COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
lived. So it was with me, on that summer afternoon more than half a
century ago, as the Gipsy Moth lifted into the air and swung northwest
across the Clyde.
Other memories come crowding in..... with my friends John Slatter
and Peter Holmes, beside the duty pilot's van, watching the yellow
Hart trainers flying circuits and landings. We had been amongst the
first to join the new OTC2 Air Section at Cheltenham College,
belonged to the same House, and shared a love of flying. Our visits to
the FTS3 at South Cerney were intended to instil a basic knowledge of
radio, armament, and navigation. But we escaped from the stuffy
lecture rooms at every opportunity.....
..... at summer camps where we were soldiers again, puttied and
blancoed replicas of that earlier war, our make believe battles on the
scrub covered slopes above Tidworth enlivened by the presence of an
occasional Audax or Hector. Local army co-operation squadrons
demonstrating the art of air support. So highly developed it was said
that some of the aircraft were even being flown by army officers
seconded to the RAF.....
..... above all the stolen afternoons at Hucclecote, home of the
Gloster Aircraft Company, surreptitiously photographing the
Gladiators and Henley target tugs on production test. And the golden
day when Frank McKenna, the General Manager, whose son was also
at Cheltenham, took me round the factory.
In the flight shed was Gloster's latest, the F5/34, a unique
opportunity to explore the cockpit of an eight gun monoplane fighter.
I sat there trying to take it all in, surrounded by the aroma of cellulose
dope and hydraulic fluid, grasping the throttle lever - hand on the
spade grip - head in the clouds.
A few days later I watched as the elegant prototype accelerated
across the grass airfield, tucked its leggy undercarriage out of sight,
and climbed away into the autumn sun, far out over the Severn
estuary. From then on a career in the Royal Air Force became my
dearest ambition.
In a matter of weeks circumstances beyond my control were to
change all that. At No 1 Central Medical Board in London I failed the
eyesight test.
However war was fast approaching and there must be some other
way. Back in Glasgow once more I applied to join 602 Auxiliary
Squadron. After meeting the CO, Sqn Ldr Farquhar, it seemed likely
that I would be accepted, but there was another medical to face. When
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