View Full Version : DH Moth Club Charity Weekend
Lew Ton
23rd May 2001, 00:13
The de Havilland Moth Club is holding its annual Charity Weekend at Old Warden, Bedfordshire, on the 23rd and 24th June. Flights are available in Tiger Moths and other Moths, subject to availability and weather, and all the money goes to charity, mainly childrens' medical charities.
Further details are available on my web site www.stevelevien.com (http://www.stevelevien.com) or e-mail me.
Tiger_ Moth
29th May 2001, 22:51
Tiger Moths! I like Tiger Moths. £55 a ride huh? How long is that for? Will they do aerobatics and spinning and stuff too?
Hello TM. Sounds like it might just be the odd 20 or 30 mins chock to chock, so difficult to get high enough in the time for spins/aeros (NB also civvie Moths without strakes can't be intentionally spun, ex military ones with strakes can be: if in doubt get in the yellow one). Still, probably worth going if you haven't started on the Tiger Moth course at Cambridge yet. Post amusing tales of your progress there and you might get rewarded with a free upside-downy session in something that's wooden (but only has one set of wings).
Tiger_ Moth
7th Jun 2001, 23:25
Pardon my ignorance, but what is a strake? Is it the thing where the tailwheel should be?
Well the ones at Cambridge are mainly yellow and it seems like they did lots of aerobatics and stuff in them. Do u mean in some you can do aeros but not spins or that you can do neither?
And I thought all Moths were ex military, just some got onto the civlian market a bit quicker than others ( apart from ones made just when the RAF changed to chipmunks which i suppose would not have had time to be put into military use)
And are you sure 20-30 min isnt enough for spins `n` aeros? At Booker it was only 15 minutes and they did a loop and a roll there, although i understand spinning requires more height. But shouldnt it only take a Moth about 6minutes to get to 3000 feet, which would be enough?
Hmmm... does anyone know the average climb rate of a Moth? I saw 636 feet/minute in a book but that could habve been for 1 person , not 2 and maybe it was maximum, not recommended. So what might the average rate of climb of a Moth be, with 2 people in it, at a reasonable power setting that would be alright for the engine/fuel consumption? 500 feet a minute?
woops, im spinning off the point again!
I like Tiger Moths. :)
Id REALLY love an Se5 in my own private strip, which i could fly whenever i wanted without any atc nonsense. Thatd be great.
TM, I suggest that you scour second hand bookshops or online services such as www.alibris.com (http://www.alibris.com) for a book called "The Tiger Moth story" by Alan Bramson & Neville Birch. This will tell you many things about Moths which you might find useful if you do learn to fly them.
To answer your questions:
The strake is not "the thing where the tailwheel should be". That's the tailskid, which provides friction on a grass surface to help steer the aircraft (which has no brakes, which are what you use to help steer, but not usually to stop, some other taildraggers). The Tiger was never intended to have a tailwheel although I've heard of at least one that's had a wheel and brakes fitted.
The strakes can be seen looking a little like fairings attached to the fuselage just by the tailpane. The RAF fitted them after a spate of spin recovery problems and some accidents with its Tigers, which stemmed from increases in weight and changes in balance caused by modifications such as bomb racks, aileron mass balance weights, reinforced spars and layers of paint. One Boscombe Down test pilot took 13 turns of a high rotational spin before recovering. What a guy!
As an aside, the bomb racks were not just there for training: in the desperate weeks after Dunkirk it was seriously planned to use Tiger Moths to defend against a German invasion: they were supposed to bomb the invasion beaches and try to snag paratroopers with scythes hanging from the undercart: seriously! Luckily the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots were so well trained (in Tigers of course) and brilliantly led that these plans were never put to the test.
Moving on: Not all Moths were military: many formed the staple of the pre-war private flying clubs. Ironically, the mostly unmodified civvie aircraft usually behaved benignly in spin recovery, but nowadays, as far as I am aware, aren't cleared for intentional spinning or aeros (the reason for the latter being that any aerobatic manoeuvre involves the potential for departure from controlled flight).
As far as I know the Cambridge Tigers are ex RAF and spinnable. I imagine that the instructors there are keen on full spinning as a part of the basic course (it's now optional and rarely done at most flying schools).
Aeros in a short sortie may be possible if the local controlled airspace and terrain permits you to get high enough without going far from the airfield. As for climb rates, each Tiger Moth, and each Gipsy Major engine, is subtly different. I have experience of three, each with different characteristics. You can't always expect book figures from 60 year old aircraft, even if lovingly maintained. The book recommends climbing at 2050 rpm and 58 knots, but I must confess that when I've been at the controls of a Tiger on climbout I've been far too busy trying to keep the thing straight to notice the climb rate (come to think of it, I'm not even sure the ones I flew had VSIs). Suffice it to say that the rate of upward progress is not dramatic.
