COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
Once, on my own, I was contour chasing near the borders of
Shropshire and Offa's Dyke. Where mountains give way to wooded
hills and castles mark the scenes of ancient wars. Suddenly I came on
a long unbroken ridge, the edge of a lofty plateau, which stood high
above its surroundings facing west. Something about it made me look
closer - and there on top was a blister hanger, locked and silent, and
the faint impression of a landing ground in the heather. Slowing down
I could almost sense the powerful wind striking that escarpment and
the fragile sailplane shapes, poised in the updraft overhead, as I had
seen them at Sutton Bank before the war.
A moment more to absorb the scene, and then out into the valley
again, back to the world of Tac-R, and the roads leading south
towards Hereford and Gloucester..... Other times and other skills..... I
vowed that some day, somehow, I would be back.
The Hurricanes were equipped for oblique and vertical
photography and after a single Harvard sortie, to demonstrate the
technique, you were sent out on your own. It was an effective
approach - because each exercise produced its own immediate results,
wet prints to study whilst the flight was still fresh in your mind, and
this led to a rapid improvement in skill.
Our instructors had their moment of fun, demanding a vertical
pinpoint of Ince Hall, a decaying country seat, which they had
unearthed on the Wirral peninsular. The photographs were duly
displayed, with captions suitably worded, to suggest a close family
connection. It could hardly have been further from the truth!
Sqn Ldr Majumdar was our mature student. A prewar Cranwell
cadet he had returned home, to early command of No 1 Squadron
Indian Air Force, where he had won a DFC fighting the Japs. Proud
in the best sense of the word, a powerful character, Karen Krishna
Majumdar had given up a staff appointment and dropped a rank in
order to broaden his experience by flying on ops in Europe. A
splendid man. In the words of that earlier war 'One would have been
happy to go over the top with him. 1
But that was hardly the situation as we taxied out together and
lined up for take off. Combat was almost the last exercise before our
conversion to Mustangs and, to my delight, I had been chosen to joust
with this formidable adversary. Drawing the short straw perhaps - but
there was much to be gained from such an encounter.
Fifteen thousand feet - and we were rushing towards each other
almost head on. A brief glimpse of a grey-green shape standing on its
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