another scary plane trip started with me and my boss driving for 5 hrs to get to a small bush town for meetings etc - unfortunately is was in the wet [cyclone] season and we couldn't drive back because of flooding.
SO - we booked on the next available 13 seater cessna back home. we arrived at the deserted airport having crawled through a fence to get in and then had our luggage and selves weighed by the pilot on a bathroom scales. eventually we boarded and took off - within minutes my boss tapped me on the shoulder and said " what's that gas coming out of the right wing?" I tapped the pilot on the shoulder as I was immediately behind and pointed it out " oh dear he said" that's all but circled and landed again.he did explain that it was leaking from the wing where it was stored. He rang base for advice then filled the tank in the wing and we took off again rather late now.
by this time everyone on board was alert and sure enough someone spotted fuel gassing out of the left wing this time. this was pointed out to the pilot who let rip with a superlative "Oh *****" circled around and landed again. this time he knew his error and refilled and we took off again. eventually all went well and it was a 2 hr trip back. I nodded off to sleep and suddenly heard a great banging and thought the engine was cracking up. I awoke and said :what the ***** is going on?" my boss assured me that the man in front of me had been having a violent coughing fit!
on board was a little catholic nun who had said nothing- we stopped halfway to pick up more passengers and got out to stretch our legs - she walked alongside me and asked " do you think he knows how to fly a plane?" YES i said I think he's a good pilot but doesn't know how to put petrol caps back on. the caps had very long threads which had to fit into a hole in the bottom of the wing which allowed the cap to be tightened correctly. when he called base they told him how to do it. turned out he didn't fly regularly and was a pilot trainer but there had been a shortage of staff and he had to fill in. FILL being the operative word.
Nothing really unusual about this tale - they happen all the time up at the top end and provide many hours of story telling around a camp fire!
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