I heard about this at the RAeS last night, and thought some of you might be interested - http://www.raes.org.uk/raes/medalsan...bluesmall2.jpg


Flying Old Aeroplanes in the 21st Century:
The Handling Qualities of World War II Fighters

Sqn Ldr Dave Southwood AFC will be giving a lecture on this topic at the Royal Aeronautical Society next month.
He'll be describing the handling qualities of WWII fighters based on his experience displaying the Spitfire, Hurricane, Bf109, Mustang, Kittyhawk, Hellcat and Corsair, including ground handling (not to be under-estimated!), take-off, engine handling, problems associated with high power settings and landing.

Dave's been displaying WWII fighters for many years, mainly for the Fighter Collection at Duxford. He retired from the RAF in 1999, having been a Squadron display pilot, test pilot and tutor at ETPS Boscombe Down, R&D test pilot at Farnborough, and is now back at ETPS as a civilian tutor - so, even if you haven't seen him fly, you can safely assume he knows a bit about it. :)

Date: Thursday 18 March
Time: 1800 (Free tea/coffee from 1730)
Venue: RAeS, 4 Hamilton Place, London W1
http://www.raes.org.uk/raes/images/a...s/hamilton.jpg
(Next to the InterContinental Hotel, Hyde Park Corner 3 mins, Green Park 5 mins.)

It's free, no tickets required and you don't need to belong to the Society. Just turn up if you're interested.
If anyone needs more info, feel free to e-mail me: [email protected]

Tudor Owen

Dave's not a bad lecturer either, he certainly taught me a great deal - would be worth attending.

G

Thank you, Tudor. Sounds interesting; wish I could attend but the Atlantic stands in my way (that's why I resigned my RAeS membership some years ago).:{

I thought that there were a fair number of RAeS branches your side of the pond these days?

G

It sounds like a fascinating lecture. I'm in a similar position as MLS-12D tho'. I don't suppose the RAeS broadcasts their lectures live on the web for those who can't attend, do they?

Speaking as site manager for two of the RAeS' sub-committees, Hamilton Place can't consistently keep a normal website going properly - streaming the couple of lectures going on somewhere in the society each day onto the web would certainly fall into the "too difficult" camp. Arguably this is a shame - whilst a few of these lectures are dull, it's very few.

The high profile "political" lectures often get reproduced in the magazine, but they are rarely the most interesting ones. I'm afraid that turning up at a branch or HQ is the way ahead.

Good news however for those not UK based is that there are active branches in Seatle, Singapore, Hong Kong, Toulouse, UAE, Malaysia, Xiamen, Cyprus... - and for that matter nothing to stop other expat aerospace professionals from starting yet another. I was party to setting up a new branch a couple of years ago (albeit in the UK) and we had all the help we needed in that from HQ.

G

Damn, i can't make it. Dave is a great chap & my 2nd all time favourite Hunter display pilot. I've spoken to him on numerous occasions and he's always willing to chat.

The EAA Museum here in Oshkosh streams all its historical lectures live on the internet. We had one last Wednesday from a couple of Tuskegee Airmen, and it was truly stunning. What incredible experiences they had to share. It was so good that the decision has been taken to archive all the talks as well as streaming them live. It will take a few days to prepare, but it's on the way. The next live stream will be on April 5th marking 100 years since the birth of Steve Wittman.

Do you have a URL for that, there's probably more than a few this side of the pond who would be interested.

G

Hello Genghis,

If there are active RAeS branches here, it's news to me. I was an associate member (AMRAeS, right?) from 1996 to 2001 or 2002 (can't remember exactly), and there's nothing doing in Canada (or the USA). :sad: I believe that the Society is active in other parts of the Commonwealth, however (e.g. Australia, NZ, S. Africa).

Eventually I realized that all I was getting for my membership fee was a (not very good) magazine, so I let things go. :( £102 p.a. is better spent on flying, in my case anyway.

Flying Lawer, very good of you to invite us all along, would really love to hear this guy speak.... but am currentley on the wrong side of the world ! (am always looking for an excuse to visit London, Duxford only a couple of train rides away..)

..... any chance of you giving us a brief rundown of what he had to say afterwards ?

http://www.eaa.org/communications/ea..._tuskegee.html

This is the link for the write up on the talk.

Just bringing this back up to the top - hope to be there, should be a very interesting and entertaining presentation.

Anyone fancy a beer afterwards?

I think that could be arranged Treadders! ;)

Got to 'ave me tea and biscuits first though! :rolleyes:

It's tonight everybody... I shall be skiving off from the office early!

See you there PPRuNe Pop?

Unless there are any last minute legal emergencies, I'll be there.
Look forward to seeing you.

Fingers crossed. :)

Tudor

We were treated to a first class talk by Dave Southwood at the RAeS last night. Dave not only knows his stuff, but has the gift of being able to put it over in a way which had everyone gripped from beginning to end.
I won't attempt a summary of what he said, partly because I wouldn't be able to do justice to it, but mainly because Dave has very kindly agreed to let me have his notes to post here for those who couldn't make it to the meeting. They won't be exactly the same as the lecture, but will contain all the important material. I'll post them when they arrive.

Good to see John Farley and PprunePop again, and to meet Treadigraph - he's a walking aviation encyclopaedia. (And not bad at chatting up women judging by his activities in the pub afterwards. :) )

Also a chance to chat with two people I've not seen for years:

The Chairman of the RAeS Test Pilots Group (which organised the event) turned out to be someone with whom I flew in the London UAS n years ago - when he had more hair and mine wasn't grey. After a distinguished RAF career, ETPS etc, Derek Reeh became a British Aerospace Test Pilot and is now Director of Flight Operations at BAE Systems. Derek flew protype Eurofighters during development and the maiden flight of the first British Typhoon series production aircraft in February 2003.

Many on this forum will know Carl Schofield who used to fly for the OFMC years ago, and now flies for the Fighter Collection. Carl's son (then in his early teens) often used to come along to shows with him. Now about two feet taller than when I last saw him, Jim Schofield was commissioned in the RAF after university, selected for fast jets, then Harriers and then to be a Test Pilot. He started at ETPS in January. How times move on!
I've no doubt at all it was the rides in the back of the Harvard which set Jim up for such success. That's a thought - I wonder if he can get me a ride in something interesting. :D


Tudor


PS:
I'll watch out for any other talks which might be of interest, and post details again.

Looking forward to reading the notes here.
I would've loved to have been there in person, but the people who pay my mortgage said 'no' to a day off at such notice!

I remember seeing a very youthful looking Dave Southwood (and J.F. for that matter!) in the 'Test Pilot' series as a nipper!

I wonder what the rest of the 'stars' of the show are doing now?

"TEST PILOT STARS"

The New Zealand guy FLT LT Steve Moore (now Group Captain) returned to NZ to fly the A4 Skyhawk with 75 Squadron, he later became CO.

Shortly after he returned to NZ he gave a great talk to the Wellington Branch and mentioned one guy from Israel on his course also, but for obvious security reasons never appeared to the series ! Said they all loved the Lightning, and hated the Jaguar ! (as risk of seriously upsetting someone !)

I'd love to say the Jag has matured with age...and is now a pleasant if somewhat quaint aircraft.

The Lightning, of course, is where the Jag should be - impaled on a stick by the gate.