Painting the Sky Khaki

Michael Duddridge flew with Army Aviation for eleven years, beginning seven years after the end of WW2. Many of those he flew with had been glider pilots taking part in war- time operations; others, as Light Liaison pilots, flew in Korea during that war. His first overseas experience after training was in Egypt, in the Canal Zone where he flew frequently over the Sinai desert, sometimes to Aqaba, to Jordan and on detachment in Libya. That first tour had been spent flying the Auster AOP Mk VI and eleven years later he returned to Army Aviation to fly the much bigger De Havilland (Canada) Beaver, this time in Borneo, Malaya, Laos, and Nepal. In 1969 he attended the RAF Central Flying School and became an instructor, going on to spend two years teaching students to fly at the Army School of Aviation. For his last two years of flying he commanded a flight of six Beavers at the historic airfield of Netheravon; almost the oldest airfield used by the British Army. He flew sorties all over Britain and on the European continent, as far south as Greece and north to Norway. There he landed on skis on the Hardangerjkulen Glacier, where Captain Scott had trained his team the year before their ill-fated attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole.