Scene: Ronaldsay Airport, Isle of Man. Preparations for departure of a six-seater Cherokee (single-engined) for Northern Ireland.
Personnel: Three "mature" ladies, one quite agile one, one Lhasa, two Griffons, one Dallie (Dalmatian), two Shelties, and the owner/pilot, John.
As dawn breaks we are let through the wire door onto the airport far away from the terminal building by John, who greets us all cheerily and says it's going to be a lovely day for flying, which helps to calm my apprehension. We troop between buildings and come to a very small plane with two doors, the one on the left set further back than the other.
John mentally measures and weighs up the party and it is decided the Beverly (the agile one) and the Dallie should sit on the rear seat, which they nip into with the middle seat folded forwards. Then it is Di's turn, and with John holding the Griffons, by dint of much pulling and pushing, she plumps down onto her seat. John hands in the Griffons and shuts the door.
He then invites me and the chairperson of our club round to the right hand side, and suggests that as I have two dogs I should get in first and sit next to Di. Fine, but how? The plane slopes down from fore to aft quite steeply, so the door is at about my shoulder level. John points out a stanchion sticking out of the fuselage and suggests I put (necessarily) my left foot on it and then step up onto the wing and get in while he holds the Shelties. Well, I managed it, graceful it was probably not, and John then placed both Shelties on the wing and fed their leads around the corner so that they could jump down onto my lap.
This left Elaine. She must be all of 5'9" tall and very comfortably built. John held the Lhasa while she tried to repeat my manoeuvre, but was quite unable to fold up small enough to make the doorway, try as she might. They then had the bright idea that she should sit down on the wing and swing her legs round 90 degrees and sort of lower herself in, feet first. In theory, the only way to go, but the wing slopes considerably towards the rear, and as she sat down, she started to slide (there's nothing to hold onto) and there was her astonished face about 10" from mine with only the window between us, gently gliding past! Luckily, John was able to stop her sliding off, manhandle her around and shove her in, followed by the Lhasa.
He then stuck his head in after her and enquired if we were all OK, and the dogs? By then, Di and I had tears streaming down our faces, but managed to reply favourably. John seemed pleased, but his smile quickly faded and his said, "Oh, s* *t! I've forgotten to get in myself!" There was no way he could squeeze in between Elaine (ample) the Lhasa and the dashboard, so he had to shut them in and go round to open the other door, ease himself between Bev and the Dallie, then attempt the 4" passage between Di and myself, both, you'll recall, with lapfuls of dogs. He ended up arriving on the pilot's seat shoulder first with his legs in the
air!
After all this, quite forgot to feel nervous, we all had a good day at Belfast Championship Show and returned on the coach to the little airport as the sun was sinking with a wonderful rosy glow over Strangford Lough. John let us into the runway area, the plane being some 100 yours away.
Somehow, Bev let go of the Dallie which bounded off - our hearts were in our mouths, with another plane expected any minute. But no, he'd seen the plane with the front door left open, ran straight there, achieved a 5' leap up onto the wing and put his front feet down onto Elaine's seat. All we could see was this very spotty bottom sticking out, tail wagging furiously! As Bev remarked, and he loves flying and he had won the Utility Stakes, after all!
