Continuing my RAF African odyssey..... Frequent use was made of towing a drogue behind an aircraft for other planes to have shooting practice with a camera 'gun.' This device was attached to the tail of the towing plane & was ultimately released & allowed to fall to the ground before landing. I remember on one occasion setting off to retrieve this with several native helpers. I was aware of a pilot about to take-off & signalled him not to do so. His plane could have become entangled in hundreds of yards of steel cable with fatal consequences, to him & his crew, or so I thought. However the impatient b****** eventually decided to to take-off, tail up, full throttle across the grass with the cable caught up in his tail wheel. I suddenly became aware that all around me great loops of steel wire were leaping into the air to a height of about 4-5 feet. Never one for doing things , as the expression goes, 'by halves' I suddenly realised I was shortly about to be a creature of halves, at that moment when the loop of wire in which I was standing was no longer a loop. Screaming at my helpers to run for it with no one knowing in which direction to go we ran & ran until clear of the wire. Luckily we all survived but I have often thought, what a funny way to die - for someone who never believed in doing things 'by halves'
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