Anyone here flown a Wirraway?
Thought I might start a thread on Wirraway stories. For starters:
Wings Test at Point Cook 1952. CFI tells me to carry out a spin and recovery. No problem sez I - done lots of them. Some inadvertent - some deliberate. Cage the AH and DI, a limit 360 turn - run the mantra of Height - Locality -Gliding distance etc. Initiate stall and kick on full rudder (ever tried kicking it on smoothly?) Did five turns and called recovering. CFI says "keep on spinning trainee, just have a look at the left wing - its going to come off I think". At least we had parachutes and after all if the CFI says keep on spinning you don't say bulls**t, I'm pulling out - not if you want to win your wings, anyway.
Four more turns and the Old Man says that's enough trainee - take me home for a QGH. Did the QGH and the Old Man snagged the Wirra for a loose wing, I think. A few years later, an instructor was killed when one wing of his Wirraway snapped off during a rolling G pull-out during dive-bombing practice on the Werribee bombing range. I wondered if it was the same Wirra that I did the Wings test on?