Memoirs of a WW-II Typhoon Pilot part 14
Although I had by now started the Typhoon engine several times I had not before done the complete preflight cockpit check. This included setting the oxygen flow to about 10,000ft, since it had been found that the cockpit invariably became contaminated with exhaust fumes. It was never found out how this could be avoided, and consequently you had to use oxygen at all times when flying, or even when taxiing a long way. The preflight check also included an engine run-up to check the magnetos and therefore, for the first time I had to open up the engine to zero boost which gave over 3000rpm. The vibration and noise were terrific and I was glad to be wearing my helmet.
Taxiing I found quite easy since, due to the wide undercarriage track, a slight touch on one brake would swing the nose to allow me to see ahead. The Typhoon, in common with the Hurricane, had wheels which retracted inwards towards the fuselage. This meant that, when down, the undercarriage track was quite wide - even more so on the Typhoon than on the Hurricane. This made the aircraft very stable when taxiing even over fairly rough grass fields. When later I came to taxi a Spitfire, which had an undercarriage which retracted outwards and consequently had a quite narrow track, I was somewhat disconcerted by the way the aircraft tended to wallow sideways over even slightly rough grass.
On reaching the end of the runway and whilst waiting for the 'all clear' light from the Airfield Control Pilot, I completed my pre takeoff checks reciting the litany TMPFFSR. TRIM (Elevator neutral, Rudder fully port), MIXTURE (Rich),PROPELLOR (Fully fine pitch),FUEL (Check contents and select tanks which are more than half full, pressurising off, drop tank cock off), FLAPS (10-15 degrees down, valve shut),SUPERCHARGER (Moderate), RADIATOR (Flap open).
Right, takeoff check completed, wait for the green light from the ACP. There it is. Release the brakes, open up a little, roll forward on to the runway. Left rudder and a touch on the brakes and the nose swings round to line up with the runway. Brakes off, let her roll and open up smoothly to plus 4 boost. There seems to be plenty of throttle quadrant left but the acceleration is terrific. A touch of left rudder to keep her straight - it doesn't need as much as I expected. The acceleration is still pushing me in the back and the airspeed indicator is beginning to register. Eighty, ninety, and the tail is lifting. Don't let it come up too high. The controls are responding now. Keep her steady and let her fly herself off. Here she comes, lifting off, keep everything as is and wait for the speed to build up. One hundred and ten, one twenty, one thirty. Select wheels up. There is the double thump as the wheels retract into their housings. Climbing away nicely, 250 feet, select flaps up. Oops! it feels as if someone has pulled the rug out from under me for a few seconds as the aircraft sinks down. At the same time the airspeed builds rapidly. One hundred and fifty mph. Ease up into the climb, throttle back to zero boost and pull back the revs with the pitch control to 2850 rpm. Radiator flap up. Well I have made my first takeoff in a Typhoon. Now to look around and see where I am. I look at the altimeter! I am at nearly 5000ft and still on the same heading away from the airfield.
Two things struck me about the takeoff. Firstly how very simple was the retraction of the undercarriage where the operating lever was on the left hand side below the throttle quadrant. The lever was unlocked by turning the large knob on the top of the lever clockwise a quarter of a turn and moving the lever up. Releasing the lever then allowed the knob to spring back and relock the lever. Lowering the undercarriage was the reverse operation, turn clockwise, move down, release and the lever was locked in the down position. It was simple and foolproof and unfortunately I got so used to it that, much later, when I was flying a different aircraft, it got me into trouble. But that is a later story. The second thing was the way the aircraft sank down on pulling up the flaps. As I became more experienced on the aircraft I found that I could raise the flaps bit by bit very quickly and not lose any height at all.
On this first flight I had intended to do a circuit and bump but obviously I had been too preoccupied to realize that this aircraft flew much faster and climbed much faster than the Hurricane. I levelled off and did a left turn. Oops again! I had lost the airfield! A few seconds later I realized that I could see it but it was much further away than I expected. I put the nose down to get back to 1000ft to do a circuit. The result of this was that the airspeed built up until I was doing nearly 400mph and it was not until I throttled back and went into fine pitch that I managed to get down to a reasonable 250mph to join the circuit, by which time of course I had gone miles past the aerodrome in the opposite direction! I eventually managed to sort everything out and started a proper circuit to land. The pilots notes were very specific about not turning at under 130-140mph airspeed. Therefore, having got the undercarriage down I went well past the downwind end of the runway and then turned base, reduced the speed to 150mph and turned to line up with the runway. I did a long flat approach with the flaps down at 145 mph, closed the throttle as I passed the end of the runway and proceeded to float more than half way down the runway before I touched down. I had no idea how much runway was left but was convinced that I was about to shoot off the end at any second. I applied the brakes heavily and the ground speed dropped rapidly but then the brakes faded as they got too hot and I rolled along at about 40 mph with brakes which seemed to be useless. Fortunately they were still having some effect and I eventually found I was going slow enough to turn off as I saw a taxi track appear. As I turned off to the left I looked right to see how much runway was left and found that I only had had only about another fifty yards to go before I would have run out of tarmac. All in all I must say that my first experience of the Typhoon was somewhat awesome. It flew me, more than I flew it! Later on, I became much more familiar with the idiosyncrasies of this aircraft and, by the time I ceased flying them, had also developed a great affection for its sterling qualities.
Last edited by tow1709; 3rd Feb 2010 at 20:57.
Reason: forgot title