World Carp Classic - Offical Global Website
Lake Bolsena 3rd - 9th September 2012
| The High Life |
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Steve Howard’s WCC blog (part 4) I was to learn that Ross Honey has a penchant for attempting to unnerve people with a teasing chuckle… “You’re going to like this... mwahahaha” was the opening line of his phone call, which definitely conveyed a message that I should perhaps be fearful.
I received this call just prior to our planned trip to Lac D’Orient in 2006, where I was tagging along to provide Ross with some company on the journey down, and whilst there, capture some images and thoughts for my WCC promo piece in Carp Addict. “Oh yes” said Ross, “You’re really going to thank me for this!” Again, the worryingly devilish chortle accompanied his otherwise harmless words, rendering them somewhat hollow. “I have booked your flight and you will be happy to know that there will be just two of you on the plane” he chuckled, “in fact, it’s a very exclusive plane!” he added. “Oh, and why’s that?” I asked, trying to extract something more from him than he apparently wasn’t intending to divulge. “Oh, you’ll find out, don’t worry about it, just bring a thick, warm coat” - Thick warm coat? Had Ross lost the plot? It was a trip to France in JUNE! Anyway, I wasn’t to discover my fate until a day or two later, when we were in France and on our way down the motorway.  Revealing all, Ross gleefully informed me that he had arranged for me to go up in a small, no, ‘very small’ 2-seater plane to do a tour of Lac D’Orient to capture some aerial shots of the great lake. As I was totally unperturbed by this revelation, I’m sure that Ross’s sole remaining pleasure was in the fact that at least it wasn’t he who would have to go up in the “rather interesting” plane that he now described.On the third day of our 4-day trip, I was delivered to the airport like a lamb to the slaughter, and formally introduced to my ‘executioner’ (the pilot). His ‘Franglais’ was only marginally better than mine but we got by reasonably well. After listening carefully to his pre-flight instructions, I was fairly up to speed, but there was one small matter that I really didn’t understand, or indeed really want to understand! “Ze engine, she is, ‘ow you say, sick” he uttered with a nonchalant look on his face. “If ze engine she stop, no worry, ok?” With that thought still running around in my head, screaming for a better or more comforting translation, I was ceremoniously introduced to the plane. I say plane, but that is perhaps a word that only loosely describes what I was now confronted with. It resembled a Robin Reliant with wings. The wings, for want of a better description, appeared to have been constructed with an arrangement of scaffold pipes covered in polythene bags. Now, I’m not the nervous type, but this looked decidedly like a home-made, kit jobbie and as it had a distinct lack of doors, I was rather pleased when the seatbelt, after a struggle, snapped together. Parachutes? No, apparently we didn’t need them. If we got into trouble we would simply glide down to land... Which, to my mind, is all well and good so long as you aren’t either on fire, or over water at the time, or indeed both. To cut an otherwise long story reasonably short, after two laps of the Orient, the engine stuttered, and then stopped completely. The pilot, who had one arm behind his seat, fiddling with something unseen, exclaimed “no panic, zis no problem”. Well, I wasn’t actually panicking, but I can’t say that being 3,000 ft off the ground in a plane that ‘should’ be propelled, was an entirely comfortable experience! The pilot grabbed my arm and shook it reassuringly “Zis is normal, no problem” he said before the engine spluttered back into life a few seconds later.  A few hundred yards later, the engine stalled again. This time for longer, and the pilot was obviously much more agitated this time as he again grabbed my arm, but more firmly. There was then an almost overwhelming stench of aviation fuel filling the open cockpit “no panic, no panic” he said in a panicky voice a few octaves higher than previously... I was in fact relatively calm, but as he appeared to be panicking himself, his words weren’t in any way comforting! In fact, I was still feeling okay, until the pilot asked “you have much photos, no?” Which I took to mean, ‘I’m really worried about this plane and I think we should go back right away” and I agreed “oui, much photos, merci beaucoup”. And off we set in a bee-line for the airport.After a third engine failure, the flight was becoming even more interesting, as our speed had been reduced dramatically and, at the same time, the wind had picked up, buffeting us around like a butterfly in a gale. Our approach was rather interesting too. Up until this point I believed that the normal practice would be to line up with the runway prior to descent. I’m still unsure even today why the pilot decided to drop from the sky like a Peregrine Falcon, banking hard right just meters from the ground and pulling out of the manic stoop we were in. Such was my anguish at this point, that I took a photo 10’ from the ground as we came in to land. The thought occurred to me that it might be the last I ever took, and if I wasn’t going to be around to tell the tale my ‘black box’ (camera) would let everyone know what had happened! Thanks for that memory Ross, oh, and by the way, did my laundry ever turn up at Mesnil HQ? More tomorrow! Tight Lines Steve |
