Page 28 - Demo

36selves to milk from the large churns placed outside farms early in the morning.In October 1966 we resumed our flying training after a little more than 1 year off. They gave us 10 hours of refresher flying but it was hard work getting back up to speed. This time we flew from Cranwell itself where the discipline was a bit tighter. Still, it all came to a satisfactory end somehow. I remember that the final nav test was in 2 parts and I flew the first part on my 21st birthday. The second part was a high-leveltriangular route with a diversion somewhere along the way. To navigate around the route we used Rebecca. This gave ranges from various beacons that we had marked on our charts and you had to fix yourself by checking the range from each of them. Not that simple when you had to fly the aircraft at the same time. This would be flown immediately after the first test but we were about to break up for Easter and so I was told I would not be flying the next day. So, that night in the bar, as was traditional as we all reached 21, I had a drink or 2. Perhaps most of a bottle of gin. At some point I was told that I would be flying after all, but it was too late by then. There was a carpet in the centre of the atrium at Cranwell that we were not allowed to walk over. To get some idea of my condition that night, I have to report that I crawled under it as a joke. In the morning, my friends woke me up and planned the route for me and got me to the flights. I could hardly fly the aircraft let alone navigate it and should have failed. However, the QFI checked on the actual winds against the forecast winds and they were way out. I was faced with about 80 knots across my track so it wasn%u2019t surprising that I struggled. The testing officer was a good chap and passed me. A bit later he came to me and asked why I hadn%u2019t told him it was my 21st the night before. He said if he had known he would have flown the trip for me. Things were a bit different in those days.