Page 12 - Demo

20when a lightning strike blew off his tip tank. We used to get a lot of St Elmos fire when I was a student, with static electricity flickering around the aircraft as a blue sort of flame. One day when Pete through his hands up in exasperation at my flying, his fingers hit the canopy and he got an electric shock. He then told me to touch the canopy to see if I got one. I refused and he then gave me a direct order to do so. Again, I refused and that could have been serious as to disobey an aircraft captains direct order was a definite no no. But in the end he realised that it was unreasonable and nothing more was said. Later when I instructed on JPs we did not get the St Elmos fire so something must have been done to the aircraft to discharge the static. I met Pete years later in Gibraltar when he was flying Hunter%u2019s there which he enjoyed much more than instructing me. But at least he kept instructing me. He had 2 students,and he taught us both formation. The golden rule in formation is that if you have lost sight of the leader, you broke away and called %u201cout%u201d. You then looked for the leader and re-joined once cleared to do so. On one of the sorties Pete was leading and I was with him for the ride. His other student was formatting out on the wing but got high and so lost sight of us. Instead of braking away he just maintained his heading and drifted over the top of us. Both Pete and I ducked in the cockpit as he was that close before Pete dived away. He refused to fly with his other student again. When I was on exam wing I looked up Pete%u2019s records and found that he was not the best instructor in the world. But we got on and he was only a bit older than me. We flew from Barkston Heath which was a relief landing ground a few miles away. We went over by bus and stayed there for the day. I remember that lunch came over in a big vacuum flask in individual dog type bowls. There was a menu, but I think that only the first person there might get a choice. All the rest of the meals were a tasteless meat pie. The flying was great fun but hard work and we were always tired. As a junior entry we were still having to do a lot of bullshit even though