11 FlightCom Magazine
“WELL , that depends what you mean by a
‘Proper Aeroplane.’” I smiled down at the
enthusiastic little six-year-old’s face.
“Well, you know, Spitfires, Hurricanes,
Mustangs, things like that...Real
Aeroplanes.”
“Mmmmmm...Well, I have flown a
Spitfire simulator...Not the real thing, you
understand, but amazing fun, none the less!”
I scratched my head, “I don’t think they do a
Hurricane simulator, do they?”
The little guy shrugged his shoulders,
“I don’t really know about that one.” He
said, as though the Hurricane was a subject
which he would have to sharpen up on. “But
what about the Mustang?...err...you probably
wouldn’t know much about them...they were
American.”
My six-year-old expert obviously had
a rather low opinion of my experience in
‘Proper Aeroplanes’, particularly American
ones.
“Never mind,” he added, as though I
could be forgiven for my lack of familiarity
with aircraft from the other side of ‘The
Pond’...” I mean they don’t even call them
‘Aeroplanes’ over there, do they?”
Then I suddenly remembered that I had
flown an aircraft years ago, which was very
nearly a P-51 ‘Mustang’, In fact it actually
came off the same production line.
At the end of World War Two, North
American Aviation had to cut back on
production of the Mustang fighter, partly
because the wars with Germany and Japanwere over, and partly because of the advent
of the jet engine.
It just so happened that the Ryan
Aeronautical Company was looking to start
building aircraft for the post war civilian
market which would be sure to ‘burgeon’
with the cessation of hostilities and the
number of pilots who had been trained for
t he Wa r.
Their eye naturally fell on the extensive
production facilities offered by the North
American factory and they duly approached
them. North American were only too happy
to come to some arrangement with Ryan,
rather than scrapping everything which had
taken so much effort to put together.
Ryan took the wings and some of
the fuselage off the Mustang and put a
tricycle undercarriage on it, to make it
easier to handle on the ground, instead of
the taildragger Mustang. They stuck a 260
horse power flat six engine on the front,
instead of the mighty 1600 horse power
Rolls Royce Merlin. Then they squeezed
three passengers seats in with the pilot and
called it a Ryan Navion... but secretly it was
really a Mustang underneath.
In fact, I only flew it for a total of about
five hours, which was not really long enough
to get used to all the knobs and levers, and it
was the very first aircraft which I flew, with
a retractable undercarriage. My last flight in
the Navion was from Nairobi to Mombasa
and back.
Retracting the undercarriage wasan exercise all on its own. After leaving
the ground, the pilot had to activate the
hydraulic system with an enormous lever.
When the hydraulic pressure was in the
green, he would select the gear up and wait
for the clunk to indicate that the wheels were
safely tucked away and locked. Then he
would select the flaps up and reduce engine
power to twenty-four inches and twenty-
four hundred rpm, before de-selecting the
hydraulic pump.
After taking off from Mombasa, on the
way back to Nairobi, I went through the
litany of after-take off checks and set course.
I called Mombasa to give them my estimate
for Nairobi and they acknowledged my call
and then added “Mike Charlie, are you
aware that your right main undercarriage
leg is still hanging out?”
I mumbled a rather embarrassed reply
and re-selected the hydraulic pump handle
to the ‘on’ position until I heard the second
‘clunk’ which I had failed to notice the first
time round.
For all I knew, I may have flown all the
way down to Mombasa with my left leg
hanging out. Oh well, I wouldn’t tell the
little guy about that, otherwise he might
wonder how somebody as stupid as me
could ever have flown ‘Real’ aeroplanes.huGh Pryor
We had just watched Sean Connery crashing an aircraft in
that classic James Bond movie ‘You Only Live Twice’ and the
little guy looked up at me and said, “Have you ever flown a
‘Proper Aeroplane’?”
Bush Pilot
Ryan
Navion