G'day SSD, are you still there?
Hi Shaggy, how's it goin'
As you can tell I made a right a**e of the Chippy. Just did not get on with it at all. I think about 3hrs behind average before I went solo. I did not like her and she sure reciprocated big time. I was indeed a very bad pupil but got over it, a late improver. I wonder indeed what I would make of it now?
The nearest I got to strapping on a fabled warbird was a P-40 when in the States but that is no Spit. I don't know if you know but the old Spit gate guardian at RAF Turnhouse, home to my UAS, was one of the lucky ones. Some couple of years ago I visited RAF Cosford to see the reserve collection and it was being restored to display standard and there was talk at the time of its perhaps becoming airworthy.
Apart from a joyride in an old Auster at age fourteen or fifteen which barely counts the Chipmunk was the first aircraft I was in that I can positively remember. Nobody has that much fun these days that the first real aircraft one gets in is the one that you learn in. It just does not happen in today's jet age. Prior to that flight I was two but no one is able to recall what the passenger aircraft was as Dad has passed on. As a boy I came to England on a Union Castle liner to receive my secondary schooling. Nowadays kids think nothing at all about flying and a ship to them is boring. Furthermore I learned to fly before I learned to drive a car though I had had motorbikes. Again these days kids are driving just as soon as they can. Really really amazing changes in such a short space of time.
You did spot the irony however? Chippie's designer was I believe largely responsible for the aerodynamic design of Concorde. Quite a feat in a lifetime to have both these aircraft on one's drawing board. Another such example is Hurricane to Harrier and another still Merlin to Olympus in the world of engines. Can it be possible for such design leaps to happen in a youngster's lifetime, another Teddy Petter?
As I said "Oh to be young again" it was fun. I just hope the greater opportunity that youth has now does not take the edge off the excitement.
Nice handling light aircraft? I've not really found one that has had me ecstatic so that says everything about my abilities. I seem to gravitate towards dull Pipers. My family is too large to permit owning but I do enjoy sailing and it is affordable.
My wife and I will shortly be passing through London as we are bound to see my old homeland, a remote rock island, last of the Empire. If I have not offended thee overmuch I'd be delighted if you could give me a ride in your lovely old bag of bolts! It might work the Dorian Gray magic on these staid old bones.
Have fun. Gosh. I've just remembered my first cross country! I think that beat any experience before or since, even overtopping the sight of my instructors back retreating for a cup of tea leaving me at last to get on with it.
the "E"