Just landed at St Malo harbour, Brittany, from Portsmouth on my Honda CBR 1000F to find my old car in the car park has disappeared. The French Authorities tolerate we local English leaving ‘old bangers' at the Ferry Terminal but not for this long!
My un-planned extended stay in Texas, at ‘Uncle Sam's Pleasure', has lost me not just my flying licence, but now my cut away speed model Ford Orion motor car. Talking of the CAA they have sent me some more ‘official info' from the US that reads like an Enyd Blyton children's book. Apparently it states I radioed McGregor Airport with some nonsense message about visiting a Mr Bush by aircraft. No such thing ever happened as the US Authorities very well know having all the evidence to suggest no transmission was ever made, whether by VHF Radio or ‘C' mode Transponder, while I was flying around Texas. As for the GPS they took off me and will not return, that stayed in my kit bag switched off all the way to Crawford.
I also now have a document quoting the McClellan County Police that I was 'not arrested' at the scene nor had I committed any civil or criminal offence. As I said to the boss of the legal department of Air Crew Licencing, in London, "If I had been in charge of air safety anywhere in the world with the information just sent across the ‘pond' from the US I would have marched the culprit pilot directly to Broadmoor (the UK's secure mental hospital) and thrown away the key".
Anyway it may take me years to fight through the courts so here I am looking frantically for a French ‘abinitio' pilot's licence pretty damn quick but where do I learn to fly French style and learn the lingo? Thierry of Air Journey has already found me a friend, François SIEGEL in Paris to possibly expedite the problem.
This old motor bike, resting in the long grass, once our front lawn, is supposed to get me to the South of France tomorrow but am I not getting a bit too arthritic for just a lumpy beast? As I mount her it reminds me of the French aristocracy being winched on to their jousting horses in their heavy suits of armour for the battle of Agincourt!