Flying the Auster Airedale

[i.dingbat]

A friend of mine has an Auster Airedale and I may find myself flying it at some stage. I'll borrow his Pilot's Manual before then (I see one going for 30 GBP on eBay) but till then, would anyone like to volunteer information on speeds, cruise settings, procedures, checklists etc?

Apparently it has a nice low stall speed and is aerobatic.

Thanks in advance

Dingbat

['Chuffer' Dandridge]

and is aerobatic
So was the Percival Prentice, but i wouldnt.......:eek:

Why not just read the pilot's notes and go from there. I'm sure there aren't that many Airedale pilots (or Airedales for that matter) left. There's one at my local airfield, I'll go speak to the owner see if he has any good info.:ok:

Chuffer

[smarthawke]

To be pedantic it's actually a Beagle Airedale. IIRC their were something like 44 built and many of them ended their days at RAF Bicester with their engines going into the RAFGSA Chipmunk glider tugs. Excellent news for the now Gipsy-free Chipmunk engineers and well, enough said about the engineless airframes the better....

Classic aircraft but 180hp Lycoming and a CS prop for all-round poorer performance than a 145hp FP prop C172..... You could sail the Atlantic on the wheel spats they are so huge and the attenuator egg-launcher exhaust looks great! Just watch your head on the flap hinges!

[Malcolm G O Payne]

About 45 years ago my partner and I were looking to add an aircraft to our club fleet and we did an assessment on the Airedale. I can't remember any significant details but we were not impresed. My partner, who was a wartime RAF pilot, said that it was heavy enough on the controls
to remind him of his Lancaster days.

[Them thar hills]

I.D.
We used to have Airedale G-ARZP at our airfield.
I flew it quite a bit and was amazed that with 180 HP and a VP prop it couldn't manage 100 kt !
But yes it was aerobatic (LAROSA)( loops and rolls on a Sunday afternoon) in a lazy but pleasant sort of way. Loops, stall turns and barrel rolls no problem, but for a 4-seat people carrier, a sort of a British 172, it was a poor second, but had really good precise handling, typical Beagle, like the Pup (but not the Terrier !)
Not many left now, fly a real antique and have fun !
TTH :O

[i.dingbat]

Thanks for the replies. Apparently there were 43 built and about 30 remain, so I promise to look after it. Here's a photo, featuring the boatlike wheel spats...

http://www.iainhosking.com/images/flying/airedale_384x288.jpg

I'll let you know when I've been up in it. Cheers for now.

Dingbat

[QDMQDMQDM]

You can always try emailing this lot:

http://www.austerclub.org/

[S-Works]

There is one at Spanhoe waiting restoration G-ARYZ I think and another that a friend of ours owns and comes on the Spanhoe fly outs. He came accross Europe to Prague in it last summer. It has great range, about 105kts cruise and is as ugly as sin!!!
Roger who owns it thinks its great to fly and has no complaints about handling or reliability. We also have another that flies with us and comes in for maintanance owned by 3 brothers who also rave about it. In fact if you search G-INFO you will find they own a few of them 5 of the 12 on the register as I recall!!

[LowNSlow]

i.dingbat try a "proper" Auster with the wheel at the back. The ailerons are still a bit wooly but they work well enough when you get used to them. Fun to land as well!!

[StickRudder]

Thought I'd try revive the mis-named 'Auster Airedale' thread after 5 years - but yes, the Beagle A.109 really was and is the Final Auster, despite all those many 'refinements' cooked up in exactly 4 months from inception to first flight in May 1961. Its Cessna-like appearance certainly captured the imagination when launched, but not for long.

In February '12 I acquired one of the last 3 flying in the UK, and a lovely old bus it is . I used to see these about as a Hangar Rat at Leeds/Bradford (aka 'Yeadon Airport' !) back in the mid-late '60's - in particular, Ted Dexter's when he was up batting at Headingley- but never thought I'd end up owning one.

