raised to the climb attitude, and the aircraft climbed away for another attempt. The correct point for the flare could only be judged by experience, and first of all by watching Simon’s landings and then, with him sitting patiently through my attempts, reasonable flare points resulted. Then, it was important to keep raising the aircraft’s attitude as the speed bled off, engine ticking over at idle, to play the rate of raising the nose with respect to the horizon against the rate at which the speed reduced, in order for the Auster to settle onto its main wheels which rumbled and rattled on the grass: an acceptable ‘arrival’.
However, being a ‘tail wheel’ aircraft, it was vital to keep the Auster straight once its main wheels were on the ground. ‘Tail draggers’ have their centre of gravity behind the main wheels, and any inattention to tracking straight down the runway will lead to physics taking over and the tail swinging, with extreme cases resulting in the machine running off the runway. With the aircraft on the ground, moving in two dimensions, directional control was done with the rudder pedals, but even then, one still had to ‘fly’ the Auster. After landing, its tail would eventually settle gently onto its little wheel at the back making directional control a little easier, but in windy conditions, even taxiing BYJ could be challenging.
An airfield’s traffic ‘circuit’ or ‘pattern’ has four stages: firstly ‘upwind’, where the aircraft is climbed out into the wind after take-off; then a ‘crosswind’ leg to left or right depending on local regulations (usually to the left), still climbing. Then a level turn is made ‘onto downwind’, parallel to the runway, the strip appearing through the vee of the struts beyond the pilot’s shoulder where a memorised ‘downwind checklist’ is spoken to oneself. On the ‘base’ leg at ninety degrees to the runway, power is reduced and a stage of flap selected (in the Auster, by hauling down on that flap lever); this starts a gentle descent. Looking for a feature on the extended centreline of the runway, the pilot judges the final turn onto the final ‘approach’ leg, looking for that correct picture of glide path angle and aiming point. With a final stage of flap, speed dribbling back to the correct ‘threshold’ or ‘over the fence’ speed, and a successful judgment of the flare point, the Auster would settle onto the grass, sometimes for a ‘full stop’ landing but increasingly, during training, the tail would be held up, power applied and the aircraft would be lifted off again for another circuit. This was called a ‘touch and go’ landing.
Circuit training was interspersed with sessions of stalling the aircraft. It is vital that a pilot can recognise signs of, and can recover from, an aircraft stall. A stall occurs when too much is being asked of the aircraft’s wing; usually due to pilot mishandling or lack of awareness, extreme manoeuvring or bad weather.
Drifting high at 4,000 feet over a patchwork of countryside, under Simon’s supervision I practised stalls and recoveries from them. With waves of vibration from the idling engine rippling through the structure, the propeller blades almost visible, the yellow nose was lifted higher into blue sky to maintain altitude. The controls became sloppy as the speed of the wind over them reduced. I kept the wings level with the horizon, then at that moment when the wings’ clutching hands on ‘lift’ let go there was a little buffet, a ‘break’ and a pitch down, stomach slightly noticeable as the natural stability of the aircraft took over. With gentle forward ‘stick’ to positively reduce the wing’s angle of attack then on with the power the Auster would be flying again, although in a slight dive. Unnerving at first, practicing stalls was vital so that I would be able to recognise the onset of one: the high nose attitude (in most cases), the low and decreasing airspeed, controls sloppy, buffet and then the stall itself. At height the stall is a benign manoeuvre and is routinely practised, but near to the ground, especially in a turn, it can be a killer.
Engine failure in a single engine aircraft is a serious matter, and it was vital to cope with loss of power at any stage during flight. With the Gipsy engine at idle BYJ became a virtual glider, and provided that the correct attitude and speed were flown, a gentle descent would result, enabling its pilot to select and head for a landing area, preferably into wind, at forty-five knots, eighty-three kilometres per hour. Most reasonable farmers’ fields were usable. These practice forced landings would end in a ‘go around’, not an actual touchdown unless being practised on the runway. The critical case was failure at, or soon after take-off, where the pilot would either ‘abort’ the take-off run with the aircraft still on or near to the ground, or smartly lower the nose, maintain the safe gliding speed, select a clear area, turn off the ignition, shut off the fuel and do what else was necessary to ensure survival. Above all, avoid the stall!
On one hot day over brown paddocks, even the Peninsula was dusty under hazy summer skies. Once again, Jack had replaced Simon as my instructor for the day’s flight. He gave me a thorough workout in the heat: circuits, simulated engine failures and stalls. There was a passable final landing and the usual weaving and straining to see past the Auster’s upthrust nose to clear the way ahead back to its parking spot, but then Jack shouted over the ch-chug ch-hug ch-chug of the Gipsy’s idle, ‘Right, don’t shut down, I’m getting out. Taxi out, do one circuit and come back in.’ I was going solo!
As with most pilots, my first solo was unforgettable. Alone! No instructor to intervene or provide advice. I taxied the yellow Auster, carefully ran up the engine and worked through the simple memorised ‘take-off checks’. Now, on to Moorooduc’s grass runway, open the throttle, and the aircraft eagerly became airborne without fifty per cent of its human load on board; it seemed a different aircraft without the weight of Simon or Jack. This time the other seat was vacant, its harness secured to avoid fouling the dual controls. A carefully flown circuit and a little ‘float’ just before touchdown, then the taxi in, shut down and final checks. A handshake from Jack, and there it was. I had lifted a machine into the sky unassisted and returned it and myself in it undamaged to earth at sixteen years of age.
Two more years of school remained. As fanatical about aerospace as ever, I devoured any book I could obtain on the subject, but I also read other topics. However, with the throes of adolescence, schoolwork had slipped somewhat and there were often heated clashes with my parents, particularly my mother. I had little in common with my sisters and the rest of my family were sport-mad where I was not, so I spent many hours in my room making models, reading, and dreaming of the day I would be out of that house and flying. I read up on schemes to join the air force, civilian training options and all aspects of aviation including helicopters and gliders.
A few of the mixed bag of Mornington High’s students with whom I hung out were rather wild, and the combination of frustration with home life and the inevitable peer group expectations led to typical adolescent behaviour, cockiness and some arrogance after my solo but awkwardness in many other situations. Not good looking, I was skinny and angular. Acne raged. My overbite had been partly reset by some orthodontic work, but my mouth was, and still is, not pretty! However I still read widely and even though it was a government school, Mornington High had many teachers of a high calibre.
A few teachers were not so respected. A music teacher proudly wore a badge that displayed a Viet Cong flag on her clothing – only recently had Australian troops been withdrawn from Vietnam, after many of our servicemen died there. One teacher had a penchant for gripping boys by the tie, pulling up on it and cuffing their heads. He was known as ‘Boston’, after the Boston Strangler. ‘Fags’ was a heavy smoker. ‘The Fuhrer’ was a moustachioed disciplinarian, and there was the recently immigrated Business Studies teacher: he was absolutely humourless, and his English was almost indecipherable. He was frequently seen using the corridor telephone outside the staff room to call his stockbroker, so he was known as ‘Dinger’, which was also then a word for condom. ‘Grondy’, one of the sports teachers departed the school suddenly after parents became aware of his predilection for lining the boys up after a supposedly poor performance, getting them to bend over, then tapping their backsides with a cricket bat.
We had nicknames for most of teachers and each other. One boy was
