Aircraft I have flown 1956 to 2005

Some pictures mostly taken from the Internet of the different aircraft I was lucky enough to get to fly, starting in the 1950’s and ending in 2005.

I learnt to fly in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), my first solo was on the 29th November 1956 in a de Havilland Tiger Moth (DH82A) 4R-AAB at Ratmalana Airport on the coast a few miles south of Colombo. I was 25.

From Roald Dahl's book "Going Solo"

The Tiger Moth is or was a thing of great beauty. Everybody who has ever flown a Tiger Moth has fallen in love with it. It is a totally efficient and very aerobatic little biplane powered by a Gypsy engine..........which has never been known to fail in mid-air.  You could throw a Tiger Moth about all over the sky and nothing ever broke. You can glide upside down hanging in your straps for minutes on end, and although the engine cut out when you did that because the carburetor was also upside down, the motor started again at once when you turned her the right way up again. You could spin her vertically downwards for thousands of feet and then all she needed was a touch on the rudder-bar, a bit of throttle, and the stick pushed forward and actually came in a couple of flips. A Tiger moth had no vices. She never dropped the wing if you lost flying speed coming in to land, and she would suffer innumerable heavy landings from incompetent beginners without turning a hair.

But you must read the whole book, both frightening and funny, like his children's books.

This Tiger Moth G-ACDC was built in 1933 so she is three years younger than myself and is, I believe, still flying.  I was lucky enough to fly her from Redhill, Surrey, England.

The CFI at the Ceylon Air Academy was Capt. C.H.S. Ameresekera who flew bombers (Wellingtons or Halifaxes) in the Royal Air Force in WWII.  Another instructor I had was Stanley Fernando. With their help it didn't take long for me to obtain my Private Pilot's License which made me free to make many memorable flights over the jungles, mountains, paddy fields and coasts of Ceylon.

I soloed in 5 hours and 5 minutes and was then allowed to fly the two Austers, a J/1 Autocrat 4R-AAM, and 4R-AAJ, an Auster 5, in addition to the Tiger Moth. These, like the Tiger Moth, were hand swung to start.  They were three-seaters, two side by side with the pilot and passenger touching elbows in front, and a seat behind facing sideways for a small passenger (or one without legs!).

Later the Air Academy obtained two De Havilland DHC1 Chipmunks, 4R-AAV and 4R-AAW that were on loan from the Ceylon Air Force. 

Another small plane I flew was a Stinson L5E 4R-AAD used in WW II as a liaison and as a casevac (casualty evacuation) plane. It had a hinged panel on the starboard side of the fuselage which opened to allow a stretcher and patient to be carried behind the pilot.  It was a STOL aircraft with a hefty Lycoming engine and powerful flaps and ailerons that could be drooped for short field landings  It was the most widely used Allied utility aircraft of the war, but how one ended up in Ceylon is a puzzle!

There was a placard stating: "Intentional spinning with litter patients is prohibited."!

I also flew a Czechoslovakian-made Sokol  M.1D 4R-AAG.

 It had hand cranked main wheels which took many turns of the crank with one hand while keeping the plane straight and level with the other!


Once back in England I converted my PPL to a British one.  From Thruxton in Wiltshire I flew a Jackaroo G-APAJ  which was a Tiger Moth converted to carry four people by widening the center section of the fuselage and modifying the undercarriage, resulting in an increase in span.  As the engine and propeller were unmodified (which still needed hand swinging to start), its performance was not very spectacular!

I also flew a single-seater Druine 31 Turbulent G-APZZ from Redhill in Surrey:

and a Cessna 150 Aerobat from Shoreham in Sussex.

At the Oxford Air Training School I flew Piper PA28 140's.

and Piper PA-39 Twin Comanches which were used for the test for my Instrument Rating.

The CAA examiners would not fly in a single engined aircraft, but it gave us students our first chance to fly twins.

After obtaining my Commercial Pilot's License and Instrument Rating at the Oxford Air Training School (now Oxford Aviation Academy) I was recommended by them to attend an interview at London Heathrow with British Overseas Airways Corporation Associated Companies (what a mouthful!) for a position as a Second Officer with Gulf Aviation in Bahrain.

There was only one vacancy and luckily I was successful.  This suited me down to the ground, as after seventeen years tea planting in Ceylon I was not happy at the thought of spending the rest of my life in Britain.

When I went out to Bahrain to join Gulf Aviation (which later became Gulf Air) my first "proper" plane was a Douglas Dakota, also known as a DC3.

As a not-so-young but very inexperienced copilot I had “on the job” training by some excellent Captains, some of who had flown these aircraft in the Berlin Airlift.

After the DC3 I advanced to the Beech Queen Air (B80).  Filling the cabin with eight hefty oilmen put us near maximum takeoff weight!

With this aircraft I flew Sir Edward Heath all over the Arabian Gulf when he became Leader of the Opposition after being defeated by Harold Wilson. He and his entourage were visiting Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and the Trucial States. We stayed at the palace and I was usually invited to the state dinner (known as a "camel grab") but do not recall being offered a sheep's eyeball.

I also flew "Boots" Hansen who was Red Adair's right hand man when there was an uncontrollable blowout at a well at Fahud in the centre of the Oman. As you may imagine, he was quite a character.

Gulf Aviation Beech Queen Air and a DC3 somewhere in the Oman (own picture).

My next was the Dutch-built Fokker Friendship F27 turboprop. The airline had two of these aircraft which were mostly used on scheduled services, but also for Royal Flights.  I received a gold watch on one of these for transporting a hunting party (complete with hawks) from the palace at Al Ain/Buraimi Oasis in Abu Dhabi to Bandar Abbas in Iran.  (Side note: if our Operations Department got a royal command at short notice to supply an F27 for one of these jaunts, a DC3 had to be dusted off to take its place, resulting in unhappy passengers and crew.)

My first jet was the BAC1-11 built by British Aircraft Corporation, flying them for Gulf and then British Caledonian.

Later I left Bahrain and flew for two British airlines, British Caledonian and Dan-Air, based at Gatwick Airport, flying BAC 1-11's and Boeing 727's, flying all over Europe from the Arctic Circle to the Red Sea, and North and West Africa.

Danair B727 200 G-BAEF

Thus ended my professional flying career.

Later, whilst sailing along the south coast of Cuba in "Lungta", I flew in an Antonov An-2 from Cayo Lago to Havana and back. It had a crew of three and held twelve passengers.  After leveling off at 2,500 ft and 100 kts we bumbled north across the grassy fields and farms that covered the plain.      


I was lucky enough to fly this machine straight and level for some ten to fifteen  minutes, a great experience.

My very last flight was from St. Augustine airport on January 20th, 2005 in a "Warbirds" T6 Texan trainer (known as a Harvard in the UK). My licenses were well out of date by then (also medicals!) but my instructor Richard let me take the controls once we were in the air. We were airborne for an extremely enjoyable hour of great fun, flying over Green Cove Springs and the river, even some aerobatics.

"There are old pilots,

There are bold pilots,

But there are:

No old, bold pilots!"