Phil Perry

Recreational Farming ? ?

Not being a qualified Flight instructor, I agreed to sit with a chap ( Old friend and Business associate ) who had bought a Kitfox Mk3, which was a GA aircraft on the register. I had over 200 Hrs on type, and the Friend had taken a tailwheel course and been signed off as competent but he asked me to fly alongside him for a few hours, for confidence building as he had never flown a Kitfox before,, and there was no local instructor who had either. . . He had done his tailwheel endorsement on a Bellanca Decathlon,. . which is a much heavier airframe with a much more powerful engine,. . .But had passed anyway. I flew with him for 65 hours ( Oh Yeah,. .free flying WOULDN'T YOU ? ? but I usually paid for the breakfasts ! ! ),. . .to all sorts of locations; and he alway appeared to be under-confident, even to the point of asking me to do the radio calls. ( He had passed his GA licence course in Florida a year previously, on PA 28s, and while he was there, he also did a helicopter course in a Robinson R22. . but that's another story ). We got to the point were I was worried that his crosswind landing technique was non existent,. . he tried sideslipping, as taught by his american instructor and Crabbing, too, but always got it wrong. .. I showed him how I did it,. . on several occasions, but as I said, . .I am NOT an instructor. I said that the best thing he could do would be to approach a taildragger instructor and do it properly. .( I hate to tell people that they will never be a pilot as long as they have a hole in their bum. . but there we are.) He asked someone else from his own club for help with this, and got a real Ace in his own mind to teach him. . . . I only heard about the crash a month later,. . . they had tried to land on runway which was parallel to a 132KV national grid power line, and 90 degrees out of wind. The Kitfox ended up inverted in a field full of OIL SEED RAPE ( FECK YOUR BLOODY CANOLA ) under the Power Lines.. . . Only cuts and bruises but the aircraft was a write off. When I asked him what went so wrong, he said he was thinking about 'pulling the collective' for a go around. ( I $hit you not, . .that is what he said ) If anyone accuses me of BS here, I have the A/C registration, + all the names, places etc. . .. These folks walk amongst us,. .and when they have loads of money, they can be even more dangerous,. . .

I have never heard of Oilseed Rape described as 'CANOLA' in my life mte,. . I'll have to ask farmers ! My younger Brother Ray had n incident where he got overcome with a crosswind gust in our Trike, and he ended up in a rape field semi inverted with the ballast cotiner resting on his back. Te prop was still rotating at idle when I crawled underneath the wing and cut the ignition switch. Bro couldn't reach around far enough to switch it off himself due to the weight of the ballast leaning on his back. Th crop was strong enough to save the wing from damage and allow us to flip the machine upright and taxi it to safe storage. ( I flew Bro home in the 3 axis machine that I was demonstrating earlier that day, we were flying in formation enroute to home base. ). Regrettably, Brother lost his nerve after that incident, and has never flown as P1 since.

Th lowest cost flying I've ever known ( Three axis ) is the Mike Whittaker aircraft designs. . .they were originally designed by Mike when he was working on the Concord design team, when somebody bet him that he couldn't design and fly a home built aircraft in less than a year. He DID. and many of them are still flying to this day. Mainly using a variety of 2 stroke engines, but still a lot of fun for not much money. The MW aircraft club is based at my airfield.. . .there are around 14 of them, 2 seat, single seat, 2 sat tandm and 2 seat side by side versions. They are tough, solid and easy to fly, although fairly spartan in creature comfort. They trade in the UK for circa £700 to £1500 depending upon condition and type. Very easy to maintain and fly, but with the caveat that you have to get training in an approved type, and they are Not.. http://www.mwclub.org/aircraft/

Not having any Farming experience,. . .I wouldn't know I'm afraid mate, . When we started flying from there in 1991, the ( then ) farmer, was being paid by the EU to leave the field in 'Set Aside' so he had a win win situation,. . our subscriptions as users, and his 'Bung' from the common agricultural Policy, which paid loads of Brit and French farmers NOT to grow anything. . . This is why many of the UK Landed Gentry and Land owning Wealthy aristocrats and Politicians are pi$$ed off about the thought of leaving the EU, as their free money for nothing gravy train will cease to be and they'll have to GROW stuff and Sell it instead. Their only other alternative, especially if the land is High ground or coastal, is to use their connections and get the energy sector to erect a subsidized wind farm on their property, the ground rent for these windmills is astonishingly high, helping to make the energy they produce very expensive, whether or not the wind actually blows. . . The current owner has the airfield grass cut and Baled, ( the triangular bits between the strips that is ) and sells these bales to the 'Horsey' set for Silage. Fair play to the man I reckon. . .he could be charging a LOT more for our Lease when compared to other airfields in the Midlands. I am happy to report that the Pilot of the accident Foxbat, whilst still in Hospital, is not seriously injured, the passenger only had minor cuts and bruises. I have not seen the remnants of the machine,, and I believe that it is being transported off site tomorrow.

