A Few Close Calls

A few close calls………

I have had a few close calls in my lifetime, several from enemy action while  serving overseas with the Royal Canadian Airforce and other times through just plain  stupid bravado.

My post war near demise began in the Wynyard Hotel beer parlor  on a Wednesday  afternoon where local businessmen used to gather for a few hours to   enjoy the traditional half day holiday.

The conversation got around to a war assets  Tiger Moth Victor Josephson had recently purchased.  Victor was not a pilot so how he got it to Wynyard is unknown to me. He had been trained in the RCAF as an airframe, engine mechanic. We had become good friends and as I was the only qualified pilot (not licensed) in town, I was the pilot for future flights.

Among the afternoon crowd was Bud Swedberg, who was anxious to visit  his future wife in Wadena .Whether it was a request or a dare, I don’t remember, but Bud  challenged me with an offer of  $25 to fly him there because the roads were near impassable.

Having survived the war, accumulating a couple of thousand flying hours, mostly on high performance Spitfires, I thought it would be a piece of cake, despite the fact I had not flown  a Tiger Moth since .training days in 1940. The $25 looked pretty good and  besides my reputation as a hot shot fighter pilot was on the line, so I agreed.

Off we went, accompanied by the whole beer parlor crowd  to the outskirts of town where the Moth, still  equipped on winter skis, was sitting in a snow covered field . Some instinct told me that this could become dangerous so  rather than lose face, I decided to do a solo test before  loading Bud into the airplane.

I didn’t realize that the mild March weather had softened the snow  to the point that it required almost full throttle to taxi the aeroplane. This is when I should have swallowed my pride and called it a day, but  I had my reputation  on the line and so followed the fighter pilots code “press on regardless”.

I managed to get lined up into wind  and with the throttle wide open began my run, bouncing from snow drift to snow drift with the trees at the end of the field looming closer and closer. At the last moment  I became airborn with enough speed to bank steeply between the tree tops  and continue flying.  Now, I found I had no instruments, especially an  airspeed indicator. After such a harrowing take-off, I decided what the H… I  might as well enjoy myself.

So for the next half hour I gave Wynyard citizens  one of their first airshows , beating up the school yard full of children and the main street. Later I learned one irate citizen reported  the incident, claiming  the pilot was either inexperienced or crazy.

Victor was able to restore the instruments and I flew the Moth on many other occasions, including taking my future wife Martha to her family farm near Wadena, landing in a field near the farm house. Here,  one of her younger brothers also became a passenger.

Flying the Moth  with passengers at $2 a head became the regular Sunday entertainment, until  one day the long arm of the  law came calling.  Because I did not have a valid flying license and the Moth was not properly licensed, we were out of business.

Later we decided  that we could not afford the cost of licensing  and so sold the Moth  to a local farmer who made it into a snowplane.