Letter from Hedley Madgett to his parents
Title
Letter from Hedley Madgett to his parents
Description
Written from Medicine Hat announcing the course had finished and listing his ground examination results. Says that he has completed night flying but still has to do flight commander, C.F.I and final link trainer test. Writes that he passed his final wings test and describes flight. Talks of poor weather and that he still needs some flying hours. Mentions that he will get leave at the end of course and plans to go to New York despite currency issues.
Creator
Date
1942-02-04
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
Three page handwritten letter and envelope
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
EMadgettLR-AG-PMadgettHR420204
Transcription
[crest]
[underlined] 4th Feb. [/underlined]
Dear Mum, Dad & Peter,
I suppose you will be wondering why the lot of letters lately. Well, we have more time to spare, now that the course is finishing.
Today, the ground exam results came out, and I did better than I thought. Out of 49 on the Course, I came 24th with an average of 71.9%. (The highest was 82%) Armaments Oral 68%. Written 86%. Airmanship & maintenance 114/200, Navigation 227/150 Meteorology 28/50. Signals Oral 100%. Written 25.5/50.
Last night I finished my night flying having completed 40 landings and over 12 hours. As regards day flying I have yet to have the Flight Commanders test, and the dreaded C.F.I.’s test, and the final test on the hated Link, which is a cross country on rough air, finishing up with a Lorenz beam blind landing.
Today, I passed the Wings test, a 3 leg X Country which I think I told you about. On the 1st. leg however, after 20 miles thick cloud was below us; so we went down into them & find out how low they
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined]
were. But we were still in cloud at 700 ft. above the ground, so up we went again and turned on E.T.A. for the 2nd leg. The ground cleared 30 miles from our 2nd turning point and so [deleted] could [/deleted] I could pinpoint myself. The last leg I went under the hood, and after [deleted] 31 [/deleted] 25 min. the instructor told me to come [inserted] out [/inserted] & he took over control. We were running into dirty weather, and so went down low while we could still see the ground. Before long we were in heavy snow and flying 100’ feet above the railroad to Med. Hat in very bad visibility. It was good fun, especially when we reached Med. Hat town skimming over the roofs. Well, that’s all the X Countries I have to do thank goodness. This bad weather has lasted all this late afternoon and is snowing hard. We hope it does not last because its stopping flying, just at the end of the course when we want our hours. However, the weather up to now has been perfect: no one would think it Winter & so have got plenty of hours in. this station, in January got in a record number of hours, and beat all other stations in Canada.
[page break]
[underlined] 3. [/underlined]
We are having 10 days leave at the end of the Course; so I am going to America to visit that girl I write to, & then if possible & time allows get over to New York. Quite a number of us are going to New York but the snag is we are only allowed to take in $25 which won’t take us far because the American dollar is worth less than the Canadian $. Still, we will manage somehow.
Well, its getting rather late so I will close now. Please excuse the writing – I am writing in bed.
So, till next time.
With Love from [underlined] Hedley [/underlined]
P.S. Thanks for the telegram.
[page break]
[postmark][postage stamp]
Mr. & Mrs. L.R. Madgett.
127. Longlands Road.
Sidcup.
Kent.
England.
[inserted] Recd March 16 [/inserted]
[page break]
From L.A.C. H.R. Madgett.
34 S.F.T.S.
Med. Hat.
Canada.
[underlined] 4th Feb. [/underlined]
Dear Mum, Dad & Peter,
I suppose you will be wondering why the lot of letters lately. Well, we have more time to spare, now that the course is finishing.
Today, the ground exam results came out, and I did better than I thought. Out of 49 on the Course, I came 24th with an average of 71.9%. (The highest was 82%) Armaments Oral 68%. Written 86%. Airmanship & maintenance 114/200, Navigation 227/150 Meteorology 28/50. Signals Oral 100%. Written 25.5/50.
Last night I finished my night flying having completed 40 landings and over 12 hours. As regards day flying I have yet to have the Flight Commanders test, and the dreaded C.F.I.’s test, and the final test on the hated Link, which is a cross country on rough air, finishing up with a Lorenz beam blind landing.
Today, I passed the Wings test, a 3 leg X Country which I think I told you about. On the 1st. leg however, after 20 miles thick cloud was below us; so we went down into them & find out how low they
[page break]
[underlined] 2 [/underlined]
were. But we were still in cloud at 700 ft. above the ground, so up we went again and turned on E.T.A. for the 2nd leg. The ground cleared 30 miles from our 2nd turning point and so [deleted] could [/deleted] I could pinpoint myself. The last leg I went under the hood, and after [deleted] 31 [/deleted] 25 min. the instructor told me to come [inserted] out [/inserted] & he took over control. We were running into dirty weather, and so went down low while we could still see the ground. Before long we were in heavy snow and flying 100’ feet above the railroad to Med. Hat in very bad visibility. It was good fun, especially when we reached Med. Hat town skimming over the roofs. Well, that’s all the X Countries I have to do thank goodness. This bad weather has lasted all this late afternoon and is snowing hard. We hope it does not last because its stopping flying, just at the end of the course when we want our hours. However, the weather up to now has been perfect: no one would think it Winter & so have got plenty of hours in. this station, in January got in a record number of hours, and beat all other stations in Canada.
[page break]
[underlined] 3. [/underlined]
We are having 10 days leave at the end of the Course; so I am going to America to visit that girl I write to, & then if possible & time allows get over to New York. Quite a number of us are going to New York but the snag is we are only allowed to take in $25 which won’t take us far because the American dollar is worth less than the Canadian $. Still, we will manage somehow.
Well, its getting rather late so I will close now. Please excuse the writing – I am writing in bed.
So, till next time.
With Love from [underlined] Hedley [/underlined]
P.S. Thanks for the telegram.
[page break]
[postmark][postage stamp]
Mr. & Mrs. L.R. Madgett.
127. Longlands Road.
Sidcup.
Kent.
England.
[inserted] Recd March 16 [/inserted]
[page break]
From L.A.C. H.R. Madgett.
34 S.F.T.S.
Med. Hat.
Canada.
Collection
Citation
Hedley Robert Madgett, “Letter from Hedley Madgett to his parents,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 18, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/11231.
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