At the Flamingo Beach Hotel, Larnaca, SE Cyprus - I can hear the sea rolling on to the shore as I write.
I am demob happy, facing the prospect of a Club Class flight home to London, and already detached from the two adventurers, Miles Hilton-Barber, and Richard Meredith-Hardy, who retired exhausted to bed early last night with the rest of the epic journey to Australia ahead of them.
Stats: T/0, Rhodes, RMH at the bar, 1045 local, landing after a diversion because of a storm at Pafos, SW Cyprus, after a 275 mile flight of 3h 30m at 2.15pm. T/0 Pafos 4 pm, landing Larnaca Airport at 4.55 after a 66 mile flight across the island.
When I looked out of the hotel window as dawn broke, the trees were being thrashed around with almost the same violence as the previous evening. So much for the forecast calm. Part of me was already detached, in that I knew RMH was at the bar, and I was no longer directly responsible for the state of the adventure. I heard from Jon Cook that MHB had been helped by so many people in Jordan, where he had fulfilled an important scheduled speaking engagement, that he was never able to carry his own bag. As a result, the bag he ended up with was not his own, whether by design or not we can’t know. Jon asked if I would give some description of the missing bag - I had been with MHB when he had bought it on Athens Airport - and I tried, though I had seen it only two minutes, and of course, MHB was not able to describe it more than vaguely.
I discovered that the loud TV I had heard in the middle of the night, which half woke me and kept me awake, was in fact RMH next door! He often falls asleep, he told me, in front of the TV. If we were to continue the journey together, I would have resolved never to book a room anywhere near him at night, because loud TV is one of my banes.
We had a hurried breakfast, and were picked up by the beautifully-mannered Vayios Savvion, who drove us to the airport and got us inside the bureaucracy, always a help. We found the Flyer buried safely in the fire-truck garage, and I did the paperwork while RMH tried to stuff the clothing and equipment for three of us - MHB had left his gear behind - into space that was insufficient for two people. The wind had moderated, but it was still fresh to strong and right across the two-five runway, and I was glad it was RMH who had to make the decision to fly. We filled in Gen Decs - General Declarations - a sort of passport for pilots, as opposed to passengers, who had to have tickets - and gathered together the information to achieve flight, and then set about getting the heavily loaded aircraft out. This involves lifting her by the nose and crabbing her sideways, but took time, so we tried lifting and hauling her sideways. In the process I tumbled over the right spat, which bent and then straightened.
‘A piece of white tape will fix that,’ said RMH, the great bodger, and I wondered how much visible attrition would be done to the beautiful craft before she arrived in Australia.
We managed to fit into the machine only because I wore MHB’s flying suit, so I looked like Michelin Man, so fat I couldn’t tie my lap strap. I left it undone. I could only fall out if RMH fell out, and he seemed unlikely to pick that as a life option. He grumbled about his own bulk, saying he had to lose three stones anyway.
The take-off was superb, none of the ‘when in doubt, charge!’ feeling I sometimes revert to, and we climbed into the cold morning air, turning right to find a way around Rhodes without getting into the turbulent lee of the island. It soon became apparent that it was far colder in the back seat than the cosy front. MHB had always worn a balaclava, which I had scorned, and which I now wished I had. Also, my world flight moon boots had their soles separating from their bodies - wear and tear - and the cold air froze my feet. I could wiggle my toes to get some relief, and RMH made some effort to cover them, but I resigned myself to just suffering. MHB must have felt the same way, and never said a word.
It was a brilliant Spring day, little cloud, the sea to the horizon, the mysterious and mountainous bulk of Turkey to the left. RMH remembered visiting a Turkish holiday resort in one of the distant bays as we flew by. My detachment grew. I tried to sleep but it felt uncomfortable. It is odd how responsibility so concentrates the mind, and when it is lifted, one’s relationship to events changes radically. Every little piece of turbulence, which just the previous day I would have taken personally, seemed like just a passing bump.
There was no sign at all of the height fears and the Djinn that had so haunted previous flights.
