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Landing at Mouse Hunter’s.

John Lynch was an accomplished pilot and aeroplane builder. He lived outside of town. A hermit who kept his front gate padlocked to keep visitors out of his property on which he had built an airstrip to fly from.
I knew John as “Mouse Hunter because” during a recent mouse plague he bragged he could shoot a mouse at 20 yards and off the hip too. Well Mouse Hunter built perspex canopies for aeroplanes and gliders. He had also built a tail – less glider. The ailerons doubled as elevators, a delta wing type of deal. He built many models. He lived a sort of Santa Claus life building things just for his pleasure.

I’d visit him by landing on his strip and I would pull up at his front door. Myself and my friend Terry Walsh did that one in a DeHavilland Beaver. About the late ‘80’s. What a disastrous landing. Came so close to a crash. It went like this. The Beaver has one pole and that can be flipped to either side. It has one set of peddles which are a fixture on the left hand side. I had the pole on the right and Terry had the peddles on the left. One or the other of us two must have both. We didn’t. Both pole and peddles must be coordinated. We weren’t able to . Off to the left we went, then to the right which we kept up totally uncontrolled until we came to a stop at his front glass doors. The propeller about to trash the front entrance and the front entrance about to trash the propeller. Mouse Hunter didn’t waste time standing around, he was off.
Conclusion of the story. The brain that controls the pole must also be the brain that controls the pedals.

I did my own laundry that afternoon. I didn’t want my secret to get out.