Page 111 - Demo

109Airborne, gear up and ease the power.....why hasn%u2019t the gear moved?! Ah, hydraulic failure...that will do it.How things can change in a scant few seconds, as now I am confronted with a crosswind landing in a heavy aircraft with hydraulic failure %u2013 but at least the gear is down! I declare an emergency and, while my plea for the into-wind runway gets a more helpful response from warm-and-comfy man in ATC, he still can%u2019t get the kit off the runway for 10 minutes. Too long, with the potential for hydraulic oil sloshing around a hot engine bay, so I turn downwind to land on Runway 05 %u2013 wind now 40-50 degrees from the left, at 22 gusting 25 knots, and a thin film of hydraulic oil beginning to make the windscreen like a frosted bathroom window. Thank you, God, and thank you Mr Hawker, for designing such a great aeroplane %u2013 the Sea Fury runs straight as a die, not helped, I am sure, by my enthusiastic flurry of control inputs; I turn off the runway at the end, using the last of my brake pressure, and gratefully close down.Fokker is quickly alongside my aircraft, in his airfield vehicle with more flashing lights than an American police car and, almost as quickly, the aircraft is under tow back to the main apron. My main problem is not breaking my neck climbing down from the high cockpit on an airframe covered in very slippery oil. The Sea Fury is going nowhere without some serious engineering work so, after it is safely parked, I am back to considering %u2018Plan B%u2019...or possibly %u2018Plan C%u2019....even %u2018D.%u2019 Since Monday, I have been from the UK to Sion in Switzerland to Augsburg in Germany to Bautzen to Warsaw, back to UK, and now Groningen in Holland. It is now Thursday and, if it wasn%u2019t for the fact that my original aircraft, the 109, is now in Warsaw without a pilot, I would hop a flight back to UK, to be in the Pub for Friday night! A flurry of phone calls to my chum in Warsaw confirms that the Sea Fury is dead, and I now have to get to Warsaw by other means from the wilds of Friesland. Fokker to the rescue.....seemingly in a trice, I am booked on the local commuter airline out of Eelde the following morning to Amsterdam, to connect with a KLM flight to Warsaw....simples! Of course, Fokker puts me up for the night, and I