HAHA . . . Sorry guys, The description of the crop was verbatim from the eye witness. I hadn't the heart to mention his description of the crop. . in the circumstances it would have seemed petty. The crop surrounding our site is invariably wheat. ( Except when it's Spuds )

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/staffordshire/penkridge/2019/07/17/crew-taken-to-hospital-as-light-aircraft-crashes-near-cannock/ The owner, a partially disabled man in his sixties, had flown the aircraft in from Dorset, near the South coast UK, along with a friend, also in his sixties, to have the importer carry out it's annual permit to fly inspection After the aircraft had been inspected and test flown by the Importer, it was seen to lift off 'Too Early' according to a witness who also owns an A22 Foxbat himself. "It wallowed along in a nose high attitude, not climbing well at all, until it stalled just past the end of the runway and nosed into a soft, deep ploughed field planted with oil seed rape, . . from an estimated height of 25 - 30 feet agl. The passenger was able to exit the aircraft unaided, but the pilot had to be extricated by the fire & rescue service. There was no fire. Good outcome, except for the insurance company I guess.

I've no doubt at all that making humour out of tragedy was in poor taste. The British throughout , history; have developed a 'Dark' sense of humour. Although that is dying out as us oldies fade away and the media no longer screen programmes nor ads containing any such content. There was another 'Bouncing Bomb' related commercial from the same company, with a Brit bouncing his rolled up beach towel across a hotel swimming pool which landed neatly on a sun lounger, unrolling a tin of lager. defeating a crowd of German guests, who are well known for putting towels on the loungers in the middle of the night. . .that ad ran for quite a while until the German Government complained and it was pulled.

Amusing Beer advertisement, now banned for some reason or other. . .

Welcome to RF Maxy. . . I can see that you already have some good oil from the denizens hereabouts ! I used to fly into YLIL ( I'm assuming that is Lilydale . . flying from Casey Airfield at Berwick, ( Now long closed ) and then living in Mitcham. I am assuming that the site is the same one as in the mid 1970s, please correct me if not. It had one grass runway. I had to make a precautionary there, after the engine of the Cherokee Six 300 started barking and coughing. There was a LAME there at the time, working on something else, and he kindly attended to the problem, it took 2 hours and was apparently a fuel flow problem. He replaced some parts, filters I think, and ran the engine for what he considered was sufficient time to check that it was OK to fly. Nice place, nice people. . .I had to disgorge my 4 Pax though, as the runway was JUST sufficient for a lightly loaded aircraft. He flew with me back to Berwick, and the Manager shuttled my 4 pax there to ! Unbelievable hospitality from both men, and the only charge was for the work and parts. . They even refused payment for the car fuel ! I hope that I've got the right airfield, Coz it was long time ago. Good fortune with your flying mate. Phil.

I feel sure that little stories like this wil continue to surface until all those related or involved are long dead.. .

They say that a good landing is one that you can walk away from, but that a GREAT landing is one where the Flying Appliance is re-useable. . .

I hadn't seen this one before,. . . quite heartwarming. . .

We had a Two day fly-in and BBQ this last weekend at our arfield, and i got the full gamut of Monkey style radio procedures,. . to be fair, several visitors were very good and professional sounding,. . but some of the others were posted somewhere between Bad and bloody Awful. . . Still, we managed to have a safe 2 days, with No real hassles, and NO ONE WAS KILLED . . .which was another Plus of course. . . The only negative bit was that Julie, the Nubile lead singer and Leader of the Band, operating from an Articulated Truck stge on Saturday Night promised me that she would wear something really sexy,. . .but the bitch went on stage in shiny leather trousers instead of the 'Split up the side' short skirt that she promised. . . Women have always been a disappointment to me. . . .

Avro Lancaster B Mark III, ED724 'PM-M', of No. 103 Squadron RAF pauses on the flarepath at Elsham Wolds, Lincolnshire, before taking off for a raid on Duisburg, Germany, during the Battle of the Ruhr. Three searchlights (called 'Sandra' lights), two of which are visible on the left, form a cone to indicate the height of the cloud base for the departing aircraft.

