COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
was confirmed in later years, after I came to know Sandy much better,
and discovered that he had got his former students pretty well taped.
Soon after the start of the course I paid a visit to Gloster's flight
test department at Moreton Valence. Llewellyn Moss gave me a warm
welcome and a quick tour of inspection:
"Everyone calls me Mossie," he said.
A countryman at heart, he had been a huntsman before the war,
but flying had become his life. Now in his 50s he was chief production
test pilot. With full order books, and a steady flow of Meteors to keep
him busy, he was a happy man.
"So, you'll be taking over from Phil Stanbury. That's good I've been
wondering what was going to happen on the development side."
He wasn't sure about progress on the El/44.
"I hear that the men from the Ministry keep changing their minds.
But you ought to get your hands on it sometime next year."
Had I got anywhere to live?
"Can recommend my own place, out in the country, quiet and very
comfortable. Understanding landlady..... That is if you.....?"
I assured him I would be very interested.
Later, just before I left, we walked out to the Meteor which he was
about to fly, and he told me about his occasional double life. Dr Jekyll
was the unruly pilot beating the living daylights out of some
inoffensive corner of the Cotswolds. Mr Hyde was the firm and
understanding airfield manager, dealing with irate telephone
complaints, who promised severe retribution as soon as the pilot
returned. Mossie wasn't sure which part gave him the greatest pleasure!
He climbed into the cockpit and looked down at me.
"Let me know when you want that accomodation. See you again
soon."
Back at Cranfield there were more types to get under my belt and
some of them stand out still after more than forty years.
The Lancaster was a pleasant surprise. Lightly loaded it leapt off
the ground in sprightly fashion and felt right from the word go. On the
cruise it burbled along happily, at an indicated 250 mph low down, to
the satisfying sound of its four Merlins. The handling was pleasant, the
controls well harmonised, and the manoeuvrability remarkably good.
The Mosquito, on balance delightful, another aircraft in which I
felt very much at home but in a different, more careful, way. Perhaps
it was the memory of John Slatter, or the awareness of its high single
engined safety speed, although they were really one and the same
128