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A Blunder in Training

Heroes Remember

A Blunder in Training

Transcript
One that I do recount in my book, but I didn't, I didn't spread around at the time. In OTU in England, now you, we went to OTU up in Grangemouth, north of Stirling, north of Edinburgh, and there you learn to fly a Spitfire, but a Spitfire is a single-engined air craft, you fly with your instructor on an master and then he sits beside you after the Spitfire is, is parked and he goes through the cockpit and tells you everything that you have to do. And you read about it and you have, there are about 16 things that you do when you get in the air craft, this and this and this. One important thing was to, when you, before you take off, you put the pitch of the blade into fine pitch, or, so that it, well, you get more power to take off. Well I was so, I got the instructor to, I was his crazy pilot who was brilliant you know but unreliable, anyway I got him to let me go off first of my group, I was quite, and he finally gave me a, a survey again of the cockpit and all the things I was to do, but I wasn't listening really. And so I got into that ruddy air craft and everything went well, and then I pushed the throttle forward and everybody told me, we were all told, how the tremendous acceleration you have in a Spitfire, nothing like a Harvard or anything, you pushed back, and then you, so I pushed the throttle all the way forward and the, the Spit started down the runway and, but it sounded like a truck, and it was roar, roar, and it, I couldn't get it up in the air. I pulled back the stick and, and I could see the end of the runway, I could see the bush at the end. Well, finally, I got, just got airborne, just enough, I couldn't even get the wheels up because I was afraid I was going to hit the trees, and I finally did a long wide circuit because it was going so slow, I was almost stalling, I was going only about eighty or ninety. And as I turned I saw these red lights coming up from the Aerodrome. Oh, and I thought, "Well, there is something wrong," and I could see there was something wrong with the aircraft but stupidly I didn't think about the pitch, I was in course pitch all the time not fine pitch. Anyway I just made the hillside and just got back in and my instructor, oh he was white in the face, he, when I taxied up to him. He said, "You bloody sod, you bloody fool. You were in course pitch and you're still in course pitch, you get out." So I was grounded for five days. So that was the most exciting, bad time of my...
Description

Mr. Sager recounts his most embarrassing story from the time he spent with the Operational Training Unit (OTU) when he first started flying the Spitfire.

Arthur Hazelton Sager

Mr. Sager was born in Hazelton, BC, where his father was working as a medical missionary. He was the eldest boy in his family, growing up with two brothers and four sisters. He and his family were pacifists (against war). Mr Sager quit school at age seventeen and went to work in a gold mine. At the outbreak of war Mr. Sager was living in London, England, working as a professional actor, as well as a reporter and had the opportunity to interview Jews and other people that had fled mainland Europe. The stories he heard from these people led to the changing of his pacifist attitudes. Mr. Sager also had two brothers who served, one in the Royal Canadian Navy and the other in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Mr. Sager joined the RCAF and flew many combat missions over Europe. He had a very successful career earning the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) with bars, and his flying record at the end of the war stood at six destroyed, two probable and five damaged. By the end of the war, Mr. Sager was made a commanding office After the war Mr. Sager also had a distinguished career as a private citizen. Among his many jobs, he spent twenty years working for the United Nations as Project Manager for developing countries, as well as a member of the Executive of the Royal Canadian Air Force Association.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
03:04
Person Interviewed:
Arthur Hazelton Sager
War, Conflict or Mission:
Second World War
Location/Theatre:
Europe
Branch:
Air Force
Units/Ship:
416, 421, 443 Squadron
Rank:
Flight Commander
Occupation:
Pilot

Copyright / Permission to Reproduce

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