This short tale of WW2 was written by the Son he never lived to see. Although their luck was destined to last no longer than a few weeks more, Mosquito pilot (Dad left) and navigator (Zygmunt right) were incredibly lucky 75 years ago today. It was late afternoon on Wednesday 5 July 1944. Dad’s diary entry (translated) :- ‘1944 (5th July) Wednesday. Landed machine without engines at Church Fenton then night patrol 2.05 hrs in the same machine’. They had taken Mosquito NFXII Serial no HK234 (similar to pictured) up for a test flight after mechanical work and were returning back to their squadron base at RAF Church Fenton in Yorkshire about to commence their landing approach when suddenly both engines simultaneously cut out. Basic engineering design was supposed to eliminate such a thing, but it had happened. There was an emergency training procedure for single engined landings, but not for no engines. In terms of contemporaneous records of emergencies even with one engine, the chances of them emerging unscathed with their aircraft undamaged were slim. With both engines U/S, chances were effectively zero. The undercarriage and landing flaps were still up, and because both engines were dead, the undercarriage and landing flap hydraulic operating system was also dead. A Mosquito weighed anywhere between 6 ½ to 10 tons deadweight depending on fuel and load carried. It was no glider. An emergency hydraulic pump operated by a lever bar stowed in the cockpit door could be used by means of a socket on the floor for manually lowering the undercarriage. It was supposed to require between 200-300 strokes and take 3-4 minutes. They had nothing like that time and only one slim chance to get the emergency approach right. While Dad wrestled to prevent a stall and commence a fast nosedive landing approach onto the grass, with or without undercarriage, Zygmunt his navigator worked the hand pump to-and-fro like a demon. Somehow the U/C locked down just as they were about to make the high-speed landing roll on the grass outfield. Just as things started looking good, to their horror a group of ground crew, oblivious of this silent machine hurtling down towards them, started crossing the grass directly in their landing path, going across for their evening meal. They finally noticed and scattered, one on a bike crouching down on his handlebars cycling right between the wheels. Unbelievably no-one was hurt, and even more incredibly the aircraft finally rolled to a halt totally undamaged. Cue much laughing and joking (while holy shit knows how shaken and relieved they must have been). Engineers located and rectified the fault. They took the same aircraft up again for a full operational patrol the same night and it behaved perfectly. Like every crew, they would have been determined to get straight back up, to restore their nerve and confidence. Particularly so, because three crews, all close colleagues, had been killed in similar circumstances including their own squadron commander, who had perished attempting to demonstrate a single engine Mosquito landing the year before, getting the approach wrong. The incident was recalled in later accounts of the squadron’s history although, as was often the case in ‘no injury no damage’ incidents, kept off official records. The Mosquito HK234 itself survived the war. It was to move on from Sqdn 307 to Sqdn 264 and then again to Operational Training Unit 51, to be finally taken out of service and scrapped in August 1945. Putting the incident into perspective, there is a rather depressing video taken by a spectator at an air show in 1996 in which one of the last airworthy Mosquitoes stalled and fatally crashed. The inquiry concluded it was probably initiated from a temporary loss of power in the port engine. Google ‘Last Mosquito’ if you wish to watch it.

Just as an aside,. . .the Bulgarian pilot to whom I spoke, was a LAYDEE. . .the Eastern Europeans had lots of Lady pilots in their air forces during the cold war, and still do apparently,. . I just have to wonder if they are all trained and conversant with cleaning the cockpits and behind the Galley fridge too. . .? ( Grabs Helmet and runs for the hills. . .)

I always preferred the 'Day se Mal' instead of 'Point' as used in the USA Nev,. . .but this is Purely Subjective,. . .We use it in the UK because we do. . . . .and we don't get that many US pilots complaining, as far as I'm aware. I recently heard a Brazilian pilot using 'Point' . between frequency numbers, but this is quite rare, and the Brit controllers seemed to be OK with this and didn't become pedantic. ( Yes, I Know I'm a saddoe and listen in to commercial traffic into Birmingham. . the controllers aren't as amusing as the guys on Heathrow tower though, they're in a class of their own. . . I recently heard an RPT using our airfield freq a few weeks back,. . obviously an error, so I informed them of the correct channel to be on and they thanked me for the info. . .what the heck they was doing on unicom 129.830 I have no idea, it's nothing like any of the Brum channels,. . but HEY, any chance to talk to an arliner eh ? Turned out to be a Cargo 'Dog' from Bulgaria. . . . my BEST 'Other' one was a call from an RPT just South of Iceland,. .( This was over 10 years ago ) not bad on VHF, from 650 NM range. . . ( Mind you, he WAS at FL310 ) Gave me a position report. . . I was so proud. . . .( ! ) He should have been on 119.825, but he got us instead. . . I'm still amazed that we were readable '4' on a five Watt transmitter at that range,. .. but radio wave propogation does strange things at times. . .as all you radio hams know. .

Hi Rob,. . nothing wrong with the mid life crisis,. . II mean look at me, I just discovered that Girlies under forty years of age, are still interesting to look at. . . even at MY age. . . FLYING is a very special thing. . .Something which has NO comparison. Every person will, for the first time, perceive flying in a different way. . .but to sit in the cockpit of a small aeroplane, and to have YOUR hands on the controls,. . well,. . .this is something you need to discover for yourself, as all of us on this forum have done. warning however,. . Flight is very addictive, . . more so than most Drugs. So if you are a person who is susceptible to drugs,. . .Don't do it !. . .for if you do, you will be hooked, and telling us your own personal story of the awakening to flight. Aside from all this poetic Bull$hit mate,. . good luck with your first trial lesson and we hope to read about your progress cobber.