There is an Old Etonian casualness - RMH gets exasperated at me mentioning his famous school - to the way RMH operates the radio, an authoratative matiness of which he seems quite unconscious. The language of ATC has its own strict rules which I attempt to keep to, but which RMH interprets in his own way. We were flying at a gratifying 90 mph - imagine how we would have felt with a headwind on a journey of nearly 300 miles, all over the sea? - and I listened to RMH deal with the gabby ATC, especially Nicosia, who never stopped talking, and lingered over thoughts that, 24 hours later, if all went to plan, I would be in London tumbling all my clothes into a washing machine, and looking forward to a bottle of wine in the evening, instead of the beer which is a mark of the dehydration of open cockpit - even none-cockpit - flying.
We wanted to fly direct to Larnaca, where MHB was waiting for us, and where I would find an airliner, but ATC reported that aircraft were being diverted by ‘weather’ over the airport, and recommended we divert to Pafos, 66 miles away. This was inconvenient, and RMH took a course halfway between complying, and being in a position to approach Larnaca from the (Turkish) north if the ‘weather’ went away. We could not determine what this ‘weather’ was - as it happens, a terrific rainstorm with Cu-nims sending airliners, even, to Pafos - and my instinct was to go to Larnaca. But then we saw that there was an ominous shimmering cloud formation to our left. RMH was quite democratic in how the decision was made, and I felt I had to stop being confrontational to make miles, so we did indeed divert to Pafos, to the relief of my frozen toes. I had not wanted my toes to be part of the decision.
Pafos is on the coast, and as it hove into view, with clear sky to the west, on our right, and threatening cloud almost down to the ground on our left, we were asked to orbit while two big airliners landed, and it was then I learned the difference between an amateur - like me - and a real pro like RMH. As he set up to land in a strong crosswind, I recognised instantly that we were descending into the conditions that had so made me nervous the previous day, when I had performed like a pregnant fairy. RHM tore straight out of the sky, despite the crabbing attitude, and just stuck it on the ground and braked immediately. It was almost like a helicopter. It was this landing that, I feel, justifies my decision that MHB will have a better chance of success with RMH as his sighted co-pilot than with me. I am, as it were, game, but RMH is far more competent.
He grunted and made groaning noises at the effort of keeping the wings straight as we were diverted to the private aircraft park, and from there we taxied to hide from the strong winds behind a hut. There we were introduced to two ex-pat English microlight flyers, Steve Monkcom and Allan Carter.
ex-Pat English pilot Allan Carter in front of sheltering Flyer at Pafos, Western Cyprus. Allan had heard BM speak about world flight in Nottingham 8 years earlier Steve was living with a hole in his throat after an operation for cancer, and spoke in a strained whisper, but he was competent and very kind, seeing us authoritatively through formalities. Allen had been part of an audience in Nottingham to whom I had spoken after the world flight. RMH and I stomped about in our bulky gear - my toes returned to grateful life - and Allan bound up the disintegrating boots with gaffer tape. I don’t think I’ll be using them again, but if a museum ever gets interested in the first microlight flight around the world - the Smithsonian, in Washington, has Colin Bodill’s aircraft, the second microlight to fly around the world - it might want the boots as well, so I will get them home.
It rained lightly, and we watched the storm go by us out to sea, and started to make arrangement to complete my last flight on this ‘Jolly Little Caper’. There was a persistent demand for paperwork - had Steve Monkcom not been with us, we might still have been there - especially from a fat flight planner who kept warning us to get away within 2 hours or pay a parking fee - which events conspired against - and who, when we were ready to go, demanded that we leave the aircraft and go and pay him such a fee. As getting into and out of the aircraft took 1h 15m from scratch, and 30m in the state we were in, this was a real irritation. But Steve Monkcom rushed off to pay the £15.00, and absolutely refused to take payment from us, yet another example of the kindness of people who like adventures. It is, I also admit, in the fat flight planner, another example of how games can be played with us.
RMH took us up to 4,000 feet on the flight across the island, flying with terrific competence, while I day-dreamed in the back about the first beer of the day. There were obvious signs of the storm Larnaca had passed through when we lined up the land, the only time I was able to video this event, and a team called Hermes saw us into another fire-truck garage, where, thankfully, as RMH was on the phone for much of the time I struggled to get the Flyer inside, this morning it will be his responsibility to get out.
MHB feeling the Flyer, by way of introduction, in Larnaca, with RMH behind, packing. Note huge paraglider bag for RMH’s gear, all in one bag but in a jumble. We found MHB at the airport, accompanied by a pretty woman called Helen English, who lived on the north side of this divided island, and whose husband, another ex-pat called Russell English, had covered all the insurance for MHB’s epic flight.
