大象传媒

RED KITES & SKUAS

The connection between red kites and skuas is not immediately obvious, but then, this true short story is not about wild birds of prey or twitchers, but more about aircraft and WW11. As a lad, I was brought up during the war in a small village in South Devon called Stoke-in-Teignhead, which lay near the track of an aerial target range for the Royal Air Force and local AA gunners to get some target practice. The targets were tapered cylindrical drogues made from red oiled silk some 15ft long, about 2ft diameter at the open mouthed front end, and about 4ft diameter at the closed tail end. They were towed by Blackburn SKUAS,and when deployed, were immediately inflated by the airflow and reeled out on a winch cable to some safe distance behind the aircraft.

Sometimes however, they did not inflate properly and after some seconds would suddenly fill with air, and the resulting sudden jerk would break the cable. Perhaps there was a safety link to prevent damage to the SKUA. The drogue would then float gently earthwards, parachute-like, being kept inflated by the weight of the cable dangling from the open mouth end.

If I remember rightly, we could get a reward of ten shillings (big money in 1940) for retrieving and handing them back to the authorities. It struck me and my friend, that the red oiled silk would be perfect not only for repairs to our canvas canoe, but also for making kites. So we made huge RED KITES about 6ft high and flew their using reels of strong codline which my father sent home to me from the naval stores (he was a Chief Stoker Petty Officer in a naval unit refuelling submarines in the North Sea) I often wondered if they did a spot of cod fishing while waiting to rendezvous with a sub.

Once, when we were flying our giant RED KITE from one of the hills surrounding the village, we lost control, and the kite line got itself entangled with the flagpole on top of the church tower. With our kite flying proudly from the flagpole we drifted quietly away without trying to claim it back. There was after all, plenty of material to make another. Happy days.
Stan Lock

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