Fantham gets full credit for coining this lingua franca, now adopted by F/Fer's worldwide. This sage remark was first uttered at an early Pierre Trebod, on a breezy practice day.
Few were out flying, but Cowley took this opportunity for some prolonged towing practice over the runway, with an early offset-twanger - a converted Dave White Rolling Stone mk II. Pieter had wandered over and was curiously observing the model's foibles, in these challenging conditions, alternating between screaming aerobatic circles and wing bending straight tow, while all the time calmly puffing away at one of his more impressively curved Briar's. Sensing an audience, Cowley decided the time was right to perform a full Krakatoa launch, by utilizing both the prevailing wind strength and good surface traction afforded by the tarmac. Diving vertically to the ground, he whipped it around at the last second, before bringing it back up at full chat for a humongous launch. Pieter almost fell backwards in astonishment and let out a few choice proclamations in the Flemish tongue.
My first impression was that he had exhaled so violently through his pipe, that he had burned up the whole bowl-full in an instant, rendering it like a blacksmith's forge full of red-hot charcoal. But Fantham captured the occasion more astutely and concisely, stating that Pieter blew so hard on his pipe that it actually straightened the bends out of his Briar - quite literally a "Pipe Straightener", which has since remained the preferred term of appreciation in the vernacular ..."that were a reet pipe straightener", for such startling events as they are want to be performed on the field of play.
- Martyn Cowley