THE FORMATION bends towards final approach. Inside me a little small voice is saying querulously: “Are you sure you want to do this….?”
Over the years I have become familiar with this little small voice. It has a most regrettable tendency to whine whenever I want to do something new with an aeroplane. This is new and something that for some obscure reason I’ve been wanting to do for ages. So I answer the little small voice with my usual tact and gentility. “Sod off!” I say. I am flying a North American T6 Harvard – a type I have never flown before, and one I’m beginning to suspect has a certain touch of elephant lurking in its genes, said touch having mainly gravitated to its control forces. I am flying it as Number Two, which means in right echelon on Lead in this four-ship ensemble called the Flying Lions. And am shamefacedly aware that the combination of unfamiliarity on type plus a five-year crustation of rust on my formation skills is producing a certain shuffling and fiddling woefully lacking in elegance.
“Energise…. standby for gear…. gear down…. Go”, says Lead.
Four undercarriages unfold. “Energise…. standby for flap…. 20 flap…. Go”.
Four sets of split flaps travel down to half flap. We straighten on to short finals in fingerfour formation. But not towards a runway. Towards a huge water reservoir called the Klipdrift Dam, in the middle of nowhere in the South African highveld. Because we are not going to land. We are going to water-ski. In Harvards. On wheels. In formation. Right across this huge reservoir.
I tell myself again this is a really good idea. There are times when myself does not wholly believe myself, and this could be one of them. Except that I am concentrating too hard on my formation shuffling and fiddling for any such foible as meditation. You wanted to do this, Brian, so now bloody do it….
The Lead Harvard touches down, leaving twin speedboat plumes of water behind the wheels. A second later Number Three touches down, and a second after that I touch down. The Harvard rumbles gently as if landing on mild cobbles, and seems to want to pitch a tad nose-down. I snatch back half-a-tad and we bounce slightly off the water. Settle again, rumble again, and I remember to press a touch forward as I’ve been briefed.
And we’re water-skiing!
Aquaplaning, if you like. But not aquaplaning on a 10 mm skin of water on a hard runway – we’re aquaplaning on Gawd knows how many fathoms of water in this huge lake. Most certainly more than enough fathoms to swallow four Harvards without even going GLOOP should the Laws of Physics suddenly decide to poke off to the pub.
Fortunately, the Laws of Physics do not poke off to the pub. With the Pratt & Whitney’s growling just enough to maintain 90 knots, we’re four sort of super-fast hydrofoils. Four Harvards water-skiing on plain, simple wheels! In formation!
After 25 years of display flying it takes a lot to thrill me in an aeroplane. This is a lot. As we rumble across the lake, shuddering genteelly through the slight ripples on the water kicked up by the wind, I want to shout “Wheeee….!”
Although I’m concentrating on Lead and can’t look around, I am vastly conscious of the lake racing past and the water-feel rumble and a whole new experience.
So…. well…. yeah – Wheeee….!
“Lifting off…. Go”.
We power up and lift off. Just like taking off from a runway. No drama whatsoever. “Energise…. standby for gear…. gear up….
Go”
Four undercarriages fold back up.
“Energise…. standby for flaps.… flaps up…. Go”.
Four sets of flaps retract. I tuck in closer to Lead and say to Arnie Meneghelli, the normal Number Two of the team – and in fact the owner thereof – who has been sitting in the front seat and stoically enduring my clumsy assault on his aeroplane,
“You have control”.
Just so I can sit back and rack up the experience. Some experiences – a very few, but some – are like that.
So just what kind of idiot….?
So just what kind of idiot am I? Water-skiing a WWII trainer weighing 5 000 lb which was most specifically designed to operate off land, land, and more land. And water-skiing it in formation. Well, wait up. When the South African Flying Lions team first published pictures of their formation water-skiing three years ago, they brought a deluge of criticism down upon their unsuspecting heads from all over the world.
Reactions varied from
“How were these pictures faked?” to “These guys are complete nuts!”.
A well-respected officer of our own (UK) Civil Aviation Authority actually wrote that the South African CAA “must be one slate short of a roof” for allowing the exercise At which point I thought “B*ll*cks!”
When the Orville Wright first left the ground on the brothers’ precarious flying machine – some people criticised. When two guys first flew flying machines in rough formation – someone criticised. When the first four-ship, seven-ship, nine-ship, teams started to do formation aerobatics – some folk criticised.
When the flick roll, the Lomcovak and other gyroscopic manoeuvres were first invented – some folk said they were surely harbingers of doom. When the B747 first flew…. when Concorde first flew…. there were always people who criticised.
Seems that in the hothouse of aviation you can’t widdle behind a bush without somebody criticising. And now, when four consenting adults elected to do something just a little bit adventurous and innovative – well, what do you know?
People criticised. Surprise. The bulk was self-styled “knowledgeable onlookers” – journalists and the like. What they all had in common was the fact that they didnot have the faintest idea what they were bloody well talking about. I thought “B*ll*cks” again – and said so, defending the Lions in various publications worldwide. I still feel that way.
The South African CAA came in for some stick, which was wholly unreasonable. Being a massive and vigorous country, South Africa is home to a large number of aircraft of a comparatively huge range of types. Get over-officious on the more esoteric of these types – rare and odd-looking Antanovs, for example – and you remove aeroplanes which are peculiarly suited to the African scene.
And so the SACAA has a reputation for being firm but reasonable – and hence a number of historic aircraft have taken refuge there from countries which regard protecting their regulatory asses as being more important than preserving their own aviation heritage.
Page [2]
