John Moffat - I Sank the Bismarck

I slid the canopy of my Grumman single-engined aeroplaneshut and tightened my safety harness, then pushed the yokeforward so that I could turn to the passenger seat to see if Ianneeded any help to strap himself in properly. He was a smartlad, but he was just nine years old. I wanted to make sure hewas safe.

'Are you OK, lad?' I asked him.

'Yes, Grandad, I'm fine.'

It was a lovely September evening in the year 2000. I waseighty-one years old and had brought up two daughters, butnow I had a grandson, and I loved him. It was funny how lifeturned out. He had just started playing rugby at school and Ihad given him a few tips that his mother thought were moresuited to the adult game than to a prep-school team, but hewas coming on a treat.

I looked through the windscreen: some slight cloud cover,with a south-westerly wind of about 5 knots. We were on asmall grass airfield on the Isle of Bute, with a runway lengthof 1,300 feet. We were about 1,730lb in weight and should beable to take off in about 800 feet, giving us plenty of room.

I made sure the handbrake was on, then pressed the startermotor. The Lycoming engine turned over, once, twice, threetimes, then it fired up. The twin-bladed propeller became ablur in front of the engine cowling and I waited for thetemperature and the oil pressure to stabilize. Everythinglooked fine. I released the handbrake, eased a touch on thethrottle, and the plane moved forward, trundling over thegrass to the end of the strip.

I was going to make what is called a performance take-off,which I think is the safest option. You hold the plane on thebrakes until the engine is running at full power, then yourelease the brakes and take off in half the recommendeddistance. Grumman's handbook for the AA-5 suggests takingoff with no flap the sections at the rear of the wing that, ifmoved down, provide more lift but you can get a higher rateof climb with 10 degrees of flap and so I selected this with theflap lever, then with the handbrake on again increased the revsto full power. The orange windsock hung loosely, barelyextended in the light breeze. Everything was clear above andbehind. I patted Ian on the knee and released the handbrake.We were lightly loaded, and the air-speed indicator quicklystarted rising.

We had rolled for about half our take-off distance when theengine started misfiring. The r.p.m. needle was bouncing upand down, and there were more misfires. We were travellingmore slowly than we needed to be at this stage of the take-off,but we still had some distance left on the runway. I could keepgoing and hope that the engine would give us enough powerto take off, but then I could be faced with having to crashstraight ahead if it cut while we were struggling for height. Iquickly decided that I was not going to risk it.

'Oh Christ, this would happen,' I thought. I cut the engineand tried to put on the brakes, but we were still moving atclose to our lift-off speed. There was a hump in the grass stripat the end of the runway: we hit it, bounced up from it androse into the air. Then we dropped again as the undercarriagehit the hedge.

'Hang on!' I shouted and put out my arm to protect Ian.Then, as clods of earth and grass hit the windows, we bangedand scraped along, and finally smashed into a deep ditch.

The silence as we came to a halt was eerie. I was desperateto get Ian out in case we caught fire. The poor lad was sittingthere, trying to gather himself together, and I undid hisstraps. The canopy still opened, thank God, so I slid it backand told him to get out and run to the edge of the field. Oncehe had gone, I slowly undid my own straps and climbed out.I couldn't move as fast as I would have liked, and I had beenshaken about by the impact. Ian was looking at me anxiously,so I walked over to him and said as reassuringly as I could,'Not to worry, son we're fine.'

I didn't feel fine. I was shaken up and I knew that actuallywe were lucky not to have been hurt. The plane, which I coowned,was damaged how badly I didn't know at the time,and probably wouldn't until an engineer had had a good lookat it. It might be a write-off. I didn't yet know why the enginehad failed. As far as I was aware, there was no water in eitherthe tank or the lines. There were bound to be gentle hints thatmaybe a man of my age should hang up his flying helmet, andsimilar talk.

All this was going through my mind but, thank God, Ianwas safe.

A couple of men came running from the airstrip, one ofthem carrying a fire extinguisher, and told me that they hadcalled the Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) rescue helicopterfrom the mainland and it should be here in a few minutes. Itwas too late to protest that we were really not hurt at all.

Sure enough, ten minutes later a Sea King helicopterswooped over us, its turbines whining and its rotors clattering.This would be a flight that Ian hadn't bargained for, andI hoped it would be exciting enough to lessen the shock of ourcrash. The young winchman got out, looked us over, and saidthat he would take us to hospital for a check-up as aprecaution. He lifted Ian in, then helped me up the steps intothe cabin.

We lifted off, the young man sitting opposite us in hispolished black flying boots and green flight overalls, awhippersnapper probably still in his twenties. While he talkedto the pilot over his intercom, he was also looking at meslightly quizzically. I imagined he was probably thinking,'What's an old crock like this doing trying to fly?' but then hesaid, 'I think you and I have met before, sir.'