I belong to the Tiger Moth club, owning, as I do, a tenth share in a Tiger. Every year there is a 'Moth Charity Flying Weekend' where we all gather and give members of the public jollies around Bedfordshire for the benefit of local charities. Most of the Moth pilots are gazillion hour ex-military and civilian johnnies with a certain in-built pride about landing skills and techniques. For me as a low-hourer (we all are, compared to these guys) it is very heartening to watch some ex-military pilot bounce his Tiger all the way down the runway just like I do.

That's not the point of this ILAFFT, no, what happens is that all the pilots are keeping a keen eye on one anothers landings and pilot vanity being what it is, decide that they can be nearest the numbers and be off the active quicker and slicker than anyone else. So the approaches get lower and slower and lower and slower - until someone catches their prop on the trees on final approach and there is an untidy (and injury free) heap of DeHavilland fifty yards into the strip.

Embarassed silence all round and talk of windshear, curl over on short finals, etc, etc. Every fire engine in Bedford turns up, major incident, front page on local paper, AIB called, lots of tut-tutting, everyone becomes an instant accident expert, you know the score. The thing is, Old Warden has a 700 yard runway and we'd only been using the first third. For the rest of the day, everyone landed just fifty yards deeper.

Pilot vanity catches the unwary.

Jasper Fforde