Flying Grading

I loved my flying suit. It had multiple pockets that I concealed tissues, chewing gum sticks and lip balms in, rendering my handbag redundant. Even my flying books fitted in to the huge pockets on the bottom of the legs. I was a one man band, with everything I could possible require for the day ahead well and truly attached to my person. You want to borrow a pen? Help yourself to one from the specially designed pen holder on my left tricep. And that wasn’t the best thing about the flying suit. The best thing was that it allowed you an extra ten minutes in bed. This was because the material had a ‘flame retardant coating’ which meant that you weren’t supposed to iron it and if anyone picked you up for looking like ‘a bag of shit’ you could pull the flight safety card. The first time I got to wear a flying suit was eight weeks into my naval career when I embarked on three weeks of ‘flying grading’. Over the three weeks I would learn to fly the Grob 360 and after just twelve hours of flying, I would conduct a sortie from start to finish without any interference from the examiner clinging on for dear life in the cockpit next to me. All without having ever flown before. When I was handed a list of aircraft checks on day one which contained words I had never heard of before (like ‘pitot heat’) I realised this grading phase could prove tricky. When I was told to memorise the checks off by heart, I could already feel them ripping my beloved flying suit away from my body and tightening a tie back around my neck. My instructor was a retired RAF pilot. He had grey hair, crinkly skin around his eyes and looked like he kept Werther’s Originals in his pocket underneath a used hanky. Appearances can be deceiving. On our first flight together he yanked the aircraft around the sky, loop the looping and barrel rolling as though he was determined to see what I’d had for breakfast. By the time we landed any learning that was supposed to have taken place had been well and truly shaken from my brain. I remember thinking, how on earth am I supposed to recreate all that AND navigate my way back to the correct airfield AND land the aircraft gently, as though making love to the runway? The next day the wind was out of limits so flying was off. I spent the day studying my aircraft checks until I could list them word perfect (the fact that I didn’t fully understand what they all were at this stage – worryingly – didn’t bother me). My Divisional Officer’s words kept coming back to me – be more arrogant! By the time I embarked on my second flight I was psyched up and ready to go. I reeled my checks off pat and having lined up on the runway, I clenched the cyclic in my right hand. ‘Okay Nicola, you have control. Let’s see how you handle take-off ,’ my instructor said before adding , ‘pull back confidently on the cyclic so we get a positive rate of climb.’ I hear you Sir, loud and clear. I might look like a little girl playing dress up in her father’s overalls but if you want confident, I can give you confident. I lifted my toes from the brakes and we shot forward along the centre line. When my instructor gave the command I pulled back firmly on the cyclic. The nose pitched up and we climbed into the sky. Sadly what should have been an idyllic moment was spoiled by the screech of my instructor in my ears. ‘I have control!’ he yelled, ‘What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to make me religious?’ It turned out I was a little over-confident with my handling of the cyclic. I rotated it so much that the tail skid scraped along the runway as we were getting airborne. So much for being arrogant.