RIGHT SEAT RULES NO. 8 - THE PREFLIGHT BRIEFING.

If I were a fisherman, which I'm not, I would exhort fellow piscators, via the Best Bait Buyers' Bulletin, to use the right worms. As an instructor, I now beg you to use the right words - always.

- JIM DAVIS

SOME TIME AGO I SAVED FOUR LIVES, one being mine, before lunch, by doing exactly that. Here’s what happened.

I had a little flying school in Port Elizabeth, and so did the SAAF. At the Algoa Flying Club we would often all make merry together.

I soon realised that the SAAF pilots would give anything to fly my Tiger Moth. Their currency was time in a Harvard, or an Impala, and the going rate was two hours in their government-sponsored toys, in exchange for each hour in my Tiger (R2 worth of fuel).

I kid you not. This was my mate Bob Emmett’s holiday expenses when he flew his little Aeronca Champ from Knysna up the Wild Coast.

It was on the occasion of my first flight in an Impala that my prompt use of the right worm, sorry, word, saved everyone’s lives. And do you suppose they thanked me? Little buggers.

The flight wasn’t exactly what I expected. The back-slapping captain with whom I had enjoyed several pints in the pub only appeared briefly to introduce me to three spotty fourteen-year-olds. Two of them would propel one Impala while I was to be a passenger in the other. Hmmmmm. Not really what I was hoping for.

I was kitted out with overalls and helmet, both of which trailed a young snake-park of tubes, wires and pipes. We then sat in a briefing room and were talked at by someone who told me, and the acne trio, that I was to be a passenger in a low-level formo flight to the west of Kirkwood.

After going inverted and crossing a couple of ridges of high ground, we were to become uninverted, climb to plenty of feet and do some pre-planned aerobatics.