The advent of war left no time for the luxuries of record breaking and the Kingsford Smiths, C.W.A. Scotts and Mollisons became history and folklore. Being a lifelong aviation freak (I was 43 at the time this was written in 1989), my childhood heroes were those kind of folk and I have always wondered what inspired and drove them on.
In 1984, after a few years of defacing cliffs with my teeth during hang gliding escapades, my wife decided I should learn to fly real aeroplanes. Six months later I was flying my own Super Cub and loving every minute when Neil Williams inspired me with his article on the Bucker Jungmann; the search was on!
I eventually found a CASA 131 (Spanish built example) for sale at Elstree. This was the subject of an extensive restoration by Hornet Aviation at Selby and 18 months later G-TAFF was rolled out in her present livery. Two years of fun and aeros with the British Aerobatic Association left me wondering about a long distance flight. After a disastrous engine failure in December ‘87, I decided to fit a zero-houred replacement (ENMA Tigre GIVB) and to modify the aircraft extensively to get maximum range.
I obtained a 200 hour engine from the States for £900 (including shipping!) and handed this over to Norvic Racing Engines to strip and zero. All dual controls, front seat and inverted fuel and oil systems were taken out. Two extra ferry tanks were manufactured (a 30 gallon saddle tank for the front hole and another 8 gallon tank as an extension to the existing main tank). This gave me a total of 56 imperial gallons. The fuel selection was done via a Christen wobble pump, which also served as a low point water check, filter and manual back-up pump to the single mechanical fuel pump on the engine. A 3 gallon oil tank was fitted and this, with the extra fuel, gave me 8 hours at 1900 rpm (100 mph). All this work took me five months, but by June 1988 she was ready to fly. The flight was planned for October, so during the last two weeks of June I put 50 hours on the engine, before disassembly and packing in a P & 0 container for shipping to Darwin. Two friends, Alan Horsfall and Sherburn engineer Les Scattergood were to come with me to Darwin, (both were already heavily involved). Flights were booked and flight planning sorted. Mike Grey from Overflight International had kindly come forward and at less than cost got all my diplomatic and flight clearances sorted. From June to October I spent my time getting fit and trying to lose about three gallons of fuel (21 lbs)! Disaster struck in October with the military coup in Burma so, after a great deal of soul searching, the departure from Darwin was postponed to 29th April ‘89.
