Last Tuesday, Will took a friend out for a short flight around the Malvern Hills. The weather was spectacular, visibility was superb and the views were magnificent – apparently.
I was on the ground looking up enviously as they did a few circuits before landing. But I was there for a different reason and the perfect conditions couldn’t have worked out better.
We were back in the hangar on Saturday, but no flying for us – it was our turn to clean the plane.
At first glance, Charlie didn’t look too bad. After all, how much dirt is there at the altitudes we fly? Quite a bit as it happens! Either that, or the wheels kick up an awful lot of dust when they’re on the ground.
We’d booked Charlie until 1pm after which someone was taking him out for a spin. Allowing an hour to get there, we gave ourselves a good two hours for the task though even that, we thought, could be pushing it. It might be a small aircraft relatively speaking, but as Will pointed out later, there’s an awful lot of it!
We were over halfway to the airport and making good progress when Will suddenly blurted out something that I can’t repeat here. We’d left the keys at home in Will’s flight bag! We wouldn’t be able to get into the hangar, the cupboard with all the cleaning stuff in, or even the aircraft itself. Now what to do? We were coming up to a motorway exit and had to make the decision – do we go on, or go home and give up?
After a two-second frantic discussion we continued on, convincing ourselves that it wouldn’t be a wasted journey. To be honest, we didn’t really have much choice as we were in the middle lane with little chance of getting across to the exit. If nothing else, we’d have a nice coffee and cake at the airport restaurant and enjoy the views so all was not lost.
Less than twenty minutes later we parked up and ……… by an aligning of all the planets, good things coming our way and a phone call to our syndicate friend who lived locally, we actually managed to get in and on with the job!
Washing a car is one thing. Washing an aeroplane is on a completely different level! Cleaning equipment comprised nothing more than a bowl of hot water, washing-up liquid, window spray, various cloths and kitchen roll – that was about it.
It took us an hour and half to get Charlie gleaming, finishing well within the 1pm deadline. Time to get lunch!
A while later, we found out that the person who’d booked Charlie for the afternoon had cancelled at the last minute. I had mixed feelings. We’d already said that morning that we should have booked him out for the whole day so we could go flying afterwards. We would definitely have made the most of it.
On the other hand, Charlie would be there for another few hours before getting grubby again. Another few hours for people to admire our efforts! Especially those brilliantly clean windows which, I have to say, have never looked so sparkling!
A Pilot's Companion 