looking to be a serious enterprise he needed them to commit two weeks to learning to fly the Hunter, and then perform a fairly complicated formation display with other applicants, perfect and perform a solo display, plus have stringent medicals and a lengthy interview that included a fifteen minute presentation on how they would lead the new team. All twenty-six instantly said they would be at El Campo in three weeks’ time, but only seventeen required the offered first class airline tickets, the rest would be flying in, in their own aircraft – at this rate my home would soon start to look like an airfield!!!
How do you keep eight aging Hunters in the air? I don’t know, but I
now know a man that does. ‘Topsy’ Turner came with three of the
Hunters, not the more garishly painted ones, the other ones. He is an
ex Fleet Air Arm Chief Air Fitter (Airframes and Engines), later to
be changed by those upstairs to Chief Air Engineering Mechanic
(Mechanical) - he never did like that. God, or rather his Captain had
turned him from a Leading Air Mechanic into a Petty Officer
Air Fitter many years earlier, and only God would change him
back. Even on his discharge papers, when he was finally put out to
pasture had he put in the rank/rating box - CAF(A/E). Topsy, his
nickname had nothing to do with the fact that he was as bald as a
coot, took his nice little pension (thank you very much) and went to
work for Airworks Ltd, doing the same job but for more money and no
uniform. Then his wife took ill and he became a full time carer,
although when his daughter was able to lend a hand he also became a
volunteer part time mechanic for a private Hunter display team at his
local airport, ‘just to keep his hand in’. When his wife finally
succumbed to the tumour, his heart was not into going back to work
for Airworks, and the display team could only offer him little more
than expenses, but that was enough, he had his pension, a very
generous insurance pay out, and a tidy bit left in the bank after he
sold their his four bed roomed house and bought a
small flat, not only was the house too large for one, but it also had
too many memories in it. He quickly became an indispensable part of
the team as they appreciated a first rate mechanic, and it was Topsy
who had quickly sorted out the other team’s ‘duff’ (polite word
for knackered) aircraft out, he changed the plugs or something, and
was starting to enjoy the ‘bronzie, bronzie’ weather (sunbathing
weather to the uninitiated) at El Campo. One cloudy day, when he
couldn’t work on his tan he asked me if there was any chance of him
having a ‘jolly’ in a T8. ‘No problem ‘Topsy’, just bring
your own bag’, and so whilst trying to make him sick, we had a
‘little chat’, one thing lead to another and I made one of my
on-the-spot decisions (or should that be ‘in-the-air’ decisions),
would he like to become my Crew Chief? He willingly accepted, and
from that moment on everything was to be done ‘ship shape and
Bristol fashion’, and nautical terminology became mandatory. It’s
a good job that I already know my port from my starboard.
Topsy quickly got things organised (sorted), aircraft (cabs) of all shapes and sizes suddenly started to deliver contract mechanics, equipment, stores, and all the other necessary bits and pieces that were essential to keep sixteen vintage aircraft in the air, and the top floor of ‘Mi Casa’, the name that I had finally come up with for my new home, quickly came into use as temporary accommodation, Marcus (he had sort of come with the Airfield) was having a whale of a time. One morning I was even woken at the crack of noon by a Hercules going into reverse as it backed up to X-ray (X) hangar to deliver, among other things three Massey Ferguson tractors. They’d had special road tyres fitted as they were going to be used for towing the aircraft and the heavier bits of ground equipment around the place, not ploughing fields. The hangar floors, sorry decks, were scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed again, then when they were to Topsy’s liking white lines were meticulously painted on them to denote individual aircraft bays, ground equipment bays, fire point accesses, and the ‘clear way’ for when the aircraft were being towed in and out. Unfortunately Hunters don’t have the luxury of folding wings, not even the Navalised ones. Offices and workshops were equipped, and he even had a top of the range lathe installed for when a tiffy (spit) (ask a sailor if you want to know why) arrived, but his most important task of all was to get the ground crew crew-room up and running, with its coffee boat, sarnie making area (galley), and a made to measure ‘uckers’ board (made by his own fair hands). What may you ask is an ‘uckers’ board. Well it looks just like standard ludo board, only it’s about three feet square and built like a brick outhouse. The pieces are created by decimating a perfectly serviceable wooden broom handle, and must be capable of withstanding being flung across the room and/or slammed down on the table at regular intervals – usually every few minutes. Two oversized dice are used and when the intricacies of ‘suck backs’, ‘blow backs’ and ‘mixy blobs’ were mastered it quickly became the game of choice of every well deserving psychopath. I quickly grew to love – or hate it, depending if I was winning or losing, and Topsy and I soon became a formidable ‘mixed doubles’ (?) team.
