COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CHAPTER NINE
A KIND OF APPRENTICESHIP
There was little enough time to think about flying as I strove to get my
mind into gear after six years of war - ETPS notwithstanding - and
the first University sessions were tough going. But the reality hit me
hard during the following summer vacation at de Havillands.
Shut away on the production line, armed with a windy drill, I
longed for the Hornets and Mosquitos out on the tarmac and the open
skies above.
A craving which became so acute that I finally put a call through
to the chief test pilot's office. John Cunningham answered. At the
mention of ETPS he asked me to come and see him immediately.
Before we had time to sit down he told me that he needed a pilot for
development flying. Glancing through the window, where a second
high speed version of the DH108 was nearing completion in the
experimental shop, he asked me if I was interested.
It was Glosters all over again. What I wanted to do most was there
for the taking and permanently out of reach. I asked about Doves and
Chipmunks - in view of my sinusitis - and his enthusiasm vanished.
I left his office profoundly depressed. How to face life without
flying? The airlines might be a possibility. But they held little appeal
and the two state corporations only seemed to be interested in pilots
with a multi-engined background. That night, while the mood was still
with me, I wrote to the Midland Gliding Club and enrolled on a
course.
Arriving there a few weeks later was like turning back the clock
several years. The blister hanger and scruffy lean to clubhouse,
overlooking the escarpment, were exactly as I remembered them from
my OTU days. But now the site had come back to life. There were
gliders on the landing area, a couple of Kirby Tutors, a strutted Kite,
and a collection of ancient motor vehicles.
The view from the Mynd has a magical quality. For it seems to
reach into the very heart of Wales. Bounded to the north by a bleak
range of hills which dominates the horizon with ragged outcrops of
rock jutting into the sky. To the south the landscape, softer and more
wooded, rolls upwards towards Knighton and Clun. Knighton - its
Welsh name means The Town on the Dyke' - and Offa's Dyke was
familiar too from many a Hurricane sortie. A mystic border region.
Like the Long Mynd itself, as I came to know it better, a kind of
haven in time.
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