Search results matching tag 'Around the World Solo Flight'

My Alderney Air Show Talk this Friday

Maurice — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 19:57:00 GMT

I have the choice of: (if someone on the island can rig up a digital projector, please?)

FRIDAY Night, most likely

Screen saver as we re charge our gin bottles and change the 8mm reels

ROUGH COPY Maurice Kirk v South Wales Police BS614159.docx

2001 London -Sydney Air Race without an MOT, a reliable on 'Liberty Girl'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w14sZFCk8&NR=1&feature=endscreen

New Zealand 'walkabout' in WW2 cub and world record via Norfolk Island to Brisbane

Darwin to Japan and Crash

Flight to President Bush's Ranch after ditching off Haiti

Sewing up my old pal Oliver Reed, not once but twice!

Twenty one times in Guernsey Prison and CI hunger strike record

http://kirkflyingvet.com/photos/maurices_picks/Guernsey-Prison.aspx

http://kirkflyingvet.com/tags/Guernsey/default.aspx

Traiding in WWI machine guns while having 'significant brain damage' and registered MAPPA level 3, terrorist level

or three month Cardiff trial with 99 witnesses over South Wales Police getting me struck off the veterinary register

Take your pick...for Friday evening somewhere on my most favourite of 'old rocks' with 2000 dypsos sat watching their gin bottles circulate the awesome Brimtides, Garden Rocks and The dreaded Swinge on a 'spring'!

ps Please notify my old veterinary clients and patients on the beautiful island, just full of GREAT memories, if any still alive!

Air Race Course.docx

Commercial Spot

http://kirkflyingvet.com/photos/for_sale/Pipistralle-2c-Microlight.aspx for £1000... see FOR SALE (Looking for lift to Brittany/Jersey after air show)

NB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tacRcTanQy8

I urgently need help to finish this project plus G-KERK (G-OINK) WW2 L4 cub, rebuild for Everest 'assault', needs putting in the air and homed somewhere she can be shared? Also French reg D-Day cub...fly away ....Also needs selling, Taylorcraft (complete but dismantled £4000)...also Pipestrelle 2c orig micolite (only £1000 plus lift to St Malo after show), also X-Air needing carb also in Brittany (£5000)... Land Rover parked in St Malo Harbour...yours for £1000

see FOR SALE on web site.... Really 'give-away' Brittany properties for £20,000 and under, 1931 Morris Minor, WW1 four blade props A65 and C90 engines (one went to Aussie)!!! etc

My Mobile 07907937953 maurice@kirkflyingvet.com

http://pprune.wordpress.com/

M machine gun at Farnborough Air Show while South Wales Police scheme for a 10 year mandatory prison sentence

Taunton while I was out filming the 1979 Fastnet Tragedy in my £4000 Cessna 172 she was blown over

Steamboat Willie

Maurice — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:03:00 GMT

Thank You Captain!!! I loved your email!! I will phone you the next time I come to Europe! And I hope it's soon!!!!! Cheers Mate, Steamboat Willie

--- On Mon, 3/1/10, Captain maurice kirk wrote:

From: Captain maurice kirk
Subject: FUN
To: "Steamboat Willie (owner)"
Date: Monday, March 1, 2010, 2:49 PM

You will not remember me....I had ditched in the Carribean in WW2 Cub just before I dropped into good music in New Orleans. I talked to your old black Lab as all old veterinarians do. When I left you the President's men put me in Austin State Psychiatric Hospital and later deported me for some reason. Just out of jail winning the case ...I had a WW1 machine gun, apparently.

Need you for a party when next in Europe...see http://www.kirkflyingvet.com/
Best regards, Maurice in France mob UK 07708586202

Please Mr President can I Fly my Piper Cub out of Texas to Mexico?

Maurice — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:32:00 GMT

President Barack Obama

The White House

Washington DC

United States of America

17^th March 2009

Dear Sir,

General Patton's WW2 D-Day Piper Cub Reg. G-KIRK

In February last year, about a hundred miles off Haiti, Caribbean, my US army 1943 Piper Cub experienced engine failure and ditched in the sea. For the next three hours I huddled, freezing in a leaky life raft, waist high in water, desperately trying to keep my satellite distress beacon up out of the water!

