My flying was getting reasonably good, and I was feeling pretty cocky until today. I had a serious brown trouser moment nearly wiping out the plane and killing myself in the process.
I was flying on my own for the second time and still pretty nervous, as I a came in to do a “touch and go” which is where you land and take off again with out stopping I had a bit of an incident. I landed fine, but through lack of concentration I had not lined up the plane correctly in the runway, so when I hit the throttle the plane veered violently to the left and left the runway. I was travelling at 45 Knots ( to put that in perspective you get airborne at 50knots) and I was heading straight for a fence and solid tree line about 30 metres ahead. Fuck! I’m going to crash fuck! Sounds like a cliché but my world actually slowed down as I battled with the controls. I did not have enough speed to take off ( which in hind sight was a good thing as I would have flown straight in to a tree and probably killed myself.) The Trees were getting closer and closer and the rudders were not responding positively enough to turn the plane round away from impending disaster. Shit! I can’t believe it. I thought. How the fuck did I get myself into this! But then something clicked with in me. Fucking do something. Fast. I pulled back on the throttle and the nose dropped sending the front wheel down onto the grass with a thump. I hit the left rudder and slammed the throttle in violently sending the plane jerking to the right, the tip of the left wing swinging round and missing the fence by 2 feet. The right wing almost grazing the grass but springing back up just in time to save me from rolling the plane. I pulled on the runway and stopped and let out a huge breath.
“Oliver are you Ok?” It was Grant calling me on the radio from a plane above the airstrip.
“Yeah. I’m ok, just a bit shaken up. I’m gonna head back the hanger.”
I needed a new pair of shorts and a lie down.
19th April
South Africa Gap Year Research Trip
Corbez.
I felt I should add a few words about one of the guys staying at the airfield with me. Corbez. He drove up from cape town to work at the airfield and study for his commercial licence at the same time. He drove up in his Hyundia Atos a 1.1 Litre car that he has turned in to a canary yellow super rocket. He has added a turbo, supercharger, air induction and dump valve. Why? To go street racing. This thing is insane. He was telling me how he routinely gets chased my the police in the dark so he turns off his lights and tries to loose them. Good job to as he has an unlicensed firearm in his car. A walther PPK. “Who the fuck do you think you are James Bond? Eh?” He is also the only other person I have met who has also been shot. Twice Actually, once by a 9mm pistol in the Arm when someone was stealing his dads car and another time he kind of shot himself by throwing a couple of live rounds of ammunition into a BBQ. Fucking Idiot!
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