Alison's general attitude to general aviation is along the lines of "you'll never get me up in one of those things", but she has braved it occasionally down south, on photographic missions in Willie Gough's C172. For these, I was in the right-hand seat with the door off, and held in by baler twine for additional safety as well as the seat belt which was rather frayed. One of Willie's sayings is: "you're only too low if you can recognise the people on the ground shaking their fists at you", so we were able to get good close-ups of some properties of interest. Willie liked using the radio, and kept informing the London Flight Information Region of our whereabouts until they very politely told him that this was unnecessary.

But mainly for lack of opportunity, Alison has never set foot off the ground from Glenforsa. I had hoped to introduce her to the delights of the West Highlands from the air this summer, but her first flight was to take place rather sooner than expected, on 17th March 2003. In an effort to lose weight, she had bought a pedometer and was determined to do 10,000 paces per day, a rather ambitious target I thought, but when she is set on something there is no stopping her.

Anyway, on Sunday 16th March she set off along the shore, and when she did not return after an hour or three I became worried, so set off in the Hillcat to look for her. She had slipped on some mud, fallen, and broken her ankle. Our neighbour Lol and I rescued her and took her up the the Mull cottage hospital at Salen, a mile or so from the airfield. She was X-rayed, a Potts fracture diagnosed, and kept in for the night. I was told that she would be taken to Paisley by road on the 0800 ferry next morning.

After a sleepless night I was at the ferry terminal to see her off, but found only an empty ambulance waiting for a patient to come off the ferry. I was told that she would be going on the 1100 sailing, so went home and was just about to set off again when the hospital phoned to say that she would be flown out at 1200. So off I went again, up to Salen, sat with her for a while, then went to see David at the airfield. Nobody had told him about the flight, so we got the farmer to clear the sheep off the runway area.

The air ambulance was delayed by another flight from Benbecula to Paisley, and finally turned up at 1415. She was transferred to the aircraft's stretcher with superb efficiency, and loaded:

And though cramped, she seemed thoroughly comfortable behind the right- hand pilot's seat, and able to enjoy superb views during the brief flight.

Checks complete - ready for departure. A wave from David is the only clearance needed!



And away she goes, off in a couple of hundred yards!

The whole operation was carried out with superb efficiency, the aircraft only being 16 minutes on the ground. The various administrative cock-ups were caused by the fact that all arrangements have to be made via an office in Paisley. The Mull hospital cannot call for a Mull ambulance without going through them.

So this was Alison's first flight from Glenforsa, and as you can see she had superb weather for it with high pressure all over the country. I am sure that after this experience, she will be clamouring to see more of our landscape from the air.