Just as the sun was going down, expecting to be breakfast for the sharks, I heard the magic drone of a black and red US Coast Guard Jay Hawk helicopter, out of Great Inagua US Air Base, piloted by Julie Kuck with her merry rescue team.

Safely on dry land I quickly bought another aging J3 Piper Cub in Daytona, Florida, in order to carry on my life's dream, a ‘flight around the world'. I had competed in the 2001 London to Sydney Air Race sponsored by a benevolent Arizonian who, having read my web site, laughed so much paid my $50,000 ticket! A world record from Norfolk Island to Brisbane, Australia for a US J3 Cub and then engine failure with a spectacular crash, in Japan, are just a couple of stories in my travels.

Then things in Texas all went, may I suggest, somewhat ‘pear shaped'.

Whilst ‘test flying' my 1946 little yellow Cub out of a field near Houston, Texas, before setting off for the Falkland Islands, South America, I decided to thank Commander in Chief of US Coast Guard for saving my life. The plans were to land near Crawford and walk/taxi into the P49 Restriction Air Traffic Zone and deliver a note, similar to this, at the gate of the Texas residence. President Bush was away at the time.

I was, I believe, quite misunderstood and was arrested and deported back to UK with a suggestion from the US Embassy suggesting I will not be allowed to re enter the United States of America again. The Federal Aviation Authority [enclosed], however, telephoned me personally to assure me my flight, subject to paperwork, landing in farmer Hawkins's field, near Crawford, was no aviation offence.

I humbly request that I may be allowed to retrieve my little Cub in Houston and fly her direct across the Mexican border, one way, in order I may fulfil my dream of flying the Andes and to our British outpost.

Yours faithfully,

Maurice J Kirk BVSc, dob 12.3.45, Marlpits, St Donats Aerodrome, Llantwit Major, Wales CF61 1ZB

PS Enclosed US Pilot's report

To whom it may concern:

Brian Throop of the FAA in Washington D.C stated to me on 6/20/08 via telephone that as far as he knew there were no known airspace infractions or FAA violations made by Mr. Maurice Kirk. I have also spoke with Mr. Throop on several occasions in regards to Mr. Kirk. Tel: (202) 538-9013.

Also on 5/01/08 in taking Mr. Kirk back to his aircraft in Crawford, Texas. Mr. Arnold Theymeyer of the FAA in Ft. Worth Texas had a phone conversation with Mr. Kirk stating that he had committed no offenses, and was given authorization to fly his aircraft. My wife, Kandy Howell was also present and spoke with Mr. Arnold Theymeyer.

Alvin M. Howell

Private Pilot/Airframe and Power Plant Technician/Inspection Authorization with 36 years experience in the aviation industry. Have had a US private pilot's license since 1974. I also work for Standard Aero located at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston as a QA inspector on corporate Business Jets.

My wife and I have a business that provides Safety Compliance Training to Aviation Maintenance Certified Repair Stations.

AMT Training Solutions

http://www.amt-1.com/

Thanks for your time

Sincerely

Alvin M. Howell

22715 Piper Rd

Needville, Tx. 77461

(979) 553-3040 home

(281) 974-6593 cell

The Ultimate Whitehall Farce Monday 16th June

Maurice — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:02:00 GMT

I have to go to London on Monday to argue my corner as to how the RCVS have hurriedly pushed through legislation in the 20.7 rule of the 2004 Court Procedures to prevent me ever practicing again as a veterinary surgeon. I need to lodge it at the Court of Appeal after the hearing but need to know just how to do it?

I have to walk round the corner to Kingsway and CAA House for, what I hope will be, a cosy chat with their legal department on outstanding matters..

I also have to find out why the Royal Courts are sitting on my Emergency Application against the Civil Aviation Authority preventing me to fly on to Africa next month in my 1943 WW2 Piper Cub? President Bush's men confirmed I committed no aviation offence when I landed in a farmer's field 5 miles from his Texan Ranch but the CAA cannot get, it appears, CIA, FBI, Secret Service, FAA, DHS, ICE, State Police or a few other organisations to confirm my belief mainly because the United States avoids any paper trail of custody records of a prisoner when ever possible unlike the UK. My unlawful detention in Houston Prison and Texas's State Lunatic Asylum is 'small beer' compared to the relevance of malfeasance of UK Government Departments exposed in the court papers for Monday .

