Tail Sitting

[_AH_kawilder]

I was on the fseconomy page and found this little story and decided to share it.

~S~

kawilder


On February 14, 1945, Leading
Aircraftwoman Margaret Horton, an RAF
WAAF, was assigned a familiar job: sit on
the horizontal stabilizer of a Spitfire to
help hold the tail down while it taxied on
a windy day. Unfortunately, nobody
thought to tell the pilot, Flight Lt. Neill
Cox, that she'd be jumping aboard.
(Horton later admitted that "the squadron
was run in a slap-happy way.") The
normal drill was for the tail-sitter to grab
the aircraft's elevator and waggle it
before the pilot turned onto the runway,
so he'd know she was hopping off. But
this time Cox made a casual gesture out
of the cockpit that Margaret took to mean
"Hang on, don't go yet." Big mistake.

As the Spitfire accelerated down the
runway, Horton had the good sense to
quickly flop across the tail cone, where
she was held in place by the vertical fin,
her legs to the right and her torso to the
left. Another WAAF who'd seen what
was happening dashed off to tell a flight
sergeant, who ran to the control tower.
Cox was ordered to make a quick circuit
and land, but wasn't told why.
Between Horton's death grip on the
elevator with her left hand plus the
Spitfire's tail-heaviness, Cox had already
figured that something was amiss, but he
couldn't see as far aft as his airplane's
empennage.

Relieved to be back on the ground,
Horton announced that after a change of
panties and a cigarette, she'd be good to
go back to work. She was later fined for
losing her uniform beret during the short
trip around the pattern.

[Kopfdorfer]

Good Yarn.
Thanks.

Kopfdorfer

[_AH_Bear]

Good story... but fined for loosing her hat .. lol.. kinda bs if you ask me..

[_AH_kawilder]

I thought that to to start with, lol.

kawilder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Hibaldstow

[_AH_Nimble]

are you sure she didnt lose her panties while in flight??? :lol

[_AH_Lippy]

Yo am i seeing things was that a putty cat or a nimble cat LOL ~S~ Bro welcome back