OT : Flying a Powered Plane Backwards?!?!

[mungee]

Although this is not directly related to Il-2 Sturmovik/1946 etc, I thought that this audience would find the following true story AMAZING.

To put it all into perspective I can thoroughly recommebnd you reading the background to this - I've detailed it on Ubi.com's IL-2 forum - here's the link:

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/t...3/m/9711000897


For those of you who haven't read the background (see above), I've recently had the privilege and honour of meeting a WWII Glider Pilot by the name of Trevor Francis (a veteran of Arnhem etc) and he told me the most incredible story (see above link - I can really recommend that you read it).

Trevor recently gave me some old copies of "The Eagle", the magazine for "The Glider Pilots' Regimental Association") and the following was written by Trevor Francis in one of the issues:

“… the following day I was asked to see if a Halifax could be used in the low tow position without turning the Horsa upside down. I did it and it was no difference to the Lancaster. This was an RAF request.

“Using my favour to them, I asked permission to prove you could fly a power plane backwards, I remember reading it could be done but most of our chaps would not believe it. When we had a 70 mph wind, I took off in a Tiger Moth which took a long time to reach the end of the field where upon doing so, I throttled back to just below 60mph finally reaching where I had taken off from and just landed."

Extract from “The Eagle” – the magazine of ‘The Glider Pilot Regimental Association’

Amazing chap!!! What stories to tell!