Arh! No, no, you've got it wrong. A sideslip in an aeroplane is quite different, quite different - not like a car on a muddy road at all. The airplane remains completely under control, always. It's a legitimate manoeuvre, quite intentional, and it can be extremely useful. Particularly when you're close to the ground. Even more so when you're gliding, got no power. … Well then, I'd better give you a lesson; a very quick lesson, there's not that much time, is there? Wish I could demonstrate it for you, but I guess you'll just have to listen.
Imagine you're close to the ground, flying slowly, engine just ticking over. The spot you want to get to, perhaps to land in, perhaps to just have a look at, is off to one side, say to the right. You can't just approach it in the normal way, with a sort of lazy S turn, gentle bank to the right, gentle bank to the left, straighten up - that sort of thing, no room, no height. So you just cross your controls - hard right rudder, full left bank and the aeroplane simply crabs down, steady as a rock. Centre the controls and there's your spot, straight ahead. … Piece o' cake. The magic of the sideslip.
(pause)
Airmanship – that's a word you don't often hear nowadays, isn't it? Probably had its day, a bit like us old codgers, eh? And anyway, some of the best pilots have always been women, aviatrixes we used to call 'em. So we shouldn't have called it airmanship even then. ... Now where was I? Oh yes, the most amazing example of airmanship I ever saw was in Malaya, way back in the fifties. The poor old Brits might have won the war, but they'd lost the Empire, and to boot were up to their blinkin' eyebrows in debt to the Yanks. No dollars to buy decent airliners while their own industry was changing over to peacetime manufacture. So; bit of lateral thinking, and they converted bombers. The Lancaster became the Lancastrian. BOAC used them on the Australia run. Cabin pretty cramped and lots of refuelling stops but quite an aeroplane.
At one stage I was grounded at Butterworth; filthy monsoon weather - driving rain and low cloud - when BOAC's Lancastrian came in from Calcutta. You could hardly see the runway from where we stood, sheltering from the rain, but you couldn't mistake those Merlins thundering away above. Landing aids were pretty rudimentary in those days and the skipper had a couple of shots at landing – not that we saw him - but thought better of it each time, and roared off into the murk. Heard him coming back for the third time, and then he suddenly broke cloud – on line, but already a third of the way down the runway, and 100 yards to one side. 'Oh, bad luck' someone cried.
Then to our absolute amazement, throttles were instantly closed and this enormous aeroplane began to sideslip. There was a collective gasp as almost to a man the onlookers were sure they were about to witness an horrific crash; some people turned away. But just above the runway she straightened and executed a perfect threepoint landing. Demonstration is worth a million words and I tucked it away in the back of my mind. Mind you, it could well be he hadn't enough fuel to go round again, but that's beside the point.
After Malaya I went off to Papua New Guinea. We used to own it in those days, remember? – our little bit of Empire. Still flying and trying to learn all I could. When you reckon you know it all you're well and truly riding for a fall. And flying over mountains and jungle in a little aeroplane has its hazards. Anyway, I'd heard of this missionary pilot – not one of your mob – who'd had three engine failures over the jungle and walked out each time. r determined to meet him and tap his brain. Friendly, free with information and advice, and very helpful, not a bit of side; but when I finally got round to asking him how you survived a crash landing onto the tops of trees in deep jungle, he simply laughed: 'Piece of cake, dear boy; engine stops – back on the stick, trade speed for height, switches off, fuel off, flaps down, quick word with the Maker, sideslip to the passenger's side and you're IN!' ... He was a Pom, a happy go lucky sort of fellow, and I knew he was joking, for he loved his natives far too much to even dream of going in passenger side first. No way he'd use them for a collision mattress; if anything he'd sacrifice himself. But it made for a good story.
And then the exigencies of the Service, as they say, found me in Vietnam. More jungle, but this time inhabited by some rather unpleasant people, or so we thought at the time, and with the ability to react quite viciously towards anyone flying above. One tended not to fly so low. Exciting, but far from enjoyable. So I was very happy when offered a bit of R&R, and decided to head for Penang, my old stamping ground, in what had now become Malaysia. In the Herc on the way down caught up with a mate, an old friend, indeed my best friend - you don't need to know his name - who had never experienced the joy of flying; just the toompa-toompa-toompa of a Huey carrying them in on a search-and-destroy, looking out the open door wondering what that jungle held, what was waiting for 'em, what their chances were, and then that same toompa-toompa-toompa coming out again, with blood and wounded on the floor, and sometimes one of the blokes very still, who was never going to move again. No, not much fun in that sort of flying.
We unwound together in a pretty standard way for a couple of days, and then I said 'Let me show you.what flying's really like'. So I went to the Aero Club and hired a plane and the two of us set out across the emerald green padi fields of Kedah, glistening and sparkling in the early morning light heading towards the foothills. The central jungle covered mountain spine reared up in front. I found the gap I remembered from all those years before, and we then wound our way through, descending on the other side. The sun had not long risen and the tiny image of the aeroplane accompanied us, keeping pace, scudding across the cloud filling the valleys below, and surrounded by a perfect halo in all the colours of the spectrum. We traveled on and the cloud fell away. Huge scarlet flame trees were scattered through the green of the jungle, great swaying swathes of bamboo, the occasional kapok tree standing proud, and then magically, a herd of elephants bathing in a stream.
My mate, my best friend, was entranced, almost ecstatic. We circled, admiring those cavorting elephants from afar, with no thought to disturb their toilet. But later we came upon a brace of crocs sunning themselves on a mudbank. 'Why don't we stir 'em up?' 'Why not' I replied as I closed the throttle. We skimmed pretty much over their heads and my mate whooped with joy at seeing their frantic slithering slide down to plop into the water. I pulled up over the trees on the other side, and the engine coughed and died.
No time to think. ... What triggers action at a time like this? Is it instinct? A conditioned reflex based on training, years of practice? Or does the mind dredge up some irrational idea from the distant past? 'Engine stops – back on the stick, trade speed for height, switches off, fuel off, flaps down, quick word with the Maker; sideslip to the passenger's side, and you're IN'.
At the moment of impact I looked across and down. I doubt my face would have registered panic, more likely grim determination. My passenger – my mate, my best friend – was not looking down. He was looking up and across at me. He wasn't terrified either. He was shocked, angry, and his eyes held a terrible question.
I've lived with that question for forty years. Forty years of hell. Absolute bloody hell. Every livelong day. Every sleepless night. Those staring eyes. That fearful, terrible, unspoken question. A living hell.Tell me Father; we're running out of time – is that where I'm headed. ... Is it? ... Is it, Father?