Lunch is on me.

I then need to stroll down to the House of Lords in the afternoon to find out procedure to overturn the judgment by Lord justice Thomas refusing me a lawyer to act on my behalf and my legal right a jury for my harassment case against the South Wales police, the original complainants to get me struck off.

Tuesday may be a lot more fun, again exposing what the media refuse to print..... the real state of our judiciary See downloads

US Deportation

Maurice — Mon, 26 May 2008 09:34:00 GMT

Now the plan was to fly in my new little yellow cub from Texas on to the Falkland Islands with my latest sponsors, Alvin and Kandy of AMT Training Solutions, promoting our talks along the way.

From Argentina I was to fly back up the Andes mountain range to the Rockies for Alaska. My floats were waiting there and once assembled it was either trans-Canada on the lakes, converting to skis for the North Pole on the Hudson Bay or, if no sponsorship matured, back on wheels again for Greenland and home.

But arrested just 5 miles from the US President's ranch near Crawford, East Texas, on the 25^th April at gun point, had now put the whole dream in jeopardy.

Once the Secret Service had handed me over to the FBI on the side of the road [like I was the last fertile Dodo egg on the planet] then the Sheriff of McClellan County turns up, Stetson and all amounting to eleven vehicles by now. After numerous phone calls I was made to do the ‘field sobriety' test and ‘walk the line', heel to toe, nine times, turn and repeat the same back again without falling over or miscounting!

Now counting was fine but memories immediately came flooding back of a certain veterinary student, Gareth Jones, back in 1967 who, whilst a little under the influence of my home made beer, returning late at night from a boat party in Bristol, had received the very first roadside ‘breath test' having put his old car through a hedge! The Breath Test marked the ending of the days when certain of the ‘chosen', unrecognised at the motoring scene, were later taken aside at the station to be allowed to quietly sober up!

Needless to say I failed the ‘sobriety test'. To walk in the way dictated, with all that metal in my leg, a previously dislocated hip, a fractured pelvis, ankle and toes made it quite out of the question!

So on to the Waco County Prison was my next stop, in handcuffs again, for Uncle Sam's alternative, a ‘definitive test' by blowing into a machine which gave the predicted four nought reading of alcohol in the blood stream. The hastily thought after drug tests held a similar zero result. But this was just delay tactics with no audit trail.

Was I going home now? No chance. After still more delay it was then suggested I had said to a prison warder, during a very fascinating prison experience, I had ‘glided my aircraft from Japan onto the US President's front lawn and recently had ditched [another aeroplane, I assume] in the Caribbean'. I was therefore going to Waco Hospital with the Secret Service in train for fear I was mentally ill!

After many hours of interrogation, brain scans, x-rays and analysis of body fluids, long into the dead of night, I was eventually shipped off to Austin State Hospital, down south, in handcuffs to the secure Psychiatric Unit for up to 90 days ‘observation'.

A little record keeping appeared to be creeping in so I again demanded the usual things one does in such circumstances. The making of a detailed written statement under caution and obtaining a copy of it was just one request. Access to telephone my wife, an independent medical examination, a copy of my medical records was another. "Dream on, Maurice".

After a week and failure to get heard in a court of law, get a lawyer of my own choosing, my own doctor or speak or be able to write to my family I am suddenly released with the offer of a lift to my cub in the farmer's field from either The President's Men or Deputy Sheriff of the County...my choice.

I chose neither. At the aircraft, having enjoyed Alvin and Kandy's lift and company over lunch, I say good bye and fly south for maintenance, the installing of wing tanks for Argentina and for the re registration to a UK register now it was obvious even to me, to travel foreign in a US aircraft, especially South America, sleeping under the fuselage at night or not, was shear folly.

Bellville police, a one horse town two hundred miles south, near Houston, had other ideas.

I was soon re arrested and charged for having an open alcoholic container on the road side and had much of the night under Secret Service interrogation all over again before being put back on a concrete floor with no bedding.

Next day with much futile plea bargaining, offering me $500, bail waiver and time off for good behaviour thrown my way, I am clamped in leg irons, chains and handcuffs and sped away to Houston's huge body disposal factory for aliens dominated by affable but apparently subservient Mexicans who slept most of the day and snored most of the night.

