Tales

Home Tive

I was pleased to read in a recent edition of Tales about the little known story of my old friend Chris Braund, the legendary stutterer. On one occasion Chris was flying an East-West Airlines Avro Anson (VFR only) from Tamworth to Sydney only to turn back well before reaching his destination. Next day I asked him why he chickened out. His reply was to the effect, “Well John, the w-w-weather was not the b-b-best, and after p-p-passing Mur-mur-murra — oh that place (he could never get his tongue around the position report at Murrurundi) I saw a t-t-train come out of a cloud, s-s-so decided it was t-t-time to go home.” (J Murphy, Leichhardt)

Snap Decision

It was a very wet day and rain is more commonly measured in feet in the Gulf of Papua. Our man has been out in this very marginal VFR soup all day. In and out of small muddy places, carrying curious mixtures of muddy people and strange smelling produce in bound up bundles and bags. At 1500 hours, I watch him taxi up to the big tin shed where I’d been working on a piece of obsolete electronics all day. This was his third call of the day and the Shorts Skyvan was filthy as was the pilot, who ducked into the shed and after squishing around in shoes full of mud and water decided to discard them, cursing the rain and now squally wind that chopped in from the south east. At 1540, wearing only shorts and shirt he checked that the load of crocodile skins was securely tied down in the aircraft and we moved out into the takeoff position, did the usual run-ups and checks and sped off into the dreadful conditions. Approaching V1 and with both of us peering out into the murk I was specially eager to feel the wheels leave the ground. I wasn’t prepared for what followed. A sudden scream of pain filled the cabin. I shot a quick glance across to the left seat. The pilot grimaced in obvious agony, uttering a string of obscenities that couldn’t be printed here. It’s about this time that a natural order of priorities comes swiftly into the scheme of things. Pain, self preservation, to rotate or not to rotate, keep the bird on the hard bit between the cones, more pain. This poor bloke has tonnes of that “I can make life saving instant decisions faster than a flash” ability that we all know good airpersons are born with. The Skyvan is beautifully brought to a swooping swerving stop. By this time as you could appreciate I am more than just a little curious as to what is going on. No more had to be said. He leapt out of his seat and now silent but still grimacing in pain, stood looking down at a very bloody big toe on his left foot. He recalled later that it felt like his foot was being pop riveted to the rudder pedal. And there was the cause of this 30 seconds of near disaster and blood and pain. I was amazed to look into the angry beady little eyes of a two foot baby crocodile, who having got fed up with all the animated rudder kicking during takeoff, had shown his/her displeasure by attaching itself to the nearest offending item — the pilot’s big toe. Fate, luck of the draw, coincidence or divine intervention? I was wearing boots, he was bare footed. How did the angry little reptile get down into the “front office” anyhow? It’s said he bled from his wound all that night. But did heal well within a week. But a badly bruised ego — well that’s another tale indeed. (Mike Treloar, Cabarita)

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