Just after the Hercules incident Teddy received a phone call, not a particularly uncommon occurrence you may think, except that apparently it had been quite vague, and was all the more unusual because it had originated in precision Switzerland. He was just about to settle down to a rather late breakfast; after all it was Saturday, with his now perfectly happy green fingered wife, when his mobile phone sounded off (it was the dam busters tone). It was one of his contacts from when the hunt had been on for the aircraft. He, the man in Switzerland, had just had a phone call from a lady, also in Switzerland. She, the said lady, had heard from a friend (that also lived in Switzerland) that he, the first man in Switzerland that is, was looking for Hunter aircraft. Apparently her husband had recently passed away and she was now left with a crashed Hunter and a few bits and pieces - in Switzerland. As the address was way out in the sticks he hadn’t visited her yet but was he, Teddy, in Spain, still interested? And if Teddy were to save him a trip then he would forgo the finder’s fee (what a sucker). He, Teddy, took down the ladies address and phone number and told him, the man in Switzerland, that he would look into it and of course he would still receive his finder’s fee if there was anything worth having (what a plonker), he was thinking ‘brake pads’, and immediately phoned Frau Englbund in Switzerland, who had just finished her breakfast and was starting to pack a suitcase.
‘Yes’ she still had ‘all those’ bits of junk but ‘no’ he couldn’t come and have a look at them on Monday, he could come today or no day, as she was flying to America tomorrow evening. He liked the sound of ‘all those’ bit of junk.
This is where I come in, Teddy phoned me, and as the sun was still definitely not over the yard arm I was sound asleep (I’m positive that he still hadn’t forgiven me for stealing his F6 the other day) and wondered if I would care to take a trip to Switzerland in the G450. I had never flown into a Swiss airport before and the one that he was thinking of using had an ‘interesting’ approach, so at eleven o’clock on the dot my Grumman smoothly lifted off with yours truly at the controls, and pointed itself in the general direction of Helvetia, that’s what the Swiss call themselves on their stamps. Beside me sat Teddy, half asleep and with a blob of marmalade on his shirt, and behind me, in my hand crafted bespoke cabin (it had been specially designed for my every personal convenience) was now just plain James Wood, ex Inspector of SO1 Special Protection Branch, Inma (she also came with the airfield – she cleaned and things) and Topsy.
After he and David had been completely exonerated following the early demise of Tweedle Dee at the OK corral, during the attempted kidnapping by my daughters girl-friend!!!, James received a reprimand from his superiors for not shooting David and Charlie stone dead. Apparently he was on a ‘too lower a pay grade’ to think. David and Charlie had guns in their hands; he was there to protect the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, so he should have shot them both dead, just like that. The fact that they, the guns, were pointing in the wrong directions, and that he ‘knew’ that David was a good guy was totally irrelevant. At the inquest David had dropped a subtle hint that there might always be a job as my minder waiting, if ever he decided that he wanted to work for a living, so a few days later, after he, a highly trained Police Inspector, was sent out to buy a bottle of perfume for her Ladyships impending birthday, he made a decision, and on return he placed the bottle, his warrant card and side arm in front of his Lordship, turned and walked out - with his Lordship shouting at his retreating back ‘I presume you are resigning then’. I suppose as a judge he was trained to pick up on such subtleties - James never did receive recompense for the perfume, but was now my full time minder, as David was Directoring all over the place, and Charlie was usually showing Agnetha (his girlfriend) ‘something interesting’ in the store cupboard.