To cut a long story short I was soon segregated for ten days from the one thousand inmates without access to any semblance of a judicial system, contact with my wife or Embassy, seriously worried I had been drugged and denied my medication. My Texas partner of AMT Training Solutions, http://www.amt-1.com/ was refused his weekly visit but at least had it confirmed to him I was there and in solitary confinement.

For the nurse to have to ring ‘Washington', right in front of me, while two doctors surmised as to just which bloods the Pentagon needed, said it all. Especially when everybody there but me knew I was to be put on a scheduled flight to England within a few hours and escorted by members of United States Department of Homeland Security all the way to Gatwick, UK.

I have landed in twenty nine countries so far, flying around the world in a J3 cub, each peoples revealing their own welcome, hospitality and friendship. The current United States of America is not the one I remember when as a veterinary student in 1964 on a seven week vacation. I hitch-hiked from New York to Los Angeles to Vancouver to Quebec, finishing up with two nights under a tree in Central Park and all on just ten dollars twenty five cents.

On the eight thousand mile hike almost every Canadian or Yank greeted me with a great smile and embarrassing hospitality. Now, forty years on, I'm not just old and grumpy the US is a far different place.

30lb Lighter

Kirstie — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:27:00 GMT

Hello

I was correct. M did stop eating while at the Houston Deportation Centre and has returned some 30lb lighter than he set off. He always loses weight when he does an appreciable amount of flying (so much flying to do, so little time to eat...) but 30lb in a short time is rather excessive and he looks positively scrawny. Last Saturday found us in casualty as he was so unwell. He was discharged to rest, drink lots of water and eat small light meals - he has done none of these and is now having difficulty in eating at all. However, little changes and pale, wan and thin as he is he has started to tackle the CAA in an effort to have his licences restored.

I gather from the FCO that Houston Deportation Centre described M as being difficult to deal with ....(not so easy to live with sometimes).

KK (M's wife)

Heading Home to the UK

Kirstie — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:34:00 GMT

Hello

Have received some encouraging news from FCO this afternoon (Thurs.). M is expected to be home soon.

I have had no opportunity to speak to him but I gather that he has telephoned friends in Texas. I am told that he does not sound too well. I was probably correct in my assumption that he would stop eating in a protest re his predicament.

Let's see what tomorrow brings. The next post may be by M.

KK (M's wife)

Nil Information

Kirstie — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:26:00 GMT

Hello (Monday pm)

M's friend travelled to Austin deportation centre to visit m today - M is allowed one person to visit for one hour once a week - Monday between 9am and 1pm.

He was not allowed access to M as M is in "segregation"? Our equivalent of solitary confinement, I suppose.

On receiving this information I telephoned the consular office in Houston. Perhaps more information can be discovered tomorrow.

It may be that he prefers his own company at the moment.

I hope that he is not refusing food - he alluded to this when being held at Austin State Hospital and I'm afraid that the conditions that were frustrating him then are now magnified.

It would be good to know when he is likely to be back here in GB. I certainly find this somewhat protracted "nil information" time rather difficult, not least because one can only speculate on the true situation.

KK (M's wife)

Only One Step Up From Jail

Kirstie — Mon, 12 May 2008 04:08:00 GMT

Good evening (Sunday pm)

Still no positive news. I understand that M will be deported, probably within 10 working days if all is straightforward (can any of this be straightforward - none has been so far).

I haven't spoken to M for 10 days and hope that he is OK. I suspect that that he's bearing up. I was told that a deportation centre is "one step up from jail". Perhaps he's more comfortable than here at home.

His friends haven't managed to track all his belongings - some appear to be missing including his video records of this trip and his GPS.

Hope very much to hear more soon.

KK (M's wife)

An Englishman in Texas

Maurice — Mon, 12 May 2008 04:01:00 GMT

25^th April 2008

I had recently landed, only to take off again, from McGregor Airport, Waco, Texas, on a most gorgeous bright April day in order to find somewhere more hospitable for the night. The weather forecast for the day had indicated scattered transient but inclement weather from cumulonimbus clouds gathering to the south. I noted these were now gathering significantly in size, charged with their electricity, soon enveloping the heavens with a much heavier dark fluffy pattern. My direction of flight in the old two seater J3 Piper Cub aircraft was somewhat settled for me as the skies to the south and east quickly turned ominous.

