There is a story told, and is said to be true, from the early days of aviation. In those pioneer days planes flew from airfield to airfield to refuel and they could only carry a limited amount of aviation fuel. One pilot was making a flight around the world and had landed at an airfield for more fuel. He then set off and after two hours heard some strange noises inside the plane. As he listened he realised, to his horror, that somehow a rat had got onto the plane at the last stop and was gnawing at the inside of the aircraft.
He knew this was a very dangerous situation because if the rat gnawed through some vital cable or control on the plane then the likelihood of crashing was very high. He was in serious trouble and was two hours away from his last stop and had nearly two hours to go to reach the next destination. At first the pilot didn’t know what to do and felt deeply concerned and anxious. Then he remembered that a rat was a rodent and was not made for heights. Rats live on the ground and even under the ground and not thousands of feet in the air. The pilot started to take his plane on a climb upwards. He reached a thousand feet, then ten thousand and eventually at twenty thousand feet the gnawing stopped.
