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Old 17th Mar 2004, 23:41
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Flying Lawyer
 
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Excellent idea CamelPilot.

Before the expert snappers get going, here are a few pics to help start the ball rolling.


WK518, a very special Chipmunk.
Special to me anyway - I did my first solo in it in 1971.
WK518 is now with the BBMF, and is one of the last two Chipmunks in RAF service. They are used primarily for the conversion/continuation training of BBMF pilots on tail-wheel aircraft – pilots new to the Flight commonly arrive with no previous tail-dragger experience.
It was delivered to the RAF in January 1952 and started its service life at Cranwell. It subsequently served with the University of London Air Squadron at RAF White Waltham, some other minor UAS units, the Cottesmore Station Flight and No 1 AEF at Manston before going to the BBMF in 1983. It didn't have this new-fangled high-conspicuity black paint scheme in my day, of course.



Harvard IIB
FT391 was my pride and joy between 1986-1990 when Mark Hanna and I owned it. It was built by Noorduyn Aviation (Canada) and delivered to the RAF in 1942. After service as an advanced trainer for pilots converting to fighters, it was subsequently sold to the Dutch Air Force some time after the war, and then into civilian ownership in Holland.
My net search also came up with this old postcard of FT391. Civvy reg is G-AZBN but doesn't have to be displayed. I don’t know where or when the photograph was taken, other than it was post 1971.




Yak-3




With Ray Hanna joining as third owner, we replaced the T-6 with a Yak. The Yak-3, produced from 1943 to 1946, was one of the fastest fighters of World War II. The prototype reached 462 mph (745 km/h), the highest speed ever attained by a Soviet piston engine aircraft and close to the pre-jet era limit. First seeing action during the Battle at Kursk in July 1943, the Yak 3 was the first Soviet fighter to achieve parity or exceed the performance of Luftwaffe fighters. This performance was so marked that Luftwaffe fighter units were specifically forbidden from dog-fighting below 16,000 ft with Yak 3s. In later versions, the 20mm cannon firing through the propeller shaft was replaced with a 37mm variant, and the two 12.7mm machine guns were replaced by two 20mm cannon.
Ours was built in 1946, rebuilt in the mid-90’s at the original Yak factory in Russia, and reassembled at Duxford by the Yakolev engineers responsible for the rebuild. It's been a bigger project than we thought and hasn’t yet flown. Perhaps this season, or next?
(Note:The Yak in the photo is owned by the Fighter Collection. Both were rebuilt at the same time. I don't have a pic of ours that I can post, but they are identical.)

Tudor

Last edited by Flying Lawyer; 18th Mar 2004 at 01:20.
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