with a a relatively short takeoff run.
So, I told my squadron commander in Linton-on-Ouse
seeking his advice and he said "Bennett!"
He said "I can't give you advice, you're there,
"you must make up your mind the best thing to do".
He said "but we would much prefer you to fly back
"so that the aircraft is available for ops tonight".
He said "otherwise, we would have to put it on a trailer,
"bring it back by road".
So, I thought, oh dear (laughs).
Now, if I can enlarge again,
when you opened up the throttle,
about two-thirds of the way up was a wire
that stopped the throttles going beyond that point.
So, if you opened the throttles to that point,
each engine was giving 2650 revs,
which was enough to get you off and on the runway.
But from a short strip like West Malling,
I thought, well, we're never gonna get off.
So, I thought, now's the time to, what we call,
go through the gate so I brought that wire away,
which allowed the throttles to go right to the end
of the quadrant so instead of giving 2650 revs,
it went up to about 3000
and you never heard engines howl like that (laughs).
So, when, attach it to the end of the runway,
we had just enough fuel to get back to Linton-on-Ouse
with about half an hour so we were as light as we could be.
So, we got to the end of the landing strip,
the brakes through your, on foot-pedals
so you put the brakes on and opened up
and the aircraft was willing to go
and when you got to full throttle, you released the brakes
and away we went and the end was getting nearer
and nearer and nearer, we were almost at the end
and I pulled it back, I said, we're either gonna crash
or we're gonna make it and we just lifted off
and got back to Linton-on-Ouse in one piece (laughs).
