FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1485.PDF
FLIGHT, 12 October 1961 589 colloquial French, and is unexpectedly one of the kindest ofmen. Unlike me, he also speaks Italian, so his path had been much smoother than mine. Alas, he had just rung off after giving hisposition, a few miles short of mine, to Perugia. 1 must start all over again. He took me to the central exchange, and 1 put in my call.A query as to how long 1 might have to wait was answered with a shrug. The telephone exchange at Grotta Minardo consists of a darkroom which one enters from the street. On the left is a phone box. At the far end is a counter; behind the counter sits (or sat on thisnight) a very active, very cross, boy of apparently about 15 years, operating the actual phone board. He was—or looked—very crossbecause our half of the room seemed entirely full of Italians all talking at him or with each other at the tops of their voices. Howthrough this uproar he could carry out his job was a mystery. A few hard benches stood around, and I sat tiredly on one to wait.Soon I was surrounded by a ring of curious faces. "Ingles! ?"— "Si." Thank heavens, this is a passport to friendliness in manycountries. "Piloto aliante. Telephono Perugia fur mein"—dammit, I was breaking into German—"mia moglie con machina." Prettywell the end of my vocabulary. It was now dark, with the sudden- ness of those parts. Biagi had gone, he was fixing a bed for the night—did I want one too? Before I had contacted Perugia, I could not know, for I had no idea when the team would arrive to pick me up. All the lights went out, except for the ghostly working of thegreen and red indicators on the switchboard. There was a moment's silence, then the scratch of a match, and the switchboard boy wasunconcernedly lighting a candle and sticking it to his desk. The uproar broke out again, as loud and friendly as before. This, Ithought, will be the moment when my call comes through, and 1 will be shut in a Stygian box unable even to read my map. But no,the lights went on again, and another hour passed by. I began to be glad we had been given two days for our return. At last the boy looked up, pointed first at me and then at thephone box and said "Perugia." I dashed inside with my precious map, shut the door (the glass immediately becoming smudged out-side with a dozen breaths) and picked up the receiver. A distant feminine voice said something incomprehensible (but which I tookto mean "Are you there?" and I replied "Si") then "Wait" or words to that effect. 1 waited, for some 20 minutes, standing crampedand airless in my vertical coffin, with occasional words of hope and cheer from afar, "Pronto" or "Subito" or words to that effect.Then all the lights went out again. Stand-by Lighting Immediately my door was opened and half a dozen friendly handscame through, holding half a dozen lighted matches. As these burnt out, the smouldering ends were dropped, some on the floor andsome on my feet, and others were lighted. In no time 1 was stamping around in my box like a performing bear, extinguishing incipientconflagrations and begging my helpers to desist until 1 had actually established communication, but it was a nervous while before myanguished message penetrated the language barrier. Suddenly the lights went on again, and ten minutes later—about nine o'clock—Perugia, a faint and far off Perugia, came through. They were as relieved to hear from me as I was from them. I tried to shout (a)the whereabouts of my glider, in a field near Castel Baronia and (b) my location in Grotta Minardo, and I understood in return thatKitty and the team were at the Alberge San Bartolomeo at Bene- vento, 20 miles away to the west. But I couldn't be quite sure thatmy message had got through, and asked one of my audience to take up the cudgels on my behalf. He took over the phone, shoutedat it a lot, and then abruptly hung it up. All was well, he said; but somehow I doubted it. Anyway, the next thing was clearly toring Benevento, and see if I could talk to Kitty. This would have been a good plan, but alas the telephone bookand finally the Benevento carabinieri both confirmed that that town boasted no Alberge San Bartolomeo, so once more I was suspendedin uncertainty. Grotta Minardo exchange now showed signs of packing up for the night, so I was reduced to relying, as sometimesbefore—and never in vain—on Kitty's telepathic powers in rinding me. But this was not the end of my problem, for on going outinto the street I found the night was growing colder. I was wearing only a pair of shorts and an open-necked shirt, insufficient to keepme warm