Australian Flying — November-December 2017

Jim Davis recalls some high (and low) altitude

antics with former employer Mr. Piet, who

thought Met reports were for other people.

48

louds and

turbulence

were two

things

that really

terrified

old Piet. His

efforts to avoid

these hazards were sometimes so

drastic they precipitated situations

even more lethal than those we

were trying to avoid.

Because of this perfectly

justified fear of weather, one

would think he would be keen

to find out from Met what was

expected – and then avoid it. I was

once stupid enough to ask him if

he had phoned for a Met report.

“And vot bloody good is zat

going to do?”

I mumbled something about

being better informed on what to

expect.

“And you sink you can believe

zose bastards?”

That pretty much put the lid on

us ever discussing our future with

the Met office.

In retrospect, the whole thing

was highly hazardous, partly

because he had no idea of what

weather lay ahead, and partly

because he was inconsistent in his

methods of dealing with whatever

the gods hurled at us.

On one occasion we were trying

to get back to Wonderboom

from Mozambique. Piet decided

we would take our chances

underneath a nasty looking lump

of weather. He took scud-running

to a new level when we were forced

lower and lower by the cloud base.

Finally, I remember being in

the bottom of a valley with the

cloud just above us, and massive

drops of rain splattering against

the windscreen so we could see

almost nothing ahead. Part of the

problem was that Piet had said,

“Ve had better slow zis bloody

sing down in case ve bump into

somesing.” So we brought the

twin back to about 90 knots with

full f lap. This meant that, with

no prop ahead of us to blow the

windscreen clean, we could only

watch the rocky valley walls going

past the side windows.

I was too inexperienced to be

frightened, but Piet must have

realised the seriousness of our

situation. “OK Zim, you must

help me now.”

He told me to put my hands

and feet on the controls. I don’t

know how this was meant to help.

Then he commanded, “You votch

zose clocks, and I’ll votch zese

vuns.” This meant he kept an eye

on the f lying instruments, while I

surveyed the engine gauges. Again,

I have no idea why.

Oh, and just to make sure, he

engaged the autopilot. This meant

that all his inputs were simply

fighting the autopilot. Eventually

we found Marble Hall and

bunked down for the night.

Soon after this, my logbook

tells me that on the 11th of April

1964, we were cruising down

the coast, from Vilanculos to

Lourenço Marques. Our steed was

a Twin Comanche, N7339Y. This

was totally illegal because neither

of us had American licences.

A few fair-weather Cumulus

clouds started to form ahead of us.

Now, this would have been

the day for staying underneath it

and following the beach, but no,

our previous f light in the valley

had so affected my boss that he

decided to climb over the clouds.

Naturally there were more ahead,

and they were larger and thicker,

so we kept climbing.

Soon the cloud was solid and

continuing to develop vertically.

To hasten our ascent into the

thin air we wound in the Rajay

turbochargers. As we sailed

through 15,000 ft I remembered

that one's finger nails should

At 19,000 ft we were behaving like

revellers returning from a rugby match.

Pass out, freeze or burn...

AUSTRALIAN FLYING November – December 2017

JIM DAVIS

logbook

Lessons from a

Jim Davis has a passion for instructing. He has been

training civil and military pilots, in the air and on

the ground for 50 years. His other passion is writing,

which he studied at Curtin University in Perth. You

can see, and buy, his two pilot text books PPL and

Flight Tests at http://www.jimdavis.com.au

C