Story 07: 
An Aggie is borne

England!
I had hardly had any training, but when you are dying for a job, whose  complaining. It was spring in England. Roy Slarke, my

boss, had brought me across from Norway. He had bought two AgWagons there (Cessna 188's), and him and I flew them in  a

more or less tidy formation down through Northern Europe and across the English Channel to England. That was during

Christmas of 1971, or was it -72? I can't remember anymore. Anyway.

To Schipol.
Our route took us down the east coast of the Oslo fjord from Fornebu, and into the west coast of Sweden to Gothenburg.

A stop for fuel and then a short hop across the Skagerak to Aalborg Airport in Denmark. From there on down to Odense for

a night stop, and then a flight plan was filed for Bremen. As these aircraft does not have any navigation equipment at all, the

old "thumb on the map" procedure was used. As the mist slowly evolved into what looked close to fog, a detour was made

and we landed at Flensburg just south of the Danish/German border. Four days was wasted there, except that the aircraft

was cleaned and serviced. Then the fog lifted, and we were on our way again. Over the lowlands of Holland at 2500 feet, towards

Schipol. I never found out why Roy wanted to go into that extremely busy hub, but we did, I think much to the annoyance of the

ATC at Schipol, but Roy was the leader, I merely stuck to his tail. But when I saw a DC-10 going into what must be described

as a steep turn at 2000 feet, I felt maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. But, ol' Roy had a way of talking people into

most anything and the huffin' an' puffin' from the guys in the tower soon subsided.

Across The Channel
We did get our fuel, and after an extensive briefing on how to leave the place, we winged our merry way towards the English

Channel and Calais, being our next refueling stop. By the time we got there the weather turned foul again, and much to Roy's

dismay, he had to pay for another night in a hotel. And this one was a four star to boot! No less than four servants guided us

through an excellent but not cheap meal!

The next day gave us a rather murky weather, and I was somewhat concerned about crossing the channel. Hadn't done much

over water flying up until then, and the 20 mile channel crossing seemed to me to be an awfully long stretch of water at the

time. Little did I know that I later would deal with considerably longer stretches over water on a single engine. We set off.

Fryin' time!
I think 2000 feet was the selected altitude, and as the murk was pretty heavy, we were only a few miles off the French coast

when nothing could bee seen, except the odd tanker or fishing boat directly beneath us. Intense staring ahead gave no clues

to if "The White Cliffs of Dover" was looming up ahead, but the old wartime tune was ringing in my ears, and all sorts of images

from the Battle of Britain was showing on my forehead "monitor". I must admit the nerves where a little bit frayed at the edges.

I could clearly see Roy slightly in front and off to the left, and I tucked in close, thinking he must know where he is going.

Maybe the Brits can smell their way to the fish an' chips at fryin' time!

It felt like an  eternity. Then, suddenly a distinctly British air traffic controllers voice boomed in my headset! England! At last!

Roy all of a sudden turned 90 degrees for a couple of minutes, and I could here the ATC-man identifying us on his radar scope.

Thank god! Home safe! Now I felt I may know a little bit about how the guys back in WW2 may have felt, returning to England

from hostile territory!  Soon the gray-white cliffs moved into view, and we made landfall right over the ferries at Dover. The radar

guided us safely on to final at Ashford in Kent, and we touched down in perfect formation.

My new home.
The next leg was not less eventful. Our destination was Hardwick airfield, just west of Bungay in Sussex. The murk in the

Thames estuary was still bad, and we decided to hire a Cessna 172 and a pilot, to guide us through the murk, to the

reportedly better weather north of the river. And so it was. We waved goodbye to the 172 and soon Roy reported being in

home territory, said goodbye to the controller for the area and descended to ag-level, about 300 feet. Evidently he felt more

comfortable there.

Soon he made noises over the radio that he had field in sight, and soon we were in a high speed dive

towards the old concrete runway, making a normal aggie approach, buzzing the field, checking for runway clear as we

passed and then making a tight turn , at the other end, pulling flaps letting the ship sink slowly to a main-wheels-only touch

down, slowly lowering the tail when approaching the welcoming committee.The new born "Aggie" had arrived to start his career!

It took awhile to get going though. It was early days yet, seasonwise, and Roy Slarkes son Richard ( Dick for short )
was busy getting the truckbased fertilizer loading apparatus ready to roll, and I was helping him as best I could.
It all happened in the old shed or barn at the Slarke Farm just outside Bungay in Suffolk, not far from Norwich.