A funny thing happened on the way to the airfield

As you may or may not know I used to fly full-size aircraft and owned a 1945 Aeronca Chief G-BRXL (Great Big Roger's Xtra Large!) which was painted in the colours of a 1942 L3F and known to all and sundry as "Fat Bullet". Each year I organised a flying trip of about three weeks to Eastern Europe for a group of other owner/flyers of similar vintaged aircraft, hopping from airfield to airfield as far as Hungary, Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics and all points in between. We had loads of funny incidents on the way, here's just one which took place on route to the Balkans.....

It was a lovely, bright, crisp late-August morning and we rose from the tents pitched under the outstretched wings of our little group of Cubs, Taylorcraft and the faithful Fat Bullet to get an early breakfast of bread rolls, cold meat and cheese on offer in the hangar of Schaffen Diest airfield where we had just spent an immensely enjoyable last three days at their old-timer fly-in. The plan was for the day was for a trip to the Czech Republic where some friends of mine had a small outfit running a glider school. They also had a couple of Antonv AN2 biplanes, the biggest single-engined biplane in the world, and we hoped to be flying them very soon! The route took us diagonally across Germany and I planned on two re-fuelling stops. I also noticed that the Monhe Dam was just north of one of the hops between refueling so I advised all the others to save a couple of un-cut bread rolls for later for "reasons yet to be revealed"!

I was our custom, on these trips, to use an "un-used" frequency on our airband transceivers as a chat frequency, usually 123.45 (although in the vicinity of Mainst in Germany this turns out to be in use by the CIA but that's another story!) Today the channel seemed clear so we plumped for that and off we went. The first leg was un-eventful except that the lady who ran the bar at the first refueling stop just south of Hamburg turned out to have come from Tottenham so my "Noine orang-saft halb-in-halb mit mineral-vasser mit gaz bitte" was totally wasted, even though I had been practicing it all the way from Belgium! We took off again for the second leg which would bring us close to the Monhe. We often flew in a loose formation on these trips (some called the formation 'same way - same day!' but they were just being cruel) and for this leg I took the lead with a Cub either side and a Taylorcraft in the rear in a not-too-disrespectful diamond four. Flat fields began to give way to more mountainous scenery beneath us and for some time we flew on in silence. Then I piped up, "Hey chaps, you got your bread rolls ready? The Monhe Dam is coming up, let's do a Dam-busters!" There was general (and gleeful) acceptance.

We approached the area from the North, which was not as in the original 1940's plan, and flew high over the dam. The lake behind the dam was split into two legs with a narrow, but fairly high, spit of land between them. We flew South along the Eastern leg until the dam was a respectable distance behind us and then turned West to cross the spit. Diving down the hillside to an (undisclosed to protect the guilty!) height we began the 'bomb' run. Window open and bread rolls at the ready I lined-up between the famous towers and to the sound of "Tally-ho chaps" and "Dagga - dagga - dagga" I shot over the dam wall releasing my bread rolls for an undoubted (but un-recorded) direct hit. "Okay chaps" I called on the chat frequency, "I'll pull up high and draw the flak, you come in low and take the buggers by surprise!" Cries of "What-ho!" and "Wizard prang old boy!" filled my headphones until......

We arrived at my friends' airstrip in subdued silence but later that evening, loosened by a few Staropramen (7 Czech crowns a bottle and there were 44 crowns to the pound then!) we saw the funny side and had a good laugh! Next day we all went up in the AN2 and took turns to fly it. When it came to my turn I found trimming the beast was really difficult. Even with full nose down I had to push on the yoke to maintain level flight. Christian, my friend, was smiling as I fought the controls, then he was chuckling, then turning to look behind him he began laughing fit to bust. I snatched a glance through the cockpit doorway. My passengers were gone! I shifted in my seat and turned an looked again. There, crammed against the rear bulkhead, were all eight of them with their stiff, outstretched arms raised in salute!