Читать книгу Round the Bend онлайн

54 страница из 103

I finished off the Fox-Moth a few days after that, and she really didn't look so bad, with a new aluminium spray all over her and green registration letters, and a broad green line running backwards down the fuselage from the prop. I had had the cabin seats re-upholstered, too, and replaced the scratched perspex in the windows, so that by the time I'd done with her she looked almost new.

Dad and Mum came out to see her when she was finished, one Sunday, and I took them up for a joy-ride over Southampton. Then I was ready to start.

It was a bad time of year to fly from England, and the Fox-Moth was a very little aeroplane, with no blind flying instruments, or radio, or anything like that. On the day I wanted to start, Monday the 21st, there was a dense fog and it would have been crazy to leave the ground even if the airport officers had let me, which they wouldn't. Next day was better. Ma came out with me to Eastleigh to see me off. I got the aircraft out and ran the engine to warm her up, and got my stuff through Customs, and went and made my flight plan at the Control. Then I was ready to get in and go.