I
am reminded of the story told me by one of our members about some of the
pranks they would play on new recruits
who
turned up at Balloon Centres for training. One day they had a new W.A.F.F.
member, Mary, and on her first morning
they
told her that one had to very careful with the hydrogen gas cylinders. They
explained how the hydrogen gas cylinder
was
potentially explosive and they also explained that the hydrogen gas was
lighter than air and made the balloon float.
They
convinced her that because the hydrogen was highly compressed in the
cylinder if not held down the hydrogen cylinder
would
float off up into the air! When the opportunity arose, they had arranged for
an empty cylinder to be moved off the gas
trailer
and then made a great show of how it had been securely tied down on the
trailer. It was untied and then carefully
moved
onto the ground by several W.A.A.F.’s where a great show of fixing two
sandbags to it was made. This W.A.A.F. Mary
had
previously told the others that she loved horse riding as a hobby so they
decided to use her skills as a horse rider to their
advantage
with the prank.
Once
on the ground they told the W.A.A.F. that if she sat astride the cylinder,
just as she did on a horse, they would remove
the
sandbags and she would be able to float around the hangar on the cylinder.
She
got astride the cylinder, gritted her teeth like some American rodeo bull
rider and was terrified as each sandbag was slowly
removed.
She
sat there waiting and was constantly being asked if she could feel the
cylinder beginning to push up and she replied that
she
could feel the cylinder was beginning to move.
The
power of suggestion was at work.
A
large crowd of airmen and W.A.A.F.’s looked on. They all walked away from
the cylinder, saying it was safer to keep at a
distance.
After about ten minutes of sitting there, with shouts of “It’s
moving!”, “Look at it!”, “Hold on Mary!”, the cylinder
was
still where it had been placed.
At
that point the W.A.A.F. Flight-Sergeant who was their instructor entered the
hangar and asked the W.A.A.F. sitting on the
cylinder
“What on earth are you doing?” Mary said “I am going for a ride on
this gas cylinder”.
You
can imagine the response she got from the Flight-Sergeant!!
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