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PROPELLERHEAD
Antony Woodward
To my mother and my father
‘Flying without feathers is not easy.’
Plautus, 254-184 BC
‘Remember, gentlemen, you cannot fuck and fly.’
Lord Trenchard, 1873-1956, First Marshal of the RAF
Table of Contents
Sabres of Paradise ‘Smoke Belch II’ (Beatless Mix)
Although this is a true story and the characters described are real, most names have been changed to protect privacy and—chiefly—pilots’ licences. All the events took place but details of chronology, in the interests of narrative continuity, have been shifted. Likewise, all dialogue was spoken, though not always at exactly the moments indicated. Anyone determined enough to work out where Barsham Green or Marston Mallet are will find circumstances at both places so altered as to be unrecognisable.
Pointing at the joystick, Miles, my instructor (known as ‘Air’ Miles), said: ‘That’s the houses lever. Push it forward and the houses get bigger; pull it back and they get smaller.’
Letter to The Times, week ending 14th March 1998
‘Done any flying before?’
‘A few hours in a little plane—a Cessna.’
‘Heh-heh-heh. No, then.’
‘You think this is better?’
‘This is flying.’
‘What’s wrong with Cessnas?’
‘What’s wrong with Ford Sierras?’
I looked round the breezy cockpit, where we were wedged tightly alongside each other, Geoff in the right-hand seat, I in the left. There was a singular lack of dials or instrumentation compared to the cockpit of any other plane I had ever seen; just four gauges, in fact. I realised that I could identify all of them: compass, altimeter, airspeed indicator and engine rev counter. Between (and slightly in front of) us was a stick.
Our seating position must have been no more than six or eight inches off the ground. We were protected from the drizzle by the wing above and an enclosing fibreglass pod; our forward view was framed through a curved, scratched, murky cowling and windshield. At our sides, where the doors would have been—had there been doors—was nothing. Above and in front of us was a tiny engine, about the size of two shoe boxes placed on top of each other. The intercom in my helmet crackled.
‘Keep clear of this…’ Geoff wagged the stick from side to side to indicate its range of travel.
‘And the throttle.’ He indicated a lever down on my left which moved in tandem with a lever his side.
‘…and the rudders.’ He paddled two stirrups at my feet, which I hadn’t noticed. The engine screamed,
