Getting Married

 

Excerpt from " A Prentice Logbook"

 

By Bill Wilkinson

 

It was the summer of 1962 when my fiancée, Inga, and I decided to get married. We had some difficulty in setting the date. At the time the appointment book ruled my life. A careful search of the book showed that the patient load was lightest after Christmas. We chose the 29th of December as being the most propitious date. and shortly after Inga went back to Stockholm to start the preparations. The best way to make time go by was to get stuck into the work. I was running two dental surgeries at the time, one in Balham, the other in Knightsbridge. Our flat was part of the Knightsbridge accommodation. I raced across London in my Mini to cope with the work.

 

Time passed quickly and one day melded into the next. Suddenly I found that it was a week before Christmas and I had not made any bookings to fly up to Sweden. I rang BEA and asked for tickets to Stockholm. The reservations clerk openly laughed at me. "I can get a seat for you next Christmas, Sir." He said.

 

I rang the cross-channel ferries and they were equally derisory. The ferries were booked solidly through to the New Year.

 

I spoke with my friend Terry Jordan, from Auckland. He had already agreed to be my best man. I said that we had to leave the following day and that the only way that I would get to the church on time was to fly the Prentice up to Stockholm. Terry had shown himself to be an excellent copilot and could read maps with the best of them. We were going to fly VFR, as the Prentice had not yet been fitted with any radio navigational equipment.

 

The following day was bitterly cold and we drove out to Biggin Hill and filed our flight plan. Our first stop was Rotterdam.

 

The distinctive feature about this airport is the large red Mercedes star south of the main runway. We spent the night there and set off the next morning. The wind blowing in off the North Sea was biting in it's subzero temperature. Our proposed destination was Kastrup airport in Copenhagen.

 

We got as far as Emden in North Germany before the low cloud base and poor visibility stopped any further progress, landed and parked next to the local flying club.

 

In the morning it was clear but very cold. The temperature had dropped to –12° C. The engine refused to start. The local club members informed us that the fuel does not vaporize at these temperatures. Borrowing a blowtorch from painters who were redecorating the clubhouse solved the problem. We played the flame on the carburetor (see illustration) and the engine soon chugged into life.

 

Terry and I agreed that we were mad and two and half-hours later we were touching down at Kastrup. The Danish Authorities informed us that further VFR flying was not possible, as we had run out of daylight, it was also Christmas day.

 

We caught the Malmö Expressen up to Stockholm. As the train sped through the Swedish forests Terry remarked that it was traveling faster than the Prentice.

 

It was a very relieved Inga that met us at the Central Station. We were in time to enjoy Christmas dinner.

 

In our haste to leave London I had not arranged any appropriate wedding clothing. A lot of phone calls on Boxing Day and we track ed down a shop that would be open and had the right gear.

 

Roy Fletcher, an English friend who had shown more foresight than myself and had booked a flight to Stockholm well in advance, joined us.

 

On the morning of the 29th I was sitting in the bath drinking Champagne. Roy and Terry threw the patio doors open, gathered snow off the balcony and bombarded me with snowballs.

 

Half a metre of snow lay on the ground as we went into Matteus kyrka on Vanadisvägen in Stockholm. It was a magnificent ceremony complete with the Stockholm Boy's Choir. The reception was held in the family home. Inga's mother provided the traditional wedding feast, which was overwhelming to us foreigners.

 

On New Year's Eve there were emotional good byes at Central Station as my new bride, my best man and myself boarded the train. When I looked at the amount of luggage I doubted whether the Prentice would get off the ground. There were piles of wedding presents, even a standard lamp.

 

When we arrived at Copenhagen it was clear with excellent visibility but intensely cold. The Prentice had a foot of snow on the wings. The forecast was for more snow later and I was anxious to get in the air. I was worried about getting the engine started but this turned out not to be a problem. The Danes had mobile heaters, which quickly warmed the engine.

 

The aircraft was parked outside the SAS crew room and we could see the Scandinavian pilots chortling as we swept the wings. They positively convulsed as we loaded the plane. We managed to get everything on board with the jump seats folded back. Even the standard lamp was loaded. By this time the watching pilots were getting hysterical. They were sure that they were about to witness a major disaster. Inga managed to get aboard by wriggling into the luggage and somehow finding a space on the back seat.

 

The pre-warmed engine started first touch. We waved goodbye to our open-mouthed spectators. In a few minutes we were rolling down the runway and taking off into the clear cold blue sky. For the first half hour we flew VFR. All remaining snow and ice disappeared off the wings. As we approached the island of Fyn we encountered the first flurries of snow. This increased as we flew on and produced multiple horizontal lines on the windscreen. The windscreen wipers were of the heavy-duty variety and kept the screen clear.

