sounds and smellssmelling the craft
On the second day after I arrived at Cranwell I was commanded to report to 'the flights'. I had imagined weeks if not months of tedious 'bull' and ground instruction before I was even allowed to smell an aircaft.the comforting smell of a Spitfire
They had a special smell - burnt castor oil and dope - which will still bring nostalgic sparkles to the eyes of an old pilot.A.G. Dudgeon, The luck of the devil (1985)
sounds and smells
My ground crew have been with the squadron since it was formed and have seen its changing fortunes and many pilots come and go. They know that for me these last few moments on the ground are full of tension, and as they strap me in the cockpit they maintain an even pressure of chatter. Vaguely I hear that the engine is perfect, the guns oiled and checked and the faulty radio set changed and tested since the last flight. The usual cockpit smell, that strange mixture of dope, fine mineral oil, and high grade fuel, assails the nostrils and is somehow vaguely comforting. I tighten my helmet strap, swing the rudder with my feet on the pedals, watch the movement of the ailerons when I waggle the stick and look at the instruments without seeing them, for my mind is racing on to Lille and the 109s.memories are made of thisJohnnie Johnson, Wing Leader (1956)
A sight that lives forever with me is a cloud-hung canyon of sky over the island of Cyprus during the war, a well of clarity through which we could at last, after hours of misty wandering, descend in safety to the earth below.
A smell I will never forget is the first smell of the new Tri-Pacer in which I eventually found my way into the sky - one-three-delta, with her mingled odors of new plastic, butyrate dope, carpets, rubber, oil, and gasoline, like the exiting smell of a brand new car bought off the showroom floor, only infinitely more so.
A sound that I can conjure up at almost any moment is the music of the omni - the rhythm of the radio beacon signals which, like a shaft of light in darkness, signal to me in the empty heavens that I am steady on course and flying home.Percy Knauth, Wind on my wings (1960)
Your comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated: e-mail Hanneke Hoogstrate!
or, for the JavaScript-disabled: blagoAntiRobot@xs4all.nl, please remember to remove [AntiRobot].This page is from Plane Writing: quotes from early pilots' biographies; please use a JavaScript-enabled browser for best results.