Time Witnesses: First Flight
Pat Sowrey recalls her first flight in a Royal Air Force training plane during World War Two.
Pat writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
Picture it, late 1941—WW2 was well under way. A very new 17year-old Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) - me - who was an even newer Group II Aircraft Electrician on a ‘drome’ in SE England, standing in the huge hangar filled with all kinds of planes being repaired, serviced, tested etc.
One training plane, a Proctor, just one of those with the passenger seat in the rear cockpit and the pilot in the front, was just about ready for its test flight after a prop change and necessary electrical connections etc., completed.
Test Pilot to WAAF: “Have you had any flights yet?”
WAAF: (very nervously) “No.”
Pilot: “Then it’s time you had one. Go over to the hatch at the end and draw a chute, then come back here.”
Small problem—being only 5 foot and a spit, nothing was small enough in there. Solution—“Take a large one and sit on it. It won’t be required. You can walk alongside these planes.”
Mission accomplished. Back to the plane, up I got. Did I look as terrified as I felt? Many and varied were the instructions I was being prompted with. Some not printable.
The point of no return. We were at the end of the runway awaiting take-off and suddenly the engine roared. Slowly we started to move. I hung on for grim death, should I say a prayer? Oh dear, How did I ever get into this?
All of a sudden the nose turned up (the plane, not mine), and we were airborne. A turn around the drome and then heading off across the Salisbury Plain. It was beautiful—one of those gorgeous summer days when the sky is blue and just a few white fluffy clouds. I was mesmerised. Too rapt to be scared any more. I was in my element. Or was I? Wasn't it rather quiet? I can’t hear any engine! Only the pilot’s voice calling “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,” from the front cockpit. He asked me also if I was okay. What else could I say but ‘yes’ (for now anyway). I was just told to sit back, enjoy the trip and he would put us down safely.
What happened to all my fears. I don’t know but for some reason I wasn’t scared any more.
The pilot just radioed for a crash tender and fire engines at the scene, then he circled around losing height and made a perfect landing on the Plain.
A screaming crash tender and fire engine pulled to a stop beside us, but were not required. Lots of other vehicles, of course, and one very rude corporal who leant over the cockpit I was still sitting in and said to another person behind him, “She didn’t, so that’s ten bob you owe me.”
My first flight. I had done it. It was wonderful and I wanted more. I got one more straight away—it was like getting back on the horse type of thing. I didn’t really need to. I was hooked. From that day to the present time I will fly anywhere, any time that I can. I love it.
© Pat Sowrey
