would you believe I had a mad pilot mate whose name was Bell (not Ralph though).
He wasn't quite as mad as Ralph, but pretty bloody close.
He used to only eat cereal biscuits and drink sherry - very occasionally water.
So breakfast was biscuits and Sherry and then up we would go.
His airstrip had a kink in it ----- so you zoomed down the thing turned through the kink whilst accelerating and then took off -------- the end of the runway stopped with trees - bloody big trees.
He had a pretty new plane the last time I went with him and we went for a fly.
Here we were rocketing down this bloody runway and these trees were coming up pretty quick imo - and we wooshed over the trees and took a few leaves with us - no kidding.
I thought, hmmmm, smartarse.
When we landed I said to him about 2 up and the weights -- thinking he had done this plenty of times ---------- arrh, no, this was the first time with a passenger in that plane - thanks mate.
He was a lovely bloke, but, you didn't want to let your insurance company know he was a friend - they would NOT have liked that.
I assume he is dead by now - so the world will be a duller place --- but, safer.
