Sunday 26 September 2010

It's Twisty!

                    
7am, roads are dry.

Zig Zag Hill, never heard of it? Neither had we until we went to find it! Somewhere on the Dorset/Wiltshire borders sits a nice little anomaly of a road that remains untouched by the health and safety mentalists...we went for an early blat to find it, and to have breakfast of course.





There was a particularly nice, freshly restored Tiger Moth running pleasure flights during our breakfast break at Compton Abbas airfield. I enjoyed the aviation equivalent of the Japanese tea ceremony performed by the crew before each 'experience'. The choreography must remain as it has done for the past 70 years: the checks, the prep, the confirmations, the affirmations and finally the start up... good to go.Confidence for the passenger, confidence for crew. All sorted, all waves and goggles.




I couldn't help but notice our equivalent automotive tea ceremony that was not long to follow: cursory checks, adjustment of layers, insertion of ear plugs, donning of head gear, the gymnastics of feeding yourself into the driving seat (each has his own technique), harness adjustments...all before turning a key, and certainly not until checking that each other has completed their respective ritual, then: it's all waves and goggles and off to blat.

180 mile round trip: the 'long blat' then, we'll do it again of course...just for the wiggly bit, not the breakfast.


Quotes from the day:
'When they say 'full English' I expect the plate to actually be full...and English' 
 'Thruster? Farkin' stupid name for that feeble thing'   (ref a particularly light microlight.)
'I had quite a bit of understeer' 
'I've quite brown underwear' 
'That was fun, let's do it again, three times'
'There's a rattling sound, I think it's my head' 


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