Not the most practical aeroplane with the extensive fuel burn of Lycoming O-360-A1 with CS prop needed to lug around max weight of 1250kg - it's 200kg heavier empty than a 172 - but plenty of its own quirky charms.
By the way, is much faster than somebody suggested above....purely an issue of how efficiently you set it up, and how much fuel you want to burn ! It is a very heavy machine and somewhat Lancaster-ish - the trim wheel should definitely be on a large bomber - but somehow talks to you in a way that spam-can metal can't, despite having non-Auster yokes. The massive flap lever is a strong-arm job, and usually best to forget the intermediate position except for takeoff. Requires the prop lever to be eased back during the run to prevent red-lining.

Will never be putting its aerobatic potential to the test, not least because it has a lapstrap-only exemption from the CAA , and I doubt the LAA would be too happy about it . Came over to a permit 4 years ago, and the longstanding previous owner had a large list of rectification issues to sort before LAA were happy - pretty strange that the previous CofA maintenance organisations clearly weren't as hot as might be expected, given what they charge.

I'm busy picking up bits of Beagle memorabilia - this was their first big splash product, the launch of a 'new' machine under their brand hoping to compete with the influx of all-metal Cessnas, Pipers and Rallye etc . It never really fooled anybody, and just couldn't compete - looking so obviously Auster-ish on closer inspection, and with obvious cost and performance issues. At least it held the fort while the pure-Beagle designs were progressed, the sleek B.206 twin, and the Pup. The last dozen or so built proved almost impossible to sell and went straight into store, and my own one was first factory-flown June 5th 1963, then mothballed until 1965 when it went to Shackleton Aviation - eventually put onto the register only then. Big Vintage party coming up in June !

Anybody out there have any relevant info or documents/ bits you might want to part with, please do chirp up.

Dunno how long it will be viable to keep it going, but fly it as often as possible....the Permit strip was a full 5-6 week job, and will be round again in no time at all. Don't go very far with it, but lots of takeoffs & landings .... a bit like managing something from the Shuttleworth collection....well, just as rare !

[JW411]

Smarthawke mentions in post #3 a connection between the Airedale and the RAFGSA Centre at Bicester.

What might be worth mentioning is that Dick Stratton used one of the Airedales to do a lot of test flying using Mogas and was successful in proving to the CAA that Mogas could indeed be approved for use within certain limits.

Who was Dick Stratton?

At the time, apart from being a very experienced gliding instructor within the RAFGSA, he was at the time the Engineering Director for CSE at Kidlington.

Perhaps his most famous post was being the test flight engineer on the Saro Princess flying boat. (For those of you who are too young to remember, Google is your friend).

[Echo Romeo]

Just watch your head on the flap hinges!

Ah yes, the skull scrapers as they are known :ouch:

[Discorde]

From the 'Air Pictorial' September 1962 edition:

Airedale 1 (http://steemrok.com/airdale/airdale%201)
Airedale 2 (http://steemrok.com/airdale/airdale%202)
Airedale 3 (http://steemrok.com/airdale/airdale%203)
Airedale 4 (http://steemrok.com/airdale/airdale%204)

The 1962 price of £5,500 equates to about £100,000 today.

[StickRudder]

Many thanks 'Discorde' - hadn't seen that one before. The performance figures quoted seem pretty fair, and if you want to get anywhere with reasonable alacrity (like when I ferried mine from deepest Kent up to North Aberdeenshire) then setting 2400/ 24" and sensible leaning will produce at least 110kts TAS at 2000ft , for about 45lts p.h. The way I'm operating it right now with lots of circuit work burns more like 50lts. Using a 500 metre hard runway is pretty tight for it, and requires 50-55kt approach to ensure bringing it to halt - even with brakes ! So heavy, it just keeps on rolling, even lightly loaded.... The article rightly suggests 60kt would be better for a more predictable round-out, but beggars can't be choosers.

[Rod1]

StickRudder

Why?:E

Rod1

[StickRudder]

....not terribly subtle - and most definitely below the belt ! (though the subtlety possibly lost on many people ?). That's why the Auster Club may even black-ball my membership application .... if not also on grounds of the dangly-thing at the front, and the big pointy-back fin ?

As someone ejected from the womb tightly gripping a pole with the right mitt (that's the best side...) , would naturally prefer a beefy stick to the early Cessna-clone yokes....but once again, beggars can't be choosers.