This is no BS. All name and locations have been deleted for obvious reasons:
A aquiantance of mine who flies warbirds (still to this day, I think) knew me for painting A-2 jackets and other art projects and he saw me with the Collings folks whenever they came through my home town.
So one day, he was asked to ferry a aircraft (again, type deleted to protect the boneheaded) to someone for painting. He asked if I wanted to go along so he'd have someone to talk with on the plane ride and the rental car drive back. So, he met me at the ramp at my home airport on route. I hopped in with my own helmet (I had my own custom made HGU-55P at the time) and gear and off we went. Halfway to the destination, he asked if I'd like to bend it a little along the way, so I cruised along on a general compass heading.
Mind you at this point, it's important to note that I'm no pilot, I've never had formal flight training and have never said otherwise to anyone. So, we start to get into the pattern to land at the field and as he gets it lines up he says, "My arm is stiffer than heck, why don't you take her in?"
I thought he was kidding, really! I just figured he had his hands on the stick and I swore I could feel his feet against the rudder pedals so I humored him, thinking that he was actually landing it and just checking to see if I would even try (yeah, looking back this sounds really stupid, but at the time this happened over a few seconds and I didn't have time to think all this through). So, we put her down at the first 1/3rd of the runway, bounce just a little, then get her straight kind of wavy for a moment. All the while, I keep thinking, "Man, he had a loose grip on her!"
He then tells me where to taxi her up to. That, I could do and could feel no resistance on the pedals, so I ease her to the spot and he shuts down. He's a little tired but still smiling when we get down. He next words chill my blood:
"Dang, when's the last time you landed a tail dragger? You handled that landing like a novice!"
I turn around, realizing
he's not kidding. I just landed an airplane
with no experience at all. I immediately doubled over and lost my lunch. I could have killed both of us! It took a minute for me to explain this. He didn't believe me at first, then soon his lunch is on the ramp as well!
"As much as you hang around airplanes and all the rides you've had, I just assumed you had a license!" was all he kept saying...
The moral to this story? You could wind up with a guy just like that! Needless to say, he never took me up again or told the owner he let me land it.
If I never leave the ground again in a WW2 airplane, I'll be fine. I've ridden most of the classics. After a
very nasty incident in a helicopter on Active duty when I was an Army LT, I'd never fly in anything rotary wing again. I still have some really nasty scars from that ride, both physically and psychological...
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