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England!
I had hardly had any training, but when you are dying for a job, whose
complaining. It was spring in England. Roy Slarke, my
boss, had brought me across from Norway. He had bought two AgWagons there (Cessna
188's), and him and I flew them in a
more or less tidy formation down through Northern Europe and across the English
Channel to England. That was during
Christmas of 1971, or was it -72? I can't remember anymore. Anyway.
To
Schipol.
Our route took us down the east coast of the Oslo fjord from Fornebu, and into the
west coast of Sweden to Gothenburg.
A stop for fuel and then a short hop across the Skagerak to Aalborg Airport in
Denmark. From there on down to Odense for
a night stop, and then a flight plan was filed for Bremen. As these aircraft does
not have any navigation equipment at all, the
old "thumb on the map" procedure was used. As the mist slowly evolved into what
looked close to fog, a detour was made
and we landed at Flensburg just south of the Danish/German border. Four days was
wasted there, except that the aircraft
was cleaned and serviced. Then the fog lifted, and we were on our way again. Over
the lowlands of Holland at 2500 feet, towards
Schipol. I never found out why Roy wanted to go into that extremely busy hub, but
we did, I think much to the annoyance of the
ATC at Schipol, but Roy was the leader, I merely stuck to his tail. But when I saw
a DC-10 going into what must be described
as a steep turn at 2000 feet, I felt maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.
But, ol' Roy had a way of talking people into
most anything and the huffin' an' puffin' from the guys in the tower soon
subsided.
Across
The Channel
We did get our fuel, and after an extensive briefing on how to leave the place, we
winged our merry way towards the English
Channel and Calais, being our next refueling stop. By the time we got there the
weather turned foul again, and much to Roy's
dismay, he had to pay for another night in a hotel. And this one was a four star
to boot! No less than four servants guided us
through an excellent but not cheap meal!
The next day gave us a rather murky weather, and I was somewhat concerned about
crossing the channel. Hadn't done much
over water flying up until then, and the 20 mile channel crossing seemed to me to
be an awfully long stretch of water at the
time. Little did I know that I later would deal with considerably longer stretches
over water on a single engine. We set off.
Fryin'
time!
I think 2000 feet was the selected altitude, and as the murk was pretty heavy, we
were only a few miles off the French coast
when nothing could bee seen, except the odd tanker or fishing boat directly
beneath us. Intense staring ahead gave no clues
to if "The White Cliffs of Dover" was looming up ahead, but the old wartime tune
was ringing in my ears, and all sorts of images
from the Battle of Britain was showing on my forehead "monitor". I must
admit the nerves where a little bit frayed at the edges.
I could clearly see Roy slightly in front and off to the left, and I tucked in
close, thinking he must know where he is going.
Maybe the Brits can smell their way to the fish an' chips at fryin' time!
It felt like
an eternity. Then, suddenly a distinctly British air traffic controllers
voice boomed in my headset! England! At last!
Roy all of a sudden turned 90 degrees for a couple of minutes, and I could here
the ATC-man identifying us on his radar scope.
Thank god! Home safe! Now I felt I may know a little bit about how the guys back
in WW2 may have felt, returning to England
from hostile territory! Soon the gray-white cliffs moved into view, and we
made landfall right over the ferries at Dover. The radar
guided us safely on to final at Ashford in Kent, and we touched down in perfect
formation.
My new
home.
The next leg was not less eventful. Our destination was Hardwick airfield, just
west of Bungay in Sussex. The murk in the
Thames estuary was still bad, and we decided to hire a Cessna 172 and a pilot, to
guide us through the murk, to the
reportedly better weather north of the river. And so it was. We waved goodbye to
the 172 and soon Roy reported being in
home territory, said goodbye to the controller for the area and descended to
ag-level, about 300 feet. Evidently he felt more
comfortable there.
Soon he made noises over the radio that he had field in sight, and soon we were in
a high speed dive
towards the old concrete runway, making a normal aggie approach, buzzing the
field, checking for runway clear as we
passed and then making a tight turn , at the other end, pulling flaps letting the
ship sink slowly to a main-wheels-only touch
down, slowly lowering the tail when approaching the welcome committee.The new born
"Aggie" had arrived to start his career!
It took awhile to get going though. It was early days
yet, seasonwise, and Roy Slarkes son Richard ( Dick for short )
was busy getting the truckbased fertilizer loading apparatus ready to roll,
and I was helping him as best I could.
It all happened in the old shed or barn at the Slarke Farm just outside Bungay in
Suffolk, not far from Norwich.
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