Neighbors of his Welsh country home can often see Jasper soaring over the rolling foothills that surround Hay on Wye.
Jasper was kind enough to share with us an article he wrote for the newsletter of a flying club to which he belongs. It details the "second hairiest moment I have ever had" while flying. A rather frightening tale of attempting to land at a rural airfield!
I don't have many 'There I was' flying stories, something which
probably results as a sort of natural airborne cowardice. However, the following
yarn demonstrates just how easily a disaster can appear from nowhere.
I was flying my Aeronca Chief into an unnamed rural airfield (Shobdon, if you're
interested) and had joined downwind, called Downwind, turned base, then to
finals and called finals to land. I like to keep a good look out (the
Aeronca had nothing to look at in the office anyhow) but even the best
lookout can let you down.
All of a sudden, a very alert AIS (Air
advisory service) called: "NG (me) Break LEFT, AC (them) Break RIGHT!!!" I did
as I was told, looking out of the right window to see a Cessna 152 far
closer than I even like to get to them on the ground. Needless to say he
didn't break right and carried on to land as I did a go-round. As I bibbled
off around the circuit (hours, sometimes, in the Aeronca) I wondered just
where he had appeared from and presumed he was doing one of those silly
'bomber' circuits that students sometimes do - or someone with a radio out - but
if it was a radio out then he should have joined overhead and kept a good
look out for me.
On the deck the truth soon came out although the culprit was nowhere to
be seen - he had scuttled off rather than risk a bruised nose in case I
was a nasty 6-footer with a volatile temper (I'm not). He was a mature PPL
-just qualified- who knew no other way to join than to go all the way to
Leominster and take a long final, talking and listening to no-one. He
had pulled this sort of stunt before and had just been torn off a strip by
the Airfield manager who was ex-navy and presumably knew how to do this
sort of thing.
I was apologised to and assured that the mature PPL would be asked to
take some sort of refresher course. (I heard later he gave up flying and
went back to gardening or something)
So what's the moral? Well, I was in the right, clearly, but being right
is no good to anyone when the last thing you see before working your way
through eternity is a line of rivets on the underside of someone else's
wing. No, what I learnt from this was that every other pilot is a
potential cretin - and that there's no such thing as a quiet circuit.
