forecast winds.10 The route took us from base to Swaffham, thence to Banbury, and back to base. A flight log had to be maintained of all course corrections, calculated changes of wind speed and direction, and predicted deviations from ETA.11 The keeping of this log was my responsibility whilst flying the aircraft. Windy was there primarily in an advisory capacity. The trip took some two hours and ten minutes, the keeping of an accurate log whilst en route being the most stressful part of it
My very next flight, on October 27th, was a solo navigation exercise from base to Wisbech, then to Chipping Norton, and back to base. The whole lot was down to me. Using (as was standard) a pencil sharpened at both ends in case of lead breakage, I was maintaining my log with some difficulty for figures never came easily to me in the air when, horror of horrors, I let go of my pencil and it rolled on the cockpit floor out of my reach. Rather than risk the inevitable bollocking (and potential course failure) for not carrying out my scheduled task I had no alternative but to take drastic action. Ensuring that the aircraft was on the right heading and trimmed as near as possible to climb slightly, I unstrapped myself but still couldn't reach that dratted pencil. There was no alternative other than to leave my seat, squat down, retrieve the object and settle down again; at least that was my plan. In the event, on leaving the seat I knocked the control column and put the plane into a steep turn nearly throwing me over into the co-pilot's seat which I promptly made use of. I regained level flight but the pencil rolled away. By now sweating profusely, occupied with correcting my course and searching the floor at the same time, I eventually retrieved the object of my near demise, regained my own seat, strapped myself back in, and carried out some frantic map reading to discover over which part of England I was now flying. Worried about my log which was now some minutes out of date (and position) I made the entry "Course alterations made to avoid several other aircraft". I was lucky to get away with it, and forever after always carried a spare pencil. My Flight Commander, Flt.Lt. Howorth took me up shortly afterwards for an unscheduled extended IF flight. I wondered at first if he was going to check my navigation skills, but all passed off quietly even though the log of my previous flight didn't exactly bear very close scrutiny.
During a dual flight I began to feel muzzy and generally unwell after being airborne for about half an hour. Reluctantly I had to tell Flt.Lt. Poyser, my instructor, whereupon he said he too had a headache and was finding it hard to concentrate. He told me to undo my oxygen mask.12 On seeing that my lips were quite blue he at once told me to open my clear vision panel while he did the same on his side and also turned off the heating. We were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning and returned to base for a medical check. Neither of us flew again that day. The cockpit air was heated by passing it through a muffler round an engine exhaust pipe and thence through a mixer into the cockpit. The exhaust pipe, on investigation, was found to have split inside the muffler and could have brought about our deaths.
Each of us tended to fly only one of a small group of aircraft whose vagaries and idiosyncrasies we got to know over a period of time. One day, however, I was selected (at random) to undergo what was called a Central Flying School Standardisation Check. This is better explained as a sort of ad hoc, but routine, check of the standard of teaching at flying training establishments throughout the RAF. It was as much a check of instructors' ability to teach as it was of the standards reached by students following a number of hours of training. The examiner was unknown to anyone. He selected a trainee (me) and an aircraft in which I was to fly. He decided to check my instrument flying capabilities. The aircraft was strange to me and was a bit of a pig. It took some time to synchronise the engines because, in that state, the
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10 A Dalton Computer was a simple, manually operated, hand-held mechanical device.
11 ETA = Estimated Time of Arrival.
12 We were never on oxygen, but used masks because they were fitted with microphones for the intercom and R/T. 29