This necessarily had an effect on any stories I told about the flight.
Helen drove us to the Flamingo Beach Hotel where we had a beer about 10 seconds after arrival - RMH can be extremely forceful in these matters, setting off to go behind the bar himself to get the beers, followed by an alarmed barman - before scattering to our bedrooms to divvy up the kit. MHB still had not found his bag, but I returned his bum-bag to him, so he is not entirely without possessions. I returned his flying suit, and I offered to lend him one of the flying suits I used on the world flight to keep him warm, but he declined this. RMH and I had rooms next to each other - he reluctantly agreed not to go to sleep with the TV on - and I am now left with the detritus of dirty clothing and a dozen bits and pieces - videos, cameras, GPS’s, mobile phones - that have been such a huge part of my life in the last 9 days, and which I can now bring home and leave to another day.
RMH, MHB and I dined with Helen and Russell English, telling stories and stuffing our faces with good Cyprus cuisine. I felt full of energy, but it was obvious that RMH and MHB were exhausted. RMH has been tearing around to adjust to leaving his young family - his wife, Nikki, wants a good gossip when I get back - and MHB has been drained by the effort to find his bag and have more than the clothes he is standing up in. I drove them off to bed early. Helen and Russell told me of the joys of leaving jobs in insurance and law in the City of London, and setting up a new life in northern Cyprus. We talked about MHB’s flight, of course, but also of other things, such as the Lloyds insurance markets, and the girlification of the younger generation, which is a real delight on adventures like mine. I remember, on the world flight, going through the Yukon Territory full of Jack London heroes, I came across a 2-month old copy of the Economist, and fell with relief and delight on complex articles about European Monetary Union, happy not to talk constantly about the adventure I was then on.
Helen has a theory that the birth control pill has some responsibility for the girly attitudes of the young nowadays, in that girls upstream from London use the contraceptive pill, the residue gets into the water supply - water we drink in London is said to have gone through six previous people - and it is this that is robbing our young men of the capacity for adventure. Indeed, more than that, it is making them actively hostile and dismissive of the sort of lone adventure MHB and RMH and I aspire to. We thought this was a sad state of affairs, and also dangerous to the nation’s health.
It is difficult to realise that, only 11 days ago, I was fast asleep on a peaceful Sunday morning, ahead of me the prospects of a good breakfast, a lie-in without my half-mile daily swim, and a leisurely read of the Sunday Telegraph. Just 24 hours later I was precipitated into this caper, had an effect on it for a while, and I am now leaving. There is a lot I want to say about it, to help it succeed and realise a dream that MHB has had ever since he was a boy and wanted to be a pilot - and then watched his eyes begin to die - and which he must, if there is any natural justice in the world, win through.
For me, though, John Meredith-Hardy got it right.
It has been a jolly little caper.
I bought a bag to carry all my personal flying equipment back to England, and saw RMH and MHB to the Flyer. There was strong sunshine and not much wind when we pulled it out of the fire truck hut, and the business of a busy airport went on around us. I was, by now, completely de-mob happy, detached from the tasks of the day, just wanting to get home. RMH was away getting a flight plan filed, and I said goodbye by phone to him. He and MHB faced a flight across the sea to cross Lebanon at 10,000 feet, in temperatures of 20 below to get to Amman in Jordan, and I heard later in the day they completely it successfully, one of the most dangerous parts of the flight.
MHB and a man called Bob, the latter an Australian from Longreach – ‘say g’day to my pals when you fly through!’ – Bob manages Larnaca Airport. At 1045 I flew back over the route I had struggled to help carry Mikes Hilton-Barber to Cyprus, looking down from a great height in a Club Class seat, able to order alcoholic drinks but sticking to water. Standard Chartered Bank sent a chauffeur car to pick me up at Heathrow, and I was de-briefed by Joanna Conlon and Sophie Consett, who were plainly relieved to see me alive.
I had had no time to negotiate a contract for the job I did, and perhaps one can be arranged now, but having done the work, I am in no position to make any real argument about it.
It was, though, a terrific little adventure, but I must pick up the pieces of my normal life. BM
Copyright: Brian Milton |
