[Ian Anderson]

I was employed by Air Rhodesia around the time that Prince Charles gave away Rhodesia to Bob Mugabe and I can confirn these 2 things happened - saw them both from the engineering area.

1) A pilot was out doing touch and goes in a Viscount under instruction and everything went well for a number of circuits - switches were turned off to see how he handled things and all went well.

so he was told to land for the final time and he says OK we have a problem on the landing gear - expecting to be told - no I hit the switch - the examiner said What are yiou talking about - checked the light and confirmed the warning was real

They requested a tower flypast that was agreed and the tower confirmed nose and 1 main down only.

They tried manual pump to try and lower but nothing

So burnt off as much fuel as they could and landed it on the 2 legs with only the engines running on the "good" side

He held it to about 25 mph before droping the wing

He got his wings to work the Viscounts after doing tha!

It was found thatin order to stop the planes being shot down by Surface to Air missiles they were fited with "anti Astrella" pipes that created a hot spot aft of the engine and wing thereby giving a target for the missile.

With all the touch and goes the mountings of the "anti astrella" had moved and slid to stop the undercarriage door opening - without the door opening (almost under gravity) the wheel would not deploy.

Next day all the planes were rechecked to ensure the anti astrella parts were not slipping.


Then when all the pomp and ceremony of the arrival of Charles they decided to give him a fly by of the military might (3 Hawker hunters if memory serves correct) that went up the runway at about 300 feet.
Big cheer from the crowd

Then out of the blue as Charlie turned around Geoff Mallick (of Affretair)(Spelling?) flew up the road from Salisbury, hopped over the main terminal and did a victory roll over Charles and the rest assembled on the tar. He was in his Spitfire that he had managed to get airworthy about 3 weeks earlier and traversed the airport at 90 degrees to the rest of the planes (at about 50 feet)

He was arrested when he landed 10 minutes later.

Charles was impressed so they (Ian Smith and co) decided to release him without charge. A few months later he flew the Spitfire into a cloud and was dumped out the bottom and killed.

Memories!

Ian