In the Capsis Sofitel in Rodus, Rhodes, after a landing at the second desperate attempt in high Force Seven cross-winds that could have put an end to the whole venture, and perhaps me. I can still hear the wind howling outside.
Stats: Take-off, Athens International, 1100 hours, flight of 253 miles to Diagorus Airport in Rhodes, 1430 hours. Needed 43 litres of Avgas 100LL to top up.
There is something detached about big international hotels, and finding my way around in Athens was like that. I had a small breakfast, watching dubiously as an American airline pilot with hair like Val Kilmer in ‘Top Gun’ sauntered through his morning routine, surrounded by people coping with passports and transport, and felt I belonged in another era. When I walked to the airport itself, trying to find Olympic Airways office, without exception, everyone asked for my ticket. I explained I was a pilot. Incomprehension. In my moon boots, jeans and pullover, I did not look the part.
Thus the hotel concierge, who took one look at my weather-stained clothing and discovered something interesting under his finger nails. Three telephone numbers were produced for Olympic Airways, and he contemptuously phoned them, in that snappy - ‘why-am-I-bothering’ - way that set my teeth on edge. But then a pretty girl on Reception called Panagiota Grannopoulou quietly stepped in and found me Dimitrian Tafillou, the over-worked hangar supervisor who had brought me to the hotel the previous day, and I was back in the swim. She also gave me ‘crew rates’ for my stay, which halved the bill.
I had a weather forecast, not really bad for Athens, but Force 7 winds in Rhodes, where I planned to reach at 2pm, re-fuel, and punt on to Cyprus. As Dimitrian drove me around the various tasks - the airport was full of nervous security people because the President of Greece was flying out to the Ukraine - I could see the wind was strong, and I feared for my skills, especially if I was condemned to a 3-mile taxi to get to the actual runway.
In flight planning, a woman called Nikki, in her forties with an absolute perfect figure and a terrific smile, hunted down all the lat/longs of the waypoints I needed to touch on leaving the airport, so I didn’t frighten ATC. I had some bills waived because of the nature of the flight, not just to Australia by microlight, but also for the blind, a feature which I think RMH and MHB will meet more often in the Middle East. Then I started the laborious process of getting into the aircraft, for a brief period without Miles. He was that day, I told people, dining with King Abdullah of Jordan, though it was the king’s wife who was the actual sponsor of the ‘Seeing is Believing’ event.
All the engineers at Olympic Airways hangar were turning up with cameras and photographing themselves with the Flyer as backdrop, while I packed things away. I was in a slightly detached state, wondering at the wisdom of setting off for an airfield which I knew was difficult anyway - it had been for Keith Reynolds and I when we had gone through on the world flight - but which, in addition, was living with Force Seven winds across the runway. But I felt there was no alternative.
The flight plan stated I would leave at 1030, and I fitted myself in close to that time, had the giant hangar doors opened, saw the ‘follow Me’ car waiting for me, was pushed out and found no one replied to me on the radio. I was pushed back in again and tried fiddling with this and that. Dimitrian, constantly attentive despite his work load, suggested that the hangar itself was interfering with the signals, so I was pushed out again and found the radio working. I am not convinced that was the only problem.
Then, when I pressed the starter button, nothing happened. I turned everything off, asked Dimitrian - without explanation - to turn the propeller by hand, and after he did so, the starter worked and the engine started coughing like an old man before settling down to a healthy roar. I don’t think she likes the first run of the day with Avgas, but I am not sure why.
All this time the wind was blowing and I was struggling with the wing. Every minute on the ground was dangerous, and after warming up, I set off after the ‘Follow Me’ car, anxious to get away. It was the same gossipy lady as I had met yesterday, as keen to stop as keep going, and in an instant rage I quickly asked ATC on the radio for an early departure from where I was, a long way short of the threshold. The Greeks, unlike the Italians, trust the pilots they deal with - we are in the best position to know about threats to the aircraft safety - and permission was immediately given. I turned, struggling with the wing, on to 03-Right, and took off. Almost immediately I went into a GPS dead-spot and both my navigation instruments went dead. I bluffed my way to the first turn-point, and the GPS’s came back to life again, and then I was really away.
Cloud-base was at 1,800 feet, it was misty over both land and sea, and though I could not see far, I was always in sight of the sea which soon appeared. I settled back for a solo flight, for the first time with a faint hint of the height fears that have haunted me for 19 years, but also willing to stuff them deep into my mind. I had a long journey to make over the sea, and it was daft to think about how easy it was to lean right and get back in contact with earth again, violently, yet that was what my mind pondered.
Soon, I reverted to song, ‘Summertime’ once more, first straight, then in a scat style, much like a mantra, and the height fears receded. I also chanted ‘Jabberwocky’, another mantra. Islands loomed out of the mist, still marked on my GPS; after two hours flying they no long appeared on my little screen and I realised I was moving from one chip to the next, and I didn’t have the next with me. I would have thought a natural break-point was Lebanon and Israel, but the Skyforce team felt different.
There is a fantasy life to long-distance microlight flying over the sea. Maybe it’s the same for all the single-engine pioneers? One drifts in and out of reality. I stayed with Athens Information on the radio, and they often broke the reverie, but it was easy to go back into it again. My map showed the islands, but as I headed east - missing Miles and his cheerful optimism and trust, I admit - I could not take the risk of scrabbing around under the perspex of the Lady’s hangbag to turn the map over, so I just followed the compass course. I drifted to the right of the large island of Naxos, always interested in looking for habitation on any island, large or small, and it took a little time for the realisation to occur that I was in a GPS void. I could see the objective, but there was no ground information on the screen.
