“A Key Experience”
| Date | 01 December 1966 |
| Author | W. H. Allen |
| Published date | 01 December 1966 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6603901203 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
INSPECTOR
W.
H.
ALLEN
Mid-Anglia Constabulary
Mr. Allen's article was awarded the Additional Prize in our
.. Key Experience" Competition
NIGHT
FLIGHT
This happened a few years ago, just after the war to be precise,
when I was a constable on a rural beat - a beat which included
a civil airport that was shared by an R.A.F. Elementary Flying
Training School and an A.T.C. glider detachment.
The Sunday morning in question for me arrived with the strident
jangling of
the
bedside telephone. I noted the time, it was 6.40
a.m. and wondering who could be ringing at that time, I answered.
It
was my section sergeant.
"Get
along to the airport", he said,
" they've had a 'plane stolen". I listened to brief details, dressed
and commenced to cycle the four miles to the airport, thankful
for a following wind which was nevertheless anything but warm;
in fact it was due east and biting cold. As I cycled along, my
blood beginning to circulate and daylight just showing, I found
myself thinking of many things, not least among them being just
who would want to steal an aircraft and how and why. Well,
I should soon find out some of the questions I had asked myself
and in any case, this was something out of the ordinary, not like
a cycle stolen or a couple of chickens taken from a coop and
perhaps, if I could make it hang out a bit, I would be able to
miss a couple of late points that night.
I arrived at the airport some 25 minutes later to be met by
George, at one time a member of the force and now works police-
man and security
officer.
With due ceremony I was taken to the
scene of the crime, receiving a running commentary from George
on the way - first to
No.4
hangar where the aircraft, a Tiger
Moth Mk, II. the property of the Air Ministry. had been lately
hangared and thence to the far side of the airfield where,
10
and
behold. was the "offending" aircraft. upside down, wheels
unromantically reaching skywards like a praying mantis.
This wasn't the first Tiger Moth that I had seen in that position
but I should guess it was the first on that airfield where the pilot
had not been in the near vicinity trying hard to convince an un-
believing instructor that the wind had died on him just as he was
December 1966 596
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