When my colleague, John Carrodus, told me that he was leaving CAA to join Cathay Pacific, he asked me to give the Test Pilot’s Group Lecture in his place. Knowing his inimitable style and ability to regale an audience without pulled punches, I was set a hard task. My work involves little aeroplanes. They are not exotic, like big jets. All of them weigh 6000 lb or less. But I happen to think that I have the best flying job in the country. Much of the piquancy comes from dealing with individuals who are attempting to make a living, and who are sometimes forced to try to cheat the system in order to survive in the face of pressures from the law, paperwork, insurance, more paperwork, inflation and taxation, and still more paperwork; not to mention the emetic CAA.