through a night in the open air waiting for an indefinite rescue. The little town was bright and gay with cafes, and stalls sellingslices of water-melon; a few neon lights overwhelmed the myriad stars and the pale new moon. In one of the cafes I found Biagidrinking a glass of beer, and talking volubly about his flight of the day. He had found an inn, would 1 come and eat with him and sharehis room? As I had eaten nothing except a few biscuits in the cockpit since breakfast, I gladly accepted the first offer, but was Looking north up the Tiber Valley from over Santa Egidia Airfield still undecided about the bed. Any moment the trailer mightarrive, and no sailplane pilot likes to be found by his exhausted and hungry crew comfortably abed.We were now in the southern part of Italy, where the "economic miracle" has not yet started to catch up. The inn was just a poorlittle house in a row of poor little houses, and we ate in a dark room on bare benches off a board table. But the kindliness and interestwere there just the same. By midnight Biagi and 1 were drinking a last cup of coffee in the last cafe to stay open, then we repaired to awater-melon stall, which kept us going (and on my part shivering) till 1 a.m., watching every oncoming vehicle for the tell-tale yellowheadlights of the Vanguard; but they did not arrive. At last, there was nothing for it, and I followed him back to the inn, up a darknarrow wooden stair into a tiny cell with two truckle beds. I took off my shoes and lay down and tried to doze. Half an hour later there were steps on the stair, a knock on thedoor, and the landlord's son, half asleep, peered in and said "Camion—moglie." They had arrived. By one of her usual featsof second-sight, Kitty had found Grotta Minardo, wakened the carabinieri, and they had led her to my door. Outside 1 found thesilver bulk of the trailer and the Vanguard with softly glowing yellow lights looming enormous between the sad stone houses underthe stars. The first stage of the retrieve was over, pilot and team were reunited. We thanked the half-awake carabinieri and set off to findthe third essential component, the Skylark. * * * We had not gone a hundred yards before we went over a minorbump in the road and the trailer behind emitted an agonising metallic screech. I uttered a yelp of horror, but the team (Kitty,Vanessa, Justin and an Italian young man, ltalo Nannini) were un- perturbed. "It started doing that miles back." said Kitty, "and wegot out and greased everything we could think of, but it still does it. It doesn't seem to matter." We were all too tired to mind, so Idecided to go on the remaining few miles to the glider and then have a good look. In another three miles I knew I had taken the wrongroad. We pulled into a side lane and laboriously reversed. We drove back to Grotta Minardo and started again. This time the riverbridge and fork duly turned up, but the screeches wore me down, and at length we put Justin in the trailer and drove on, so that hecould locate them. He reported that they came from the starboard springs, so I got out and examined them. They seemed to be allright, but 1 put the grease-gun on them, and then, for luck, went round to the other side to do the same. Immediately the cause ofthe trouble was out: one of the shackles had come adrift and, with both shackle pins, was missing. The trailer was resting directly onthe rear end of the spring. I looked at it; there was nothing to do. It had lasted for some miles, we must try and see if it would carry usfor a few miles farther, to the glider, and then back to a village for repair. At ten miles an hour we squeaked despairingly on into thenight. The road went on straight and uniform, with maize and stubbleon either side. At last I thought we must be near the machine, and we stopped. With our torches we scattered into the fields on ourright and started searching. The hills bordering the valley to north and south loomed faintly in the starlight, and a few lights marked asmall village here and there, but no Skylark was to be found. We went back to the car and drove on until some trees loomed up which,I felt sure, meant we had gone too far. We reversed again, and went back for another fruitless search. After this, we uncoupled thetrailer, turned east again, and drove for miles, with me trying vainly to find some landmark. At last we had clearly gone too far, andagain, despondently, we turned back. It looked as if we must simply stop and await the sunrise, now only an hour away, when inthe glow of our headlight ahead we saw a small boy, trudging along
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
