Originally Posted by
Ascend Charlie
Shaped like a fish, slipped through the air easily, 145 kt cruise without a whimper, 168 kt if you pushed it.
A bit like an Italian sports car, though. With 2 up, it carried full fuel. With 6 or 7 on board, lucky to get 45 minutes out of it before needing another small sip. And if the extra tank was full, having 2 on board meant they were the skinny ones - at least it was that way on our rather heavy Mk 2 Plus (pictured further up wheels-up...). Those cast-iron gyros and autopilot were heavy. If we had the glass screens and modern gear of today it would be 90kg lighter.
I've got a bit of time in the LUH version with all the glass and modern gear. Wasn't much lighter as we just heaped more stuff in it. I used to compare it to an Italian sports car too. Awesome for what it was designed for but we would take them "off road" which left you feeling like its not the best machine out there.