Inma arrived into this world as one half of a single parent family; her father had been the fly-by-night deck hand on Carlos’s (my Captain of uniformed security guards) father-in-laws boat. The evening before that fateful final voyage he had finally convinced a rather pretty, if not slightly gullible local girl that ‘this next trip could very well be my last, if something terrible happened - and I am still a virgin’. That line usually worked, and this time was no exception - except that it came to pass that the first part became true, even if the second part wasn’t, and nine months later Inmaculada de Concepción De Silva Ennamora (thankfully Inma for short) arrived in San Miguel del Mar, but nobody believed her mother when she named her, she was just one half of an ‘easy’ family, but over the years the villagers slowly started to respect them both as her mother slaved away at every cleaning job that came to hand, no job was too small or too dirty. It wasn’t uncommon for her to have the thankless job of cleaning the front entrances of over a dozen apartment blocks at the same time, as well as holding down a full time factory job, and doing each one cheerfully. Inma was a bright young thing at school, but when the opportunity arose for her to go on to college she had to turn it down, it was time for her to start helping her mother bring in the bread full time, not just holidays. Her first job was at one of the local Hotels as a chambermaid and she loved it, meeting all those new people from far flung places, then disaster struck, San Miguel del Mar was on the decline so the Hotel closed. She then took over some of her mother’s more strenuous jobs as she (her mother that is) wasn’t getting any younger, and picked up a new one of her own, as part time office cleaner for the security firm that was looking after the old airfield, and when Thomas (a Brummy security guard/ex-teacher) started teaching his colleagues English she joined in with a vengeance, and so when Mr Michaels moved into his temporary accommodation on the airfield, Inma quickly volunteered her services as cleaner, and suddenly found herself permanently employed as a maid. Yet again she was over the moon, and as a ‘founder member’ of Mr Michaels happy band she found that she had some rather nice perks, like looking after him when he went off in the Grumman at short notice, and she had been the first one to take up ‘El Jefé’s’ (the Boss’s) offer of free flying lessons for anyone working for him when that nice ‘Teddy Bear’ joined them, and she quite often got some quality ‘stick’ time on these trips as well.
Topsy was not a happy little bunny about coming along at first, he had much too much work to do at El Campo, even on a Saturday, but he was a natural manager and so quickly delegated. Grabbing his passport and an overnight bag - just in case (he had spent too long on MARTSU to fall for that one) and was now reclining in the sumptuous swivel rocker - he could definitely quickly become accustomed to this life.
Once we were on a steady heading I vacated the hot seat and let Inma take over, and as I stood in the galley dunking my pyramid into a mug of boiling water (I’m very fussy about how I take my tea), after first emptying two sachets of instant Cappuccino into my maids mug, and retrieving a chilled Perrier from the fridge for Teddy, I looked at my Crew Chief twirling in my favourite armchair, and my body guard snoring quietly on my settee, and thought ‘there is definitely something very wrong with this picture’, thank god it’s only a short flight, I won’t have time to get the Hoover out. Just before I could at least get a duster out it was time for me to take my place ‘upfront’ again, and as I settled into the still warm seat I looked out of the cockpit at the airfield that Teddy was pointing to, I had seen larger window boxes. I gulped and turned to Inma, ‘have I got any brown trousers on board?’
‘Roit sorry aar kid, yuz spare trazis r back yam’. ‘Aah kid’ apparently is Brummyeese for Boss.
I took one more look at that insignificant little blot on the Swiss landscape, tightened my seat straps, closed my eyes, and pushed the stick forward. When we came to a stop, inches from the foot of the appropriate mountain I opened them again, twisted the nose wheel steering knob, blipped the port engine (see I’m learning) and taxied smartly to arrivals; I hadn’t needed those extra trousers after all.
The local heavies that David had organised for us had two black ‘stretch’ Hummers waiting for us, complete with tinted windows and snow chains. Now that worried me, the snow chains bit at least, thank god I hadn’t come in shorts and flip flops: apparently we were going above the snowline.