FLYING HIGH...

One of the occasional pleasures of penning these columns is the opportunity to renew old acquaintances.

This week, it is Peter Odling, whom I remember as the avuncular and useful proprietor of his electrical goods retailer in Kirkgate, Thirsk.

Now, we have an account of part of his life that came before. He has just published a short book “Higher and Higher” (printed by G H Smith & Son of Easingwold) dealing with his twenty two year service in the Royal Air Force.

He learned to fly when still at school in Essex, courtesy of the Air Training Corps, and entered the RAF just as the “jet age” was blossoming.

Pistons and propellers were being supplanted by jets, and his book includes his experience from the Vampire jet, known as the “flying wheelbarrow” from its twin boom tailplane, through the more iconic Hawker Hunter (prized as a treasured die cast model from my childhood) the twin jet Camberra, which he liked, despite its cold cockpit; the windows frosted over, and pilots risked frostbite in the posterior regions!

The pinnacle of his active service was flying the Vulcan nuclear strike bomber. “You could fly it up almost vertically to 53,000 feet, about twice the altitude of a modern airliner”.

These were the days of the Cold War (the period between the Berlin Airlift and the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Russia switched from wartime ally, to global foe) when diplomacy had to be backed by the big stick of nuclear readiness.

Peter recounts the periods of duty, when he had to be on fifteen minute call to get into the air, and if there was an immediate alarm, to get into the cockpit, and get aloft within four minutes.

(To read the rest of this article go along to your nearest stockist and buy a copy of the paper)