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The Sky’s The Limit (4)

My excellent training formed the background to my later career success in civil aviation.


My favourite aeroplane was the Spitfire (I flew 23 different aircraft in my career). I enjoyed flying advanced military aircraft, but never lost sight of the fact that they were primarily gun platforms and were therefore “killing machines”. During my service I most valued the comradery in the RAF but after 6 years when my first tour of duty came to an end, I had to consider my future prospects.


I chose to leave the RAF and move on to civil aviation, with all its uncertainties, I hoped for more lucrative long-term prospects. My decision was driven by wanting to marry the woman I had fallen in love with.


Whilst posted to Suez, I had met and fallen in love with the only woman I ever wanted to be with. Sophia Tsoukalas, a beautiful Greek girl, who had three brothers, so courting Sophia was never going to be easy! When my term in the RAF 208 in Egypt had expired I was posted to RAF No 43F squadron at Leuchars in Fifeshire, Scotland. Sophia was with her sister in London when I tracked her down and we were married in London in 1952. There was no housing facility for married personnel and as Sophia was then expecting our first baby, the difficult decision was made that Sophia went back to her family in Ismalia, until I could arrange to have them re-join me.


Once back in London I enrolled in a course to obtain my Commercial Pilots Licence, at Avigation, an aviation school. It was the first of several colleges or universities that offered such training. Once I graduated, the difficult task of finding a job began. There were few jobs and I took work where I could.


My first job was flying an Auster towing an advertising banner, in Germany. The method was crude and dangerous. The banner was placed on the ground with a lead rope looped around two vertical poles, a little more than 10 metres apart. I was required to take off and circle at a height of a few metres above the pick-up point, with the hatch of the plane slid back open and with a grappling hook on my lap tied to a length of rope. As I flew past the pick-up poles, I had to throw the hook overboard through the side so that it would catch the lead rope across the poles. Once the banner was hooked, I had to put the aircraft into an immediate steep climb to lift the banner into the air so it would unfold without dragging along the ground.

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