The one island I could identify, because it had an airfield that appeared on the GPS, was Kos, but by then I had blundered into the edge of its control area. In May or June this could have been a disaster. Still in the low season, I got out without seeing anything after apologising to the islands ATC.
Every time I passed to the south of an island, I was thrown around, which also disturbed the reverie. Sometimes my ‘sea-speed’ - over the earth - reached the top 90’s. Other times I flew at 60 mph, much like my world flight Quantum. But the first fuel transfer went to order, and it was only forgetting the second fuel transfer - leaving the pump on too long - that made me think I should have something irritating fluttering in front of me every time the pump was on, and note it as a suggestion for RMH. I had pumped fuel into the air for minutes while crossing the USA on the world flight in 1998, by forgetting I was transferring fuel, at the risk that some of it could have been ignited by the hot exhaust, and I would be burnt to death. Not the best way to die.
A fluttering plastic card on a piece of bungey attached to the control bar constantly remind me from then on.
I was in easy touch with ATC just after 2pm, and still intent on re-fuelling, picking up Richard - who had taken an airliner to Athens that morning -and flying on to Cyprus, when I joined downwind right hand for runway 27, the wind - allegedly - at 290 degrees and 20 knots. But when I turned finals there was a horrific drift to the left, and I found myself crabbing down at 45 degrees to the runway. As I descended I was thrown around, shuddering, pushed up and down, and at times it felt like falling and my whole line of approach disappeared. At 40 feet up I was heading for the right side of the runway and rough vegetation, and the serious risk of destroying the aircraft. It was instinctive to boot the accelerator and wrestle my way back up in the air.
There was a long silence from the ATC tower, which must have watched this whole performance. Still, better to be in the air and whole than on the ground and strawberry jam, and I kept at 400 feet as I swung around for another go. No pilot likes go-arounds, they are a criticism of his skill, but the only really good landing is one you walk away from, with the aircraft still capable of flight.
My approach the second time was similar to the first, but I had been warned, was more concentrated, and the first contact with the earth was just a glancing blow. I thought I could make it stick next time, but it was one of the worst landings I have had. Yet I was safely down, a feeling that lasted just a few seconds before the wind started wrestling with me on the tarmac. The ‘Follow me’ car had appeared, and while I radioed for help - ‘two strong men to hold the wings’ - it stayed ahead of me as I struggled along behind, always aware I could be flipped over by a second’s inattention. Leaving the runway, the ‘Follow Me’ car went one way, and I went the other, straight left, crabbing over to the shelter of the airport buildings where there was slightly less aerial violence, and I could head for the private aircraft parking.
It was absolutely dreadful when I got there, my engine still running, me hanging over the right rigging being trashed. One of the spectators realised I was in trouble and walked over, I gasped that I needed shelter, and I was directed behind three big old once-working buses, where it felt, for the first time, safe on the ground.
BM after ‘fairy elephant’ landing at Rhodes, I stopped the engine, breathing heavily, asked for fuel, and managed to get out of the aircraft. I could not believe the strength of the wind. Was I really serious about flying on? Yet the tunnel vision I had adopted back in London was still working, and as kind and interested Greek airport workers came over to look and talk, I realised I had taken quite enough risks, thank you, and was lucky to be whole and alive and with the aircraft in the same condition.
A kind looking man with three badges of rank said he remembered me from nine years ago! This was on the world flight, and I didn’t remember him. He was now the chief of the airport firemen, and as firemen do, his kindness gave me peace of mind later, when looking for a place to store the Flyer. As people came and talked, I phoned Jon Cook in London and told him the safest course I could think of, which was to wait until the calm of the following morning, and then try for Cyprus (I can hear the rushing gale outside as I write this, now at 0535, but we’ll cope with that later today).
The man who arranged everything at Veranos was the Airport Operations Officer, George Psaros, who wrote of the Flyer in my travelling book, ‘I am going to confiscate this and take it home with me’. George joined two other locals, Vayios Savvion - the fuel boss - and one of his men, Vasilis Volonakis, in helping me man-handle the Flyer into a bay vacated by a fire engine - it took 10 minutes of physical struggle - and out of the killing wind.
I did not know whether I would take an airliner home from Rhodes, or fly on with RMH to Cyprus. It all depended on the weather. I was still attracted to what Richard’s brother John, a lawyer on the phone from England, called a ‘Jolly Little Caper’ - these public school types, in John’s case it was Harrow, have a language of their own. But I wanted a beer more than ever.
Vayios collected all my luggage and drove me to the Capsis Sofitel, a huge, opulent and empty luxury tourist hotel six kilometres from the airport and on the coast, where the trees were being lashed by the wind in the same way they were lashed 9 years ago. There was a really warm welcome, but I contented myself with a Coke, a shower, and a short sleep before hearing that RMH had arrived and I could open the first beer. He was with me before it was finished.
RMH arrives at the Sofitel hotel in Rhodes and orders
steak and beer – note trimmed hair and beard It was terrific to see him - ‘Dr Meredith-Hardy, I presume?’ - and he does have the only honorary doctorate in our form of aviation. He was one of the few involved with this flight who genuinely understood what I had taken MHB through, and the risks I had felt necessary to get there. Talking with him was a relief. We drank beer and turned the whole journey over while eating steak and French fries and salad, and I felt the heavy yoke of responsibility lifting. I felt good that I had made it through, and that all my fears of failing to live up to my own expectations had not carried the day.
The beautiful Helen Dudley phoned while we were eating. We arranged a dinner date back in another life in London.
There comes a time in one’s life when one must admit to being past it.
Not yet, though.
Copyright: Brian Milton |
