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[Kigyoushin] jap - enterprising spirit

What Scares You? Part One

4/18/2021

4 Comments

 
I don’t do rollercoasters. There’s no point because they don’t excite me. Is it because I’m boring? Well, maybe. But there is a reason.

​In 1992, the Chief Flying Instructor at Cornwall Flying Club was a former RAF test pilot called Dick Smerdon. He was a walking caricature of a pilot, complete with handlebar moustache sprouting from the burst blood vessels in his cheeks, caused by decades of G-force. Friendly and razor sharp he pottered around the club dressed in a khaki flying suit, making jokes and generally causing mischief.
Picture
Flying single-prop Cessnas from a field somewhere near Bodmin in South West England was clearly not as exciting as flying at Mach 2 in a metal box, so his kicks had to come from something else. What better way than by scaring the bejaysus out of unsuspecting student pilots for shits and giggles.

He did this to me twice.

On my second flight with him, wide-eyed and eager I sat in the hot seat of a Cessna 152, call-sign G-WACG ready for take-off. I was perfecting my best pilot voice (copied from my childhood holidays to Zante):

“Golf whiskey alpha charlie golf, radio check 122 decimal seven and taxi runway three, two,” I crackled, pretending to be Maverick from Top Gun.

As the propeller span and the little plane bounced along the grass, the vibrations bounced around my chest. Five thousand feet and a few sharp turns later I was smug-factor seven. I'd figured out how the thing worked and I even knew what the dials meant. Then this happened: 

“ENGINE FIRE!” Dick was bellowing at me, his body jerking with excitement and his rounded face glowed crimson red. I remember staring at him:

“Pardon?”

“ENGINE FIRE!” Then he grabbed the ignition key and turned off the engine. I had no idea what to do. The propeller gradually came to a complete and eerie stop. I looked at him suddenly aware of the sound of the wind rushing around the outside of the cockpit.

“Pick a field then! Emergency landing!” He said, obviously amused.
"Brilliant. My flying instructor is a fucking lunatic," I said under my breath (which incidentally is a skill that later became hugely useful as a parent).

What kind of mad man switches off aeroplane engines mid-flight? There was no fire. It was a perfectly serviceable engine. 
We began to lose altitude quickly and I chose the field furthest from the power lines, cows and buildings.

We were going to land in a field. Worse, it was me that was going to land it. 

​
To be continued.
4 Comments
El Jay
4/18/2021 09:45:52 am

Gosh! This is one of a scary moment. Simon you are awesome. The way you write...I love it.
A good story teller keeps the audience wanting more.

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Simon
4/18/2021 10:01:30 am

Thanks so much for your comment!

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JL Collins link
4/18/2021 06:54:55 pm

My flight instructor did much the same, but without crying "Fire!"

He just calmly reached over and switched off the key.

"You've just lost your engine," he said. "What happens now?"

"Now," I said "We're going to die."

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Colette Haseldine link
9/17/2021 05:59:00 am

It's dangerous to laugh this much!
I dated a gliding instructor for two years, so got to experience the (thrill) of going up in a plane that had no engine anyway (and then coming down again...).
His version of the "fire" stunt was to insist I push the (I want to say, joystick, but it's so long ago now that that terminology may not be right - the thing which makes the plane aim up or down) away from my belly as hard as I could, which, unsurprisingly for those who can fly, makes the aircraft dive as fast as it can and then continue round in a circle on an outside loop.
I had my eyes shut the whole time in fear, so when we arrived back at normal (read, level) flight, he asked me what I thought of the view as we went upside down.
When I explained I hadn't seen anything because of the shut eyes business, to my horror, he insisted we do the whole terrifying thing all over again, this time for me to keep my eyes open.
I always thought I wanted to be a pilot (I used to read Biggles as a child), so I should have loved this stuff, but my body decided it didn't like being thrown about in all directions with G force, and I felt permanently sick up in the air.
Hence I cancelled my dream to become an helicopter pilot, because there's no point doing something that makes you feel sick (unless it is sick with excitement!).
Plus, did I mention, I'm afraid of heights...?
Laughing.

I'll always give things a go that terrify me, just in case my perception and expectations are wrong.
[Caveat: unless the so doing results in irrevocable damage to my body!]
To cure myself of my fear of heights (my hands start sweating when heights are shown on TV), I did a parachute jump from 10,000 ft.
That didn't cure me, I felt more scared afterwards than before!
So I took up rock-climbing for five years (ALWAYS second rope, much MUCH safer) and got to experience the thrill of the climb with none of the risk.
If you've seen the film Vertical Limit, you'll know the scene where the climbing gear pings out of the rockface one after the other, until only one is left holding the person up from death.
I know this to be true, because it happened to the chap I was belaying (holding the anchor rope for, from the ground).
He slipped when traversing a rock face and the impact force of his falling on each climbing hook meant that his gear pinged out of the crevices and fissures he had expertly placed them into, and he was falling faster and faster towards the ground (and me!).
Luckily, our WotCrisis Climbing Club had good training practices and we had been taught to always tie ourselves to the rock when belaying, because if the person falling is heavier than the person holding the rope on the ground, physics normally dictates that as they come down, you go up!
(Sort of like the bouncing bell-ringing priests in the Mars advert!)
So the last gear thankfully held, and he bounced up and down in the air a few feet above the ground, without going splat!
Unfortunately I've now got too fat to rock-climb safely, but it's something I wouldn't mind re-trying when I'm slimmer again.
My proudest moment was climbing up over an overhang, which is incredibly scary, as you have to dangle your feet out over thin air and over an incredibly high and stupid drop, and somehow find the strength in your arms to swing your body so that you can raise a leg above your head (yeah, I know!) and use your toes to snag a foothold that allows you to lever your body out over the drop and up over the outcrop to safety, whilst the first climber above you (belayed in to the safest point at the top of the rock) pulls in the rope so that, if you slip, you don't fall too far.
[NEVER does the first climber HAUL you up on the rope, a) it might snag and break and b) it's against the ethos of climbing, each climber has to make it on their own merits, the rope is just for safety and is deliberately left a little slack so that it doesn't impede the climber.]
Not sure I ever want to do THAT again, though! [the overhang]
Sometimes once really is enough :-)

And don't get me started on bungee jumping! It's less of a challenging fear-overcoming activity than incredibly stupid, brain-damaging idiocy, masquerading as bravery.
The damaging rush of blood to the head is far worse than any thrill of conquering the fear of jumping out over an abyss in a stretchy rope.
Only silly people do bungee jumping, and it makes them more silly.
I'm very happy to preserve my brain cells as they are, thank you very much!

Mind you, I HAVE done the fire walk.
You know, the thing where you walk over glowing hot coals in bare feet...?
It's all about overcoming the perception of fear rather than the reality of fear.
THAT I can accept as a rational challenge for those who want to signal their bravery.
If you stand still, sure, your feet will burn.
But a bracing march is manageable without any damage.
Unlike falling through the air and bouncing with force as rushing blood kills off brain cells.
Still, I suppose it's Darwin's theo

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