COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
the round trip was sometimes completed with an early formation
practice on the way home.
Hardly a tremor in the air. Not a cloud in the sky. The climb out
steady as a rock. The mud brown hills, bordering the prairie, looked
parched and dusty - the mountains beyond in strong relief against the
distant blue. Each time the formation swung into a turn the morning
sun came flooding across the cockpit, blinding you with its glare.
Working hard to hold station beside the leader you were aware, as
always, of his instructor watching you like a hawk. Distrusting.
Ambivalent. As if warning you to keep your distance and in the same
breath challenging you to do better.
Later, whilst we sweated to fly accurately in the heat and
turbulence of the day, small cumulus filled the sky. When the air was
more unstable those harmless fair weather clouds grew into
thunderstorms which swept across the countryside in the late evenings.
It was in such conditions that lan Stewart lost his life.
Flying night circuits from Airdrie he got caught in a line squall,
blinded by heavy rain and low cloud. His aircraft must have been
thrown around by the violent turbulence, toppling the gyro
instruments and disorienting him completely. He ended up in a spiral
dive from which there was no recovery. A few days later six of his
fellow BFs were pall bearers at his funeral.
Incensed at the instruction to carry his coffin at the 'trail' instead
of shoulder high, to avoid offending the locals, we had argued strongly
against it:
"To hell with Canadian practice" - we had said - "lan was our
friend, not their's." But the Station Commander was adamant.
It was an arid service, in a soulless modern church and the
committal was hot and dusty. A sad waste of a young life. We took
ourselves back to the mess for one of our better parties, a spontaneous
gathering of the hard core BFs, in farewell to the first of their number
to get the chop.
After that we needed a break - and what better than Banff, just 80
miles away in the Rockies. It had looked marvellous on the trip to
Vancouver and the reality was even better. The spacious Banff Springs
Hotel, a huge echoing edifice reminiscent of Southern Germany, was
comfortable and uncrowded.
Lazing around a swimming pool was never my idea of fun. But this
one was fed with hot mineral waters and the glass walls looked out at
the Cascade Mountains. Besides which we had brought a good supply
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