Tales

Backflip

Back just before WW2 I was in Sydney after learning to fly at the Royal Newcastle Aero Club and heard that an air pageant was to be held at Coonabarabran near my hometown, Baradine. So I made some phone calls and succeeded in buying a ride to Coona in a Cirrus Moth. On the way my pilot wanted to know exactly where we were so we descended low over a small town we could see, flew alongside the railway line at about 50ft to read the station name. As soon as we saw “Denman” we turned, still very low, and flew alongside the main street, where only a few people and one vehicle could be seen. It was in fact a one horse cart with the driver sitting on a backless seat towards the rear of the cart.

As we were coming towards, and almost over him, he kept his eyes on us by moving his head backwards with the result that he overbalanced into the cart and fell out onto the street, much to our amusement as well as to a bunch of fellows sitting on the kerbside. The funny thing was that the old carthorse didn’t even miss a beat and kept jogging down the street, with the driver in full pursuit on foot after shaking his fists at us. Now, that wouldn’t happen nowadays (thank God! Ed) (Frank Duncan)

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