Tales

If the Japanese, the oppressive weather, sickness and loneliness aren’t bad enough then there is the mind numbing array of predatory wildlife to contend with. It is thus with great trepidation that a young pilot preflights his P-40 with additional care prior to a short hop to test repairs made through recent days.

The Curtiss lifts off from its dusty base and climbs to 20,000ft where the cold air is a gift from God for this young Curtiss P-40 lad from what would at this time be snow covered Montana. However, his state of relative bliss is short lived as in the middle of a loop he finds company in the form of a two metre black snake which drops onto his face and torso. The giant reptile is understandably upset at being awaken from its underfloor slumber by such aerobatics and obviously, like the young pilot, distinctly wishes it was somewhere else.

With a pulse rate high enough to send his heart through the windshield the young lad from Montana levels the Kittyhawk and wrestles with the giant snake in a bid to get it out of the plane. Realising that the deadly snake is as terrified as he and one bite and he’s history, the quick thinking lad inverts the P-40 and slides back the canopy, with gravity completing the mission.

Needless to say when he finally landed, climbed down from the aircraft and promptly collapsed, he was years later able to honestly recall this as his most hair raising mission of the war.

Rumour had it that after that episode there was more time spent preflighting the planes for snakes than checking that the machine would actually fly! Bad boys! We all know that when in a group, footballers can be, well, a little off. Our story concerns how an entire team, and their unruly supporters one fine day took on a petite female flight attendant – and lost.

Seems the team was flying interstate for a major round and occupied more Naturally you can imagine that things than half the economy cabin of the 727. the boys are well and truly revved up. are getting pretty noisy as by this stage It’s Party Time.

One lad, renowned for putting brawn before brain, decides to shock the approaching flight attendant who is in the process of offering the beverage service. On the surface a particularly demure lass-a smiling persona that hides a streetwise wisdom of many years of dealing with such unrulies.

The footballer unzips his fly and displays hisperceived manhood in a feeble attempt to shock our FA. With his mates snickering at full throttle the ever smil- ing hostie quickly sizes up the situation, leans forward with the very hot coffee urn and, well we don’t know if it was momentary turbulence, or what, but she neatly misses our hero’s cup by a wide margin! Legend has it that this particular foot- baller not only didn’t play that key match, much to his long lasting embarrassment, but also was sidelined for the next five. Definitely a case of FA1 Brawn nil.

Wrong place, wrong time. . . .

It’s perhaps difficult to get shot down when you are already on the ground though this did happen to one unlucky lad in Britain during WW2.

Seems an RAF base was busy night Do you have a tale to tell? If so then share it with the world by sending it in to ‘Tales”, Australian Aviation, PO Box 3105, Weston Creek, ACT, 2611 or by fax on (06) 288 2021.

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and day with instrument flight training using a large Nissen hut crammed with gyrating Link trainers. With strict blackout orders enforced, the entire base is nicely blacked out except for one little window where the curtain has come temporarily adrift, just letting a slither of light into the darkness beyond.

As was wont to happen, a lone Ju 88 night intruder was ambling about hoping to get lucky and find a target of opportunity. In those days, RAF night fighters were visual only and about as useful as ice in an igloo. Anyway, the Luftwaffe pilot sees this one pin prick of light and knowing that he is in the vicinity of a large RAF base begins to execute a strafing run.

By a thousand to one chance a single 20mm shell hits one of the little Links killing its pilot in the process. To our knowledge this is the only record of anybody being killed in a simulator and highlights the fickle luck that goes with war. Wrong place, wrong time. . . .

Link Trainer A walk on the wild side It was during the Korean War. A young electrician had been detailed off to check the cannon firing circuits of a Firefly in the hangar of HMAS Sydney.

He checked that the guns were unloaded and commenced the test, but found that he was lacking a piece of test equipment which he had left in the workshop.

On return, he leapt into the cockpit and without more pressed the firing button. With an almighty crash, all four cannon exploded into action, sending 20mm rounds into the hangar deckhead (ceiling), with two actually going through the flight deck. He had got into the wrong aircraft! Now it so happened that the CO of the squadron was taking his evening constitutional up and down the flight deck together with the ship’s Air Engineer Officer when the two rounds burst through the steel deck, missing them by a metre or so.

I can’t recall what happened to the young electrician but the two perambulators were never seen to stroll on the flight deck again and were as white as a sheet for weeks!