So, there I was, fully dressed in the typical “Postman Pat” charter pilot uniform, my four bars clearly visible, waiting for the pupils to finish their break and come into the classroom. My teacher friend was an educator at an uber posh all boys school in Joburg, and this week's theme was transport. She had asked me to come in to talk to her class about aviation. Having time on the ground, in between jobs, I could hardly say no. How hard could it be?
The classroom had already been emptied of all desks and chairs in preparation for this event. Without asking me, she had invited the entire grade to attend. The boisterous pupils ran into the classroom one by one.
“Where's the pilot?” was shouted excitedly as they entered the room.
When they saw me, they couldn't hide their disappointment. I didn't exactly look like one of their TopGun heroes, or whatever they were expecting. Their expression dropped one by one but soon the excitement and expectation levels shot back up.
At the behest of the teachers, they shuffled closer to each other so that all 40 kids could fit.
I have never seen so many pairs of expectant eyes on me in my life. The boys were seated cross-legged on the carpet and every single one was quietly looking at me. I got a bit nervous and felt the sweat start to trickle down my neck at the back and opened one of the buttons of my shirt at the front. Having difficulty breathing normally, I thought:” Come on, get your sh*t together, these are eight-year-olds, for goodness' sake. How hard could it be?”
“How fast do your parents drive on the highway?” I started the session with something they could already relate to.
All hands shot up.
“Yes? You.” I pointed at a smallish boy on the left.
“Mom drives 120Km/h, but they fight when Dad drives….”
Not wanting the lad to incriminate his father, I quickly cut in and said: “My aircraft can take off and fly at less speed than that, pointing to the Cessna 172 poster.
“No wayyyyy.”
“How come the car doesn't take off then?!”
“At what speed?”
“What weighs more?”
“Is that your plane?”
So many questions all at once, I knew I had them. This would be a piece of cake.
After giving them a very simplified version of the Lift Theory, I moved on to Radio work. To keep their attention, I had prepared a morse code chart, also showing the phonetic alphabet. The pages were distributed amongst themselves at lightning speed.
“Who has the shortest name in this classroom?”
One hand shot up as half the boys pointed to a little boy called Ali.
“In aviation, we would say: Alpha Lima India. A for Alpha, L for Lima, I for India.”
They all chanted Alpha Lima India, looking at their charts.
“Who has the second longest name here?”
“Clearly having waited for this, someone shouted: “Me!!!! Luke!!!” at the top of his lungs. “My name is Luke with a K.”
“Lima Uniform Kilo Echo. Now everyone try and figure out what your names would be using the paper I gave you.”
After some time, I asked: “Why do you think pilots speak like that?”
Many hands shot up, but a taller sunburnt boy in the back was punching the air with his index finger the hardest. I thought he might take off, next. I pointed to him.
“You.”
So convinced was he of his answer, he screamed out: “So the Germans don't know!!!”
I looked at the teacher in complete surprise. She knew of my German heritage and mouthed across the sea of heads: “His family have just arrived from England.”
Ah.
“They know.” I assured the little pommie, “I know, they know, because they also talk like that and I have flown in Germany. They definitely know.”
Wouldn't I like to be a fly on the wall at their dinner table.
That left the boy floored.
I took out the handheld radio and tuned it to the Tambo Approach frequency.
“Can you hear the static and the amount of calls on this frequency? We therefore use the phonetic alphabet to make sure that we are more easily understood. If everything is clear the first time, we do not have to clutter up the frequencies with repeat radio calls.”
“Is that even legal???” one eight-year-old shouted from the back of the class.
“His dad is a lawyer…” the teacher mouthed across the room, rolling her eyes.
I started sweating buckets again, feeling ever so slightly attacked.
“It is legal for us to listen to this, but it would be illegal to start chatting on this radio right now. Or talking for any non-aviation related reason.”
Not convinced, the boy held his ears closed, so that he could not be incriminated, as he couldn't hear anything.
Having planned to talk about how to become a pilot, I was relieved when the bell rang. My shoulders untensed as the boys jumped up and ran out of the classroom, racing to see who could get to the tuck shop first. Only the sunburnt kid stayed behind and asked: “Do they really know?”
“They know.” I nodded and looked up at the teacher, who was laughing silently.
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