Page 13 - Demo

2192 entry had arrived by then. In fact, a couple of chaps said that they had fallen asleep while flying solo. Later, one of them had gone to bed at 9pm only to be woken up to be interviewed by his flight commander about it which was somewhat annoying.Flying discipline at Barkston was a bit slack. In fact, it was throughout the RAF in those days compared to what came later. I was told I would lose a good friend every year and for the first 10 years that was more or less so. The first aircraft airborne in the morning used to beat up the airfield and there was great competition to be first off. Hence, we students were forever being shouted at for being too slow with our pre-start checks. One day Pete and I taxied out as the second aircraft. At the holding point I finished my pre-flight checks and the aircraft ahead had not called for take-off. It was a lovely hot day and had been for a while and so my instructor requested take off. Air traffic gave it as they did not know who was first in the queue. Pete then taxied across the grass to the runway and off we went! The beat ups used to get lower and lower. One day an instructor flew passed the Squadron Commanders office. As this was in a single-story wooden hut, he got quite a bollocking and so beat ups all went up a bit before creeping down slowly later. The staff flew a big formation flypast at graduations, and I got a seat with Pete for one of these. At the end we ran into the airfield for a run and break. Each aircraft pulls up and around to roll out downwind before turning in to land. The aircraft broke at 2 second intervals. Our section of 4 aircraft was the last in and each section ran in a little lower than the previous one. Consequently, as we were number 4 we were the lowest aircraft. We raced across the airfield with Pete just looking at the number 3 and keeping in formation. I looked ahead and saw the windsock dead ahead. I wasn%u2019t sure what to do but was about to pull the stick back when Pete broke. We could not have been more than about 20ft above the ground before he broke. As I said things were a bit slack.