Zero Hour

Having studiously avoided all manner of institutions including the air cadets, by the time by trial lesson comes round my flying experience consists of infrequent tours of duty in World War 2 Europe, with several kills (and several deaths) to my name. My flying skills are limited to standing a Spitfire/Hurricane/Stealth Fighter/F16 (delete as appropriate) on one wingtip and hitting the fire button until something explodes, or crashes or just changes. Navigation is boring. Shooting stuff is interesting. I own only one joystick. The odd time I've been obsessed by Flight Simulator for a few hours, it's been to fly a Learjet under the Eiffel Tower or Golden Gate Bridge. I might know what a Cessna is but, you know, why bother with it?

Actually, I did build a remote control training aircraft as a child. Using some old plans I found in the attic I built it from scratch using using balsa wood. The wing and fuselage was covered in a heat shrink material applied using my mother's iron, which was an high risk operation due to the implications should I wreck the iron and endanger my mother's primary function in the house. The iron survived, but the aircraft didn't - I completed it after many hours but couldn't afford the radio kit or the engine and so got a bit bored with it. I threw it around the back garden a little, trimming the surfaces for a no-engine no-radio kit scenario that the aircraft would never see and then it went into a cupboard, forever devalued as a good idea that I couldn't see through.


It's tremendously exciting but I'm keeping the excitement in check because there's a weather dependency. At 10am, LAC get their first telephone call. The weather is marginal, so I have to call back at midday. The weather is still not great, but I'm told to go in anyway.
The wife tells me to be careful. I promise I will be.

I arrive.
"How much do you weigh?"
"Ooh, about twelve and a half stone."
"We'll say thirteen."

I'm insulted but apparently it means we get to take a Piper PA28 as opposed to a Cessna 152. A Piper what?

Walking out to 'airside' takes you past some hangars and the quaintly old fashioned control tower. It's all tremendously informal compared to every airport I've been to previously. All that's stopping me getting 'airside' is a sign telling me not to go there. Even then airside seems to comprise of more grass and an asphalt area for parking aircraft on and not much more. There are a bewildering number of almost identical aircraft and then a couple of odd balls which are clearly for aerobatics or people who like old things, along with some helicopters which are fascinating but seem to be marginalised to the west end of the runway. Either way, just being around the helicopters and aircraft is exciting, making the walk across the grass is almost unthinkable, unreal.

On the way across I'm asked about previous experience so I come clean on my WWII dogfighting expertise and Learjet soirees. Clearly with that experience I'll be qualified by lunchtime.

This aeroplane thing is small, with it's wing set low, like a Spitfire, though Spitfires look much bigger in photos. In fact, these light aircraft look bigger from the ground, so why so small up close? The low wing perhaps makes it more familiar as a 'real' aeroplane and means that getting in is tricky, involving climbing onto the wing first to access the single door on the copilot's side. I'm given the left hand seat, which prompts me to check that my aviation stories haven't been taken too seriously - the left hand seat is the captain's seat. Already the instructor is relegated to copilot. Good grief.

The control panel is bewildering. There are numbers in circles, numbers next to circles, circles with no numbers and loads of what look like antiquated radios - it's as if there's two for AM, one for Long Wave, one for Short Wave and not a CD player in sight. So it's the BBC World Service and Radio Luxembourg for us then. And there's a compass. I'd date the interior as designed in the fifties, implemented with sixties technology and updated perhaps around 1965, since which the most modern addition was fear induced perspiration. But you know, I don't mind at all. It all feels kind of 'right'. This is how aircraft are meant to be; impenetrable masses of instruments and controls. If it was just like a car it would be boring and we'd all be emoting about Volvos.

The instructor fiddles with the yoke, hits a couple of switches, works the throttle and the red lever (another throttle?) and Charlie Bravo shakes and rattles into life. It's noisy, smelly and generally fabulous. On go the headsets for some utterly meaningless but very authentic chatter during which I almost breathe. There's a bit of 'wilco' but no rogering, which leaves me disappointed; script writers always ensure 'roger', 'over and out' and 'tiffin' make it into radio chat, so to have none of it leaves me wanting to write a strongly worded letter to various studios.
We park up to do some stuff. The handbrake goes on. And stays on. I decide not to say anything as, seeing as my instructor is a woman, such inconsistencies are likely to be a feature of my flight. Hopefully there'll be no parallel parking involved. The parking lasts a minute or two, then we taxy to runway twenty seven via a holding point, though everyone seems to call the runway "two seven left".

So here we are, on the threshold. Literally. I'm directed to put one hand on the yoke, one hand on the throttle and my feet on the pedals. There's a moments pause and I'm told to put the throttle forward all the way. There's an almost imperceptible lag, then the engine and propeller get down to business and we accelerate....and don't stop. There's no changing of gears, no pauses, just unrelenting acceleration. Charlie Bravo tries to get off the ground and fails, then again, then again. The third bounce is so hard it knocks my throttle hand slightly, but the instructor rams it forward with a dramatic cry of, "Full throttle!". After three good bounces we're inexplicably lifted off the ground in a clean sweeping motion and that's it; we're airborne.