COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
trip to Jonkoping. After a lengthy afternoon meeting we invited the
General Manager to join us for dinner at our hotel - and soon
discovered that he was a gliding fanatic. When he learned that I had
long been bitten with the same bug he began to talk about the
marvellous unstable southerly, blowing straight up the country, which
had been forecast for the following day. There was a 500km flight to
be had, and he could easily take the day off, except that there was no
retrieve.
As the evening progressed we toasted each other and drank to the
future of gliding. Encouraged by plentiful supplies of aquavit, we
hatched a plan. Our meeting with the Swedish Air Board was not until
the day after tomorrow. Bill and I would be his retrieve crew, driving
back overnight, and the first flight to Bromma the following morning
would get us there in time. As a final touch, our pilot, having checked
the weather again, would ring me at about five in the morning to
confirm or cancel the arrangement.
Whether Bill deliberately encouraged the celebrating to continue,
in order to sabotage the whole exercise, is a moot point. But the fact
remains that by the time we parted company, the three of us were
pretty plastered.
I slept badly, aware of a developing hangover, and dreading the
telephone summons. When it came the weather forecast had changed.
Our little jaunt was off. I could only heave a grateful sigh of relief and
when I called Bill he laughed as much as his fragile state of health
would allow.
En route to Stockholm, later that day, we dozed uncomfortably as
the little Scandia wallowed around in the turbulence. We were certainly
being carried along on a very unstable southerly but the low cloud
base, and occasional shower, hardly suggested a 500km day. I often
wonder how we would have got on if it had been a boomer.
In aircraft industry terms the rest of Europe boiled down to
Germany, France, Italy, Holland and Belgium. Belgium, totally
committed to the F104 programme, could be written off. At Gosselies
Starfighters filled the assembly lines at SABCA - and those of Avions
Fairey on the other side of the airfield. Except for one building where
Arthur Talbott, who ran the Fairey subsidiary, showed me a line of
fibreglass headstones. He smiled wryly in response to my question - it
was shortly after the F104 had acquired a reputation as the
'widowmaker':
"People say we deliver one of these with each aircraft. It's not true
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