PLANE TALK - JIM DAVIS
THE GREEN AEROPL ANE JIM’ S EARLY DAYS PART 2
Jim remembers some of the extraordinary people who came to him for lessons at his first flying school. IF YOU CAST YOUR MIND BACK to the last issue, you may remember that I introduced you to one of my favourite odd-ball pupils – Jeff Towill. He was the 40 year old, bumbling Boris Johnstone look alike, who asked if I could teach him to fly a green aeroplane. This turned out to be a paint peelingly tatty Luscombe Silvaire that he had just flown in from his home in Beaufort West, 150 miles away and over two serious mountain ranges. It seems that the person who had sold him the Luscombe had thrown in some illegal instruction as part of the deal. Illegal in that he was not an instructor and had only just got his own PPL.
neatly,” he conceded. “But I still don’t know how to go round sharp corners, or land in fields or any of that sort of thing. Perhaps you could show me some of those?” Oh dear, oh dear – this was not going to be easy. I gathered he was referring to steep turns and precautionary landings. But actually Jeff’s training turned out to be a lot of fun. He was a bright guy with good hands and an understanding of machinery.
t he dar k e r patch up ahead w ill t ur n out to be a nice big hole
“Well you see, it’s kind of like this,” Jeff explained, “I mean to say, old chap – I can kind of fly it, but I think perhaps I should get a sort of a licence thingie.” “So you’ve been flying without a licence?” “Do you know, I think you’ve put that rather
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DCA kindly credited him with the time he had been flying illegally and I filled in the gaps. I did his flight test and the written exams and he soon disappeared back to his home in Beaufort West with a shiny new PPL. Shortly after Jeff got his license he headed off to East London, some 350 miles away at the coast.
I knew nothing of this until one night when his wife, Ethne, phoned and asked if her husband was a safe pilot. Now, I realised this was a loaded question. Ethne was a very sharp woman. She was one of these lightweight