 

The snow became denser. We picked up the railway line running toward Odense. We flew lower to maintain contact.

 

Soon we were flying at below treetop level into a dense snowstorm. Terry tapped my arm and said," If there is a train on the line we are stuffed." I did a 180 with the intention of flying back to Kastrup. The snow suddenly cleared so we pressed on towards Groningen. A lot of snow had fallen and the landscape was completely covered. All of the landmarks were now under a white blanket .

 

Terry was consulting the maps and said, "I am sure Emden is somewhere around here." We could see a railway station below.

 

"Lets have a look." I said and put the nose down. We flew between the platforms and glimpsed EMDEN on the notice board.

 

There were some very startled passengers waiting on the platforms. We were now flying along the main railway line from Germany into Holland. By taking the first branch line to the right we should have been within a quarter mile of Groningen Airport. The large black runways had completely disappeared. Terry suddenly said, "That building over there looks just like a control tower." It was. We circled and could see parts of the main runway covered in drifts of snow.

 

The crash wagons rolled out. I put the flaps down and made an approach, hanging on the prop, looking for a space between the drifts. I found a space and cut the engine. Fortunately, the snow was all powder and we remained upright. We stopped in the middle of a large mound of snow. I dispersed most of it by revving the engine. This created a miniature snowstorm.

 

The crash wagons arrived and guided us to the terminal. We left the plane in the light aircraft hangar and adjourned to the adjacent restaurant/guest house. We were the only guests.

 

The next day we hovered around the flight clearances office. The reports from all around Europe were grim. Almost every airport was closed due to snow and ice on the runways. Only two airports were open, Rotterdam and Schiphol at Amsterdam had electrically heated runways and remained clear. The weather had clamped with low visibility, snow showers and a cloud base to ground level. We spent New Years Eve playing cards and drinking beer. New Years Day was the same. The following day there was a slight improvement, the cloud base lifting to 800 feet. I filed a flight plan to Rotterdam.

 

Starting the engine was another matter. The fuel was not vapourising. We solved the matter by wheeling the aircraft back into the hangar. We borrowed a two-barred electric radiator from one of the offices, positioned it against the carburetor, closed the cowl and waited a few minutes. The engine started straight away, inside the hangar!! We rolled the doors open and revved up on the tarmac. Everything appeared normal. A quick taxiing on the newly snow ploughed taxiways and we took off in the direction of Rotterdam and 40 minutes later we could see the Mercedes sign.

 

There was no response to our radio calls so we circled the airport. The control tower responded by giving us a flashing red light, telling us to "Go away" There was nowhere for us to go so we continued to circle. Control realized that we were in a predicament and gave a green light for landing. I made a very prompt approach and dropped onto the West to East runway.

 

Little did we know that other air traffic had been held up while we were slotted in. We must have been the only light aircraft flying in Europe that day.

 

What I did not know was that the pneumatic brakes had frozen solid and were now non-functional. We touched down and I endeavored to steer the plane by pumping on the pneumatic control and stepping on the rudder pedals. There was no braking response. The aircraft rolled down the runway and slowly veered off to the right. There were meter high drifts of snow on either side, unaffected by the electrically heated runway. It seemed like slow motion that we left the runway and came to a halt in a large mound of snow.

 

The crash wagon quickly arrived. About a dozen firemen dismounted, each armed with a shovel. I stood on the seat shouting instructions over the windscreen. One fireman ran up to the aircraft and was about to walk into the still rotating propeller, invisible in the half-light. I shouted a warning at the top of my lungs. A colleague grabbed him and pulled him clear. They were both transfixed in shock.

 

A tractor arrived. By now our combined effort and much revving of the engine moved us back onto the runway. Terry and Inga climbed into the crash wagon. Preceded by the tractor I chugged downwind on the runway. Only then did I fully realize that braking was useless and I had no control of the aircraft.

 

Once again I stood on the seat and shouted warnings to the tractor driver. He casually waved for me to pass on his left side. There was nothing I could do. I was bracing myself for the impact when the driver turned around and saw that there was an imminent collision. He spun around in his seat and threw his body against the wing. He had found superhuman strength and stopped the runaway plane in its tracks.

 

The other firemen raced up and held onto the wings. We walked the aircraft down the runway, wheeled it into the light aircraft hangar and locked the doors.

 

Later that night we caught the British Air Ferries Bristol Freighter to Southend. The last leg of the trip was by courtesy of British Rail. Late in the night we arrived at our flat in Knightsbridge. I said to my new wife before falling asleep," We have survived the first few days of our marriage, we should be good for a few more."

 

That was nearly thirty-eight years ago.