大象传媒

It was always exciting watching those Northrop seaplanes landing on the black Icelandic fiord.At times when the wind blew down from the mountains towards our little base ,the water surface giving the aircraft a wild landing and giving the pilot and his navigator more than just a little fright.
There were other times when it could be just as hazardous,when the cold dark surface was as smooth as glass. There was an occasion when an incoming plane we were watching,levelled off,almost twelve feet above the water and we realised that the pilot was throttl ing back. We gasped as what we expected to happen,did happen.The plane dropped the twelve feet,did a forward skid,before executing a series of,for the pilot,hair raising bounces.The pilot made valiant efforts,eventually levelling off and coming to a halt.It then taxied slowly to the concrete slope and with a roar from the engine,made its way up to the bay allocated to it.The aircraft`s hood slid back and out came the pilot,followed by the navigator to meet the CO who had witnessed the incident.The three went into a huddle and we heard voices raised.
It turned out that one of three new pilots,who had recently joined us from the Norwegian flying base in Toronto,had been flying the plane. He had either not been warned enough or had forgotten about the dangers encountered when landing on a glassy surfaced stretch of tater .
Next day the water surface was again glassy and all flying was cancelled as the CO had called a meeting of all flying crew.The meeting had only been going for a short time when word came out that all rescue boat crew was to join it.Again it was only a short time before the CO came out followed by all the others.Many of the ground crew had now gathered and were addressed about what had been discussed.The CO said in a loud voice,
"Many of you here saw what happenned yesterday,you know of the difficulty of judging height over flat calm water and we wanted ideas on what can be done to help pilots over this difficulty as we have calm waters fairly frequently here.It is calm now so we are going to try out a suggestion which has been made."
So saying,the CO turned and made his way to his aircraft in its bay,followed by quite a crowd.The boat crew also made their way to the little jetty and boarded their boat.The engine of the CO`s aircraft roared and the skipper also started up his engine.The aircraft swing out of its bay,trundled down the slipway and taxied out on the fiord followed by the rescue boat which made its way to a point well along the fiord,while the aircraft made a nice takeoff.After making one complete circle of the end of the fiord the CO made a turn to face the boat which was a long way down the fiord.He made a slight dip and steadied again before heading straight towards the boat which at the dip of the plane had increased revs and headed towards the plane.They were racing towards each other,the boat`s stern wake was in a great white froth while the plane was getting lower and slower.We held our breath as the distance between them shortened,but it was a carefully timed maneouver as the plane cleared the boat and could land safely as the pilot could clearly judge his distance by the stretch of water churned up by the boat.
This manoeuver helped landing on flat water considerably and was used quite frequently but all good things can become unstuck on occasion.It was a nice bright day,the air was still,the water was calm and we were expecting a lone Northrop in.I joined the rescue boat and it made its way to its usual point well down the fiord. We had just reached its position when the plane
appeared,circled round and positioned itself in a direct line to the boat.The engine roared and I grabbed a stay as the boat threw up a huge white wake and headed towards the plane.The distance diminished rapidly and I felt a slight touch of panic at the fast approach of the thunderous roaring mass of metal with its demonic circle of whirling propellor blades.
The skipper gave an almighty roar,
"He`s too low,duck,duck."
He was indeed too low,I heard a splintering noise and a twing as the starboard float caught the mast and took away with it,our airial.We had heeded the skipper`s warning and were all flat on the deck.The skipper drew a handy tarpaulin over the jagged,
dangerous stump and we,without a word between us,made for the jetty.

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