Gerry Honey at Old Buckenham

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CLUB: TOUCHDOWN AEROCENTRE
AIRFIELD: OLD BUCKENHAM
WHERE: 12 NM SW OF NORWICH
MEMBERSHIP: 500
RUNWAYS: 07/25 (TARMAC & GRASS)
FACILITIES: RESTAURANT, FUEL, FLIGHT TRAINING, PARACHUTING, TRIAL FLIGHTS INCL' BOEING STEARMAN, M3 MAINTENANCE
TEL: 01953 860806
WEB: www.touchdownaerocentre.co.uk

Flying ace Gerry Honey, CFI at Old Buckenham, celebrates 50 years of flying.

It’s 50 years to the day that Gerry Honey started flying, and as we sit in his study at his home in the village of Kenninghall in Norfolk, it strikes me that here sits a man who can have very few regrets when it comes to his flying life. Gerry has been there, done it all. Say that to him though and you get a curt response. “You never, ever, stop learning. I’m still learning so much about flying, it’s not possible to know it all.”

Some people find Gerry intimidating. It’s true he is exacting and his standards are high. It’s also true that you will be hard pushed to meet someone who is has such a rich well of flying knowledge and who is so happy to pass it on. Ask Gerry to clarify a point and be prepared for a well informed, passionate and detailed answer. Gerry’s move into civil aviation happened in 1987 following 36 years in the RAF. The first aircraft he flew was a Harvard in Canada in 1955 under a NATO training scheme. A big and powerful aircraft that was made all the more tricky by flying off the snow pack for the majority of his initial training. What follows is an extraordinary list of types for any pilot’s logbook. It includes the Vampire (which Gerry was required to fly at Mach 0.84), Meteor, Hunter (the one Gerry flew now resides at Duxford), Piston Provost... and then came the exciting Folland Gnat. Gerry did the trials of the Gnat at RAF Valley and the quest was to rack up 1000 hours as quickly as possible to prove its robustness.

Not surprisingly, Gerry then went on to teach instructors how to fl y the Gnat at Central Flying School. In 1967, he went to RAF Cranwell as a Staff Officer, followed by a ‘covert’ stint in Oman. Gerry’s office is a museum of his life, and the shelves include the usual aircraft reference books, books on battles, training books and autobiographies. My eye is drawn to a book by Ranulph Fiennes. I ask Gerry if he has read Fiennes’s autobiography, Living Dangerously. I’m impressed when Gerry announces he was CO of the base at Salalah, which hosted Fiennes’s trek to find Ubar, known as the Atlantis of the Sands, in 1970. These were exciting times for Gerry. Each month he would debrief the Sultan of Oman, a man for whom Gerry developed a great deal of respect. On the last of these debriefs, the Sultan asked Gerry whether the Harrier would be a good aircraft to replace the ageing Strikemasters. It seemed the Sultan knew exactly where Gerry was off to next! In 1972 Gerry had to complete refresher training on Jet Provosts and then Hunters before spending the next three and a half years in Germany fl ying Harriers. He was then asked to run the Harrier desk at the MoD – his face says it all. It was a claustrophobic environment for action man Gerry. In 1977 he returned to Wittering flying the Harrier until late 1980 when he moved to the Hawk – for just two weeks. The Falklands conflict had started and Gerry was back on the Harriers but hostilities ceased by the time he got there.

His time in the Falklands was spent chasing Mirage jets as the pilots constantly infringed the no fly zone. In one classic feat of flying Gerry put a Harrier down on the deck of HMS Invincible in a storm where the winds were gusting 70kt, it was getting dark and the sea was none too inviting. From the Falklands, it was two years in Belize, then three years at NATO HQ in Germany. Now it was decision time... wait for the RAF to ship you out at age 55 or request to leave under your own terms. During his time in the RAF he always kept his civil licence current, even instructing in his spare time at Elstree while posted at the MoD. This made the transition from military to civil life all the easier. In the 18 years since leaving the RAF, Gerry has passed the 10,000 hour milestone, he’s a CAA test pilot, completed over 800 hours on the Stearman, flight tested numerous PFA types, examined hundreds of pilots and loved every minute of it. Here’s a man who has wrung almost every drop of fun out of the sky over the last 50 years. If you’ve never been to Old Buckenham, put it on your list and be sure to pop in

GERRY ON...

STARTING THE PPL: “Ask yourself about the most important resource of all - time. Have you got the time to devote one afternoon or morning a week? Try to turn up with time to spare instead of rushing in and rushing out. It’s importantto get your mind together before flying, sit down, have a cup of tea and think about what you are about to learn. Being prepared will save you money.”

GPS: “Recently a pilot flew in here Old Buckenham in conditions so bad many would deplore as irresponsible. I pointed out to him that this was not the wisest thing he had done and he said that with GPS it was easy! Everyone has to realise that GPS is indeed a wonderful piece of kit but it does not preclude responsible flying.”