Having your own SE5a is of course a very good idea, although frankly reloading the over-wing Lewis gun in flight is said to be a bit of a chore, but you shouldn't set out to learn flying thinking that ATC is nonsense. It's lovely to fly (legally) low and slow without talking to anyone, but ATC are there to help and are very useful. The guys in Wycombe Tower are a very good example of this.
Anyway, why not pop along to the Moth club event and see if you can get upside down. Even if you can't, you can ask the owners/pilots to tell you about the aircraft and show you features such as strakes, skids etc. which you may not have had time to examine when you did your trial flight at Booker.
[This message has been edited by FNG (edited 07 June 2001).]
Lew Ton
8th Jun 2001, 00:32
Do also see de Havilland Tiger Moth by Stuart McKay MBE (ISBN 1 85780 061 3).
Better still, or as well) come and see us at Old Warden 23/24 June, 15 July (Competition Day - details on my web site) and 18/19 August (Moth Rally, moved from Woburn due F&M).
Office Update
8th Jun 2001, 15:14
FNG : ... careful there we downunder know more about flying than you guy's. Few Australian Tigers ever had strakes and yes, we do spin them intentionally and always have. In your posting you might point out that UK regs might prevent this, but you did not make this clear. Some people might think you know what your talking about, I'll them them otherwise.
Tiger_ Moth
9th Jun 2001, 02:06
Thanks for that mighty tome of a reply FNG!
Very informative. I`ve seen that book on the Moth before and read a bit in the shop but didnt buy it because I never had any money back then. Maybe I should get it. In the RAF museum at Hendon the little board by the Tiger Moth says about those plans to use them in combat. Outrageous! Theyd do better to get some Bristol fighters or something!
It would be great to get an Se5, probably my favourite bi-plane but I dont think there are any left. Do you know if there are? Probably there are no originals left but maybe a few replicas which would still be good.
I agree ATC is not nonsense, it is necessary, unfortunately, because of the increasing amount of air traffic these days.
Hmmm... I wonder, do you think if I flew a Moth up to 10,000 feet over folkstone and then shut off the engine I could glide to France, because Cecil Lewis seemed to do that all the time in his book "Saggitarius Rising" (Excellent book). Did you know he was actually Daniel Day Lewis's grandfather, the guy from Last of the Mohicans! I only found that out recently.
Woops, Im babbling again...............
Office, applying standard Jet Blast rules (perhaps here we should call them prop wash rules), you are not allowed to be rude to other ppruners unless you are aware of the correct and incorrect use of the apostrophe, which judging by your posting you are not. :rolleyes:
The ban on spinning is, as far as I know, imposed by the UK regulator. I am well aware than an unstraked Tigger can spin and recover OK (after all, it can't read and doesn't know that it's not supposed to), and if you re-read my post you should see that. It was the RAF mucking about with weight and CG which led to the strakes being required. I recall hearing a rumour that CASA had stopped Oz-tigers aerobatting because one poorly maintained example had an airframe failure and crashed. You can certainly correct me on that one if you like.
TM: Thanks for your jolly post. I thought that Daniel Day Lewis was related to C Day Lewis, poet, rather than C Lewis, aviator, but maybe he is related to both, and Sagittarius Rising must be one of the best flying books ever written. Did you know that Cecil Lewis later helped found the BBC and won an Oscar for a screenplay of Pygmalion? Clearly a bloke of many talents.
There's a reasonable 1970s film called "Aces High" which is based partly on Sagittarius Rising and partly on "Journey's End" and has some decent SE5 flying sequences organised by Tony Bianchi the guy who (amongst other things) runs the museum you may have seen at Wycombe. There are a few SE5 replicas around: I saw one land at Popham a while back. I suppose that the Shuttleworth might have a real one but am not sure. I gather that there are one or two airworthy Bristol Fighters still around at Old Warden or elsewhere.
When are you starting the Tiger Moth course?
[This message has been edited by FNG (edited 12 June 2001).]
just posting to promote thread and get the attention of cheeky Oz blighter..... :) :) ;)
Tiger_ Moth
29th Jun 2001, 19:41
Well, C Lewis, aviator is actually Cecil Day Lewis, you just often dont see the day put in. Maybe you`re mixing him up with a poet because C lewis, aviator, was infact a bit of a poet, especially later on in his life.
I knew that he did all that BBC stuff and ive seen that film too, I noticed the bit at the start where it mentions the book. What a guy.
Im pleased to announce that I am actually GOING TO, FOR SURE, DEFINETELY start my flying at Cambridge. I`ve booked up about 5 lessons and the first one is only 2 weeks away-on the first day of my summer holiday! Ive also got a new, better weekend job which gives me a bit more money for flying.