Bush Pilot - Hugh Pryor

PARK OR Fly

I was frankly astonished when I opened the newspaper the other day, it was a ‘broad sheet’ one with big pages...to be confronted by a full-page photograph of ranks and ranks of grounded airliners.

MY initial reaction was that I had not realised that Boeing had turned out that many 737 Max 8s and then I noticed that I was actually looking at a picture of Gatwick Airport and quite a lot of the aeroplanes sitting on the ground were not even made by Boeing at all...they were Airbuses. And then I moved on to the next page, which was covered in aircraft parked in Sydney, Australia.

There were so many that I lost count of the tail fins. Suddenly the gaping chasm which the Coronavirus has opened up in the capitalist system, broke cover and opened my eyes ...here were billions of dollars, just parked, awaiting the cutting torch, unless we can sort out this virus. And most of them were not long off the production line.

While we are on the subject of ‘cutting’. This mountain of spare aircraft represents the ‘Cutting Edge’ of human engineering technology...the materials used have advanced almost by the minute. The engines have taken the expertise of people like Junkers and Caproni and Whittle to extremes of power and endurance which they could never have dreamed of. To take the human race from just managing to fly almost the length of a Boeing 747’s wingspan, in 1903, to being able to cart millions of holidaymakers all over the world, at prices which would be the equivalent to a couple of months’ salary, in the ‘old days’. Okay, the money has changed, but we have also had a couple of wars, big time wars which changed the butterflies into bees. Then, with the Second World War, the bees became goshawks and their engines graduated from Kestrels to Merlins and then the Griffin and then on to turbines.

Now, I know that you guys will be wondering why an old duffer like me should be expressing opinions on the current aviation catastrophe, so I will explain...

It may come as a surprise to some of you that I actually own a share in an aircraft... I own the third bolt on the right main wheel of a 1947 Piper Super Cruiser, which is currently in the process of being rebuilt, after landing in the high canopy of the Congo rainforest during a game count. I bought it in 1972, from an old friend who later became my best man, for the exorbitant price of $5000 in 1972. Okay so $5000 is not quite up to the price of a Boeing or an Airbus, but my Piper Super Cruiser is not just going to sit on the ground until somebody comes along and chops it up.

It has been flying for the last seventythree years and will probably be flying for the next seventy-three, if we can find people who know how to look after it. It will be ‘zero-timed’ with a 159 hp Lycoming O-320, out of a Super Cub, in the place of the old and, to be honest not totally reliable 145 hp Lycoming O-290-D2. They are also going to fit it out with flaps, so effectively it will become a three-seat Super Cub with proper doors...which makes me wonder why they didn’t do that in the first place with the Super Cub?

Incidentally, my Super Cruiser, with its rather heavy engine, was much easier to pick up and turn around, by using the tail handle at the aft end, and I have carried the crankshaft of a claas combine harvester, on my wife’s lap in the back...tied down...I mean the crankshaft, as well as my wife, obviously...and that brought the C of G nicely aft, so that I was able to carry out my first really smooth three-point landing at the farm, in front of a cheering crowd of my cousins, one of whom had just bought a Piper Pacer, which he wanted me to teach him to fly.

The Pacer was a different animal altogether from the delightful Cruiser. It was short-coupled and had such tiny wings that you could almost reach out and take the pitot cover off from the cabin, if you had missed it on the pre-flight check...and I speak from experience...although you heard that here for the first time!

Comparing the ‘Cruiser’ to the ‘Pacer’ is rather like comparing the delightful DC10 to the grumpy, bad-tempered MD-11.

I remember, as a Swissair Passenger, after a barely survivable MD-11 ‘Arrival’ on Runway 14 at Kloten. The Chief Stewardess walked into the cabin, jokingly hitching her knickers up and laughingly announced that the abruptness of the landing had been caused by a ‘software’ problem...which brought cheers and hoots of laughter from all of us passengers.

Annie, my ‘Dragon’, and I flew MD 11s with Swissair many times after that, but one of those involved a rather dramatic ‘Aborted Takeoff’ and ‘Emergency Braking’ on Runway 08 (the short one,) at Kloten and that also brought screams from the passengers, but they were not laughing this time.

No, give me a sweet old Cruiser, rather than a smart Pacer, or an old DC-10, rather than a slippery new MD 11 any day, please. 