In the UK, we always put the station called as the first word of the transmission BUT. . .At OTHERTON . . ie, my base,. . we have people clipping TX when they are calling 'Hatherton', and 'Weston, and the worst one, 'Overton. . . which Does elicit a reply from Us,. . . not surprisingly. . . I have been asking our lads and lassies to use the Place name at the beginning AND the end of the transmission for clarity,. . some do, after I have sent them Scott Hendry's videos of flying around in the NT etc. . . I shall keep brainwashing them on Bookface etc, until they adopt safer radio procedures. . .I DO have some allies for this on local Aviation social media, so it's Working.albeit SLOWLY ! . ( BTW I DID ASK SCOTT'S PERMISSION TO PROMULGATE HIS VIDEOS AND USE THEM FOR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES . . ! )

Thanks for the upbeat answer Kaz. . I just passed my NPPL aeromed too. . . .reason being, I can't now afford to fly GA aircraft on my pension ! But I can fly anything up to 2,000 KGs AUW on my NPPL/SEP rating which includes a lot of G.A. appliances too ?. . . oh well,. . .I'll only fly 182s / 172s / Pa 28 R200s etc if I have some Victims,. . er, I mean 'Friends' sharing the cost ! I assume this means that I can fly a Twin again, if I only start One engine. . . . . Great ! I can't have back my Pax Oxygen management ticket for flight above 10.000 feet, but what the hell,. . I just won't go there, nor try to fly over the Swiss Alps. . . Normally fresh NPPL holders cannot fly aircraft with complex systems. . ie Constant Speed props and Dangly Dunlops, but they've told me that since I have multiple thousand hours doing so, that I will be granted grandfather rights on those Simple accessories, and that I can continue to fly friends to the Isle of Man TT races without the prop left in full fine and the gear extended,. . which is Handy. . . Innit ?

I can attest that the Qantas Cattle Class menu was VERY satisfactory on my last fight with that worthy organization Sir ! This was my First ever ride in a 747, in 1983 from Brisbane to London via KL, Singa, and Bahrein. . . For the first leg of the fight I was allowed to sit in the jump seat behind the captain. I was wearing a tee shirt that I'd designed and printed myself, showing a yellow DH82A with the Cringeworthy text 'Only REAL pilots fly Taildragger.' . . ! The Captain asked where I had flown'Tigers' and I replied that for the last few years, I was based at Casey Airfield in Vic and flew theirs. . .to which he replied instantly, "Ah yes, is that still operated by Col. Keith Hatfield and his lovely Wife Elsa ?" Jeeze, I thought. . . Well known airfield or what ! I was ejected from the office for the landing at KL though. . Rules is Rules . . But I had a lovely breakfast and after leaving Changi, the FO breezed past and said that if I wanted to come back to the front I could as it was very quiet and they'd had hardly any other requests. . . So I did. The FO was a 'Radio Ham' from Sydney, so we babbled on about that too. The Flight Engineer ( remember them ? ) was a serial Joker. . .t amused me to see him occasionally prodding the throttles with his clipboard without saying anything to the pilots ! It is a terrible shame that events in NYC / 2011 put a sudden end to cockpit visits for Plebs. . . That aircraft was only half loaded with pax after Bahrein, so I wandered about the cabin a lot. chatting with people who were still awake (!). up the stairs to First class, had a drink at the bar, and helped myself to a Buffet. . no one seemed to mind. Again. Lovely Food !. Finally, laid across five seats and had some Kip. Due to a couple of delays and a diversion for unexplained reasons after Bahrein, when ALL the external lights and beacons were turned off ( ? ) the entire fight time wa 26.5 hours but I enjoyed that first Jumbo flight immensely. Apart from the food, what did I learn from my foray into the front office ? Well, for one thing I learned that VOR stations had a heck of a useful range at around 35,000 feet ! Far better than in my C-182 which started losing the VHF NavCom signals at not much more than 30 NM from the omni beacon and / or ATC service. .

I ALWAYS read your comments Derek !

Thanka BA. . . .

G'Day Danny. . .you'll find some really useful advice here,. . but . .. regrettably.. .Not from me as I'm an Old Fart and fly in the UK now. . . . . .There isn't much you can ask here which won't result in a torrent of answers mate. . Anyhow. . . welcome to RF. . . .the BEST Flying forum this side of the Black whatsit thingummie. . . .( Stumped of I can remember what it's called . . .) Cheers,. . .Phil.