Originally Posted by 'India-Mike
formationfoto
Yes it's an easy aeroplane to fly - but I find it's not necessarily an easy aeroplane to fly well...
Of course but then most good aeroplanes are. There is a mystique built up around a number of aircraft and this is one of them. You HAVE to fly it to get the best out of it but if I can fly it well anyone can. On most of my landings you dont know when the aircraft has touched down. Hitting my wake in a 360 tight turn is easy. Hardly ever had to 'go round' from not getting it right. Never ground looped. Need I go on?.
The Chipmunk flies well. A poor pilot will make a mess of it but you dont need to be superhuman.
With four in v. close formation doing a display low level with high bank angles and sporty manouvring you have to fly quite well to avoid hitting the ground or your colleagues. The Chipmunk takes the random inputs of this average pilot and converts them into precise positioning (OK maybe I have a bit more of an influence than that).
If you are thinking of flying one dont be put off by believing that you have to be an ace to fly it reasonably well - you dont. Greater ability will always extract a better result but I cant comment on that until my ability is up there with that of IM :-)