Very sad to hear of the passing of Ken Wallis…but what a good life he had.
By invitation, I landed in his ‘back garden, lawn, golf course ‘ on one summer’s day in the late ’80’s .
I had circled the American cemetery at Cambridge from where I was to see his house and landing strip. It took a few minutes to evaluate the approach, and I waited whilst a figure (Ken), scampered round moving the flags from his golf course, and in doing so, turned it into a seemingly very short landing strip. He had told me on the ‘phone, it was 600 yds, with no fences ….a bit tight, but just enough, but not both ways!! A big hedge at one end and a large field at the other. I did a longish approach over the field in the Sky Rocket, dumped on full flap, held the nose up over the single strand barb wire fence, and dropped onto the grass ‘runway’, which looked exceedingly short at 70 knots. Parked up on his lawn area in front of the large French doors and after an enthralling tour of Ken’s prototype autogyro’s plus the rest of the collection, we had tea in the garden under the wing of the Cessna…unreal to this day, but a wonderful experience and memory of such a talented, brave and charming aviator……..RIP Ken.
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