Phillips & Wings tes

Phillips – Pop Phillips was a hard master, but he had a pleasant way of being so. After about thirty minutes on a Harvard, we landed and he made me taxi the aeroplane back to take-off position and put the kite straight on the runway, and then he said, “Put the instrument hood over your cockpit and take this Harvard off by instruments. I’ll set you straight on the directional gyro.” I got ‘er off. Later on, he used to put the Harvard into a spin and demand that I recover by the use of basic instruments only.



Wings test – Squadron Leader Kennedy (later Air Marshal) gave me my wings test. Before we got airborne, Kennedy said, “Flying Officer Farrel tells me we can dispense with the aerobatics, but let’s get airborne and see what else we can do.” Farrel had me well patterned and I knew it was coming when Kennedy cut the engine just after take-off. I got the control column forward quickly to maintain flying speed and I headed the aeroplane to go between two trees so that the mainplanes would take the brunt yet we would have a chance to save our necks. We didn’t go between the trees, of course, as Kennedy opened the throttle again just after he knew what I was up to. We climbed up to several thousand feet and he cut the engine again. I picked a field and began my forced landing procedures of checking this and that and commencing my “S” turns. I noticed that I kept crowding the end of the field but, eventually, I side-slipped the aeroplane like mad and it was obvious that I could have plunked the Harvard into the field. When we were climbing back up Kennedy said, “Philpotts, that was a good approach.” And I beamed. He went on, “There was only one thing wrong with it.” “What was that, Sir?” I reverently asked. “It was all downwind,” he replied. My exuberant mood changed and I could picture myself sweeping the floors for the remainder of my military sojourn when Kennedy said, “Let’s land.” I insisted, “Sir, please let me show you another forced landing.” But he retaliated, “We don’t have time, Philpotts.” We landed and went to the Flight Commander’s office where it was a ritual for Kennedy to discuss the status of the wings test. I was feeling very low. In a final statement, Kennedy turned to me and said, “If you can do such a good job of forced landing downwind as you showed me then we have nothing to worry about,” and he shook my hand.

YEEEEEEEEEOW, I was on my way.