A downpour of rain then hit the aeroplane as I purred along at seventy miles per hour making forward vision virtually impossible. Just minutes earlier it had been streaming sun shine with not a breath of wind. Thunder and lightning soon broke out and continued long after I had decided to duck out of it into a pretty Texan meadow far below. On approach to land, following a preliminary circuit to spy out potholes, ditches and possible wire, I was greeted by a huge flower bed of pink and white flowers, weeds do doubt and a muscle bound black bull grazing with his herd at the other end of the strip. He could be sorted later.

Either under or over the power cables, straddling the long grass, was my dilemma due to a sudden change in wind direction now buffeting us both violently from the side. It also did not help my final decision as to just which field was best to get out of this turbulence, forces sufficient now to cause structural damage to the airframe. As the old adage goes, ‘never land unless you are sure you can get out again'!

However, with decision now made and committed on a somewhat rutted and possibly boggy permanent pasture, prone to flooding, I later noticed, I throttled the engine back and glided down through rain that was simply bucketing down while the lightning crackled all around illuminating the black back drop of a sky before us.

Water poured into the cockpit in the descent as both windows and doors had to be wide open in order that I could stick my head out into the slip stream to try and see with better accuracy and just where we were going to finish up was paramount in the agenda!

Safely on the ground I taxied her back close to the road and bridge with tail facing the wind hoping that, should the wind suddenly change direction again, I could rely on the raised road and trees for protection while I hurriedly reached for the ropes, hammer and the nails for picketing her down.

No sooner had I started the wind died and the sun appeared! All I could hear was a peaceful cacophony of bird sounds in the adjacent woodland. No other man made machine in sight. Only the euphoria, post flight, experienced by pilots that have just ‘broke the bonds of earth'.

The severe thunder storm had moved one, albeit but a few fields away. A Texan field, incidentally, can stretch a mile or two in all directions. A little different to my South Wales six hundred foot airstrip outside our kitchen window in the shadow of Randolph Hurst's old Norman castle.

I was then taken aback by the beauty around me. Flowers and the abundance of lush green foliage was everywhere. No different, at first site, to the farmland in the West Country of England where I had been brought up as a child. The Texan summer was yet to arrive.

One of the issues deciding which field to land in, as I circled overhead, was the sight of a huge Texan flag painted on the full length of a barn roof. Well, at least I am still in hospitable surroundings, I thought, as I reminisced on the wonderful hospitality over the past few days that I had enjoyed from Houston, San Marcos to Odessa and then back to Robert Lee and Comanche.

I decided the storm was gone and so clambered up onto the road before deciding what to do next.

Having decided which way to walk I slowly set off down the road in a westerly direction my right ankle, full of fixation screws from an old hang gliding accident, ‘telling me all about it' as the rough ground of the field had exacerbated the ensuing arthritis and, no doubt, made worse with the result of far too much good or not so good red wine over the years.

I wished to leave a message of thanks to a local ranch owner concerning the US Coast Guard, my having previously checked he was away but just might be back for the coming week end, starting tomorrow.

Another thunderstorm, as if from nowhere, soon had me drenched but wind there was not. Hard hailstones, almost the size of pigeon eggs, hurt as they bounced off my hat and shoulders. Again the shower and lightning was gone almost as quickly as it had arrived leaving the road in large puddles of crystal clear water.. The sun was again blazing down and I must have been at least a mile down the road by now from the little Cub, in the process of trying to photograph a scissor bird on a fence, when I heard a screech of tyres behind me.

I looked round to see two fast moving male white Caucasians exiting the limousine at speed. I was impressed. Both were brandishing what looked like nine millimetre Berretta pistols but the only problem was, they were both pointing at me.

Up with the hands, down spread eagled on the road, hands slowly behind your back, for handcuffs, the usual stuff, seen on television, except I was having to do it! Face down on the gravel is not comfortable nor is it easy for a sixty three year old trying to get up again with his hands behind his back.

Pockets are searched while a passport is quickly tendered by the prisoner with the vain hope of expediting this sudden new relationship thrust upon him with the well dressed ‘men in black'. What was to turn out would be a long drawn out experience, debatably quite unlawful, in a Texas Mental Institution.

As Dryden wrote, around the turn of the 17^th century:

"There is a pleasure sure in being mad that none but mad men know".