Sunfish

The purpose of the Phase 1 flight test programme is to establish that data for the particular aircraft.

Griffo...you may be right. crack, delamination due old glue, may have got that wrong. Was by the cable hole the starting point ?
I was told the story many years ago, of that accident by the Tiger builder who used to live at Northam WA and was involved in the investigation...I guess it must also be in an ATSB file someplace.

Local hero since passed pioneered air ag in FNQ starting with Tigers. Crashed a few, one into a big tree and survived. "Hairy" anecdotes abound.. All part of the individualism of the early solo operators, living on their 'edge'

In 1956, I was among several RAAF QFI's from No 1 BFTS Uranquinty NSW, that quietly took rec leave and went crop dusting with Air Farm P/L based at Tamworth. At Uranquinty we instructed on Tiger Moths and Wirraways and easily met the minimum requirements of 500 hours on Tiger Moths stipulated in the short term contract with Air Farm. The manager was Basil Brown who founded East West Airlines. We did two weeks at a time flying crop duster Tiger Moths which had a hopper instead of the front seat. It was hard and dirty work often flying eight hours a day but the pay was good. We operated from strips around the Armidale area where density altitudes could be 6000 ft. The Tiger Moth was not a good sea level performer at the best of times so 6000 ft DA really stretched the friendship.

We regularly flew (staggered was more like it) with 450 lbs super phosphate in the front which was the equivalent of 2.5 passengers in the front seat. The CG was probably way out of the forward limit and we needed full back cheese-cutter (mechanical elevator trim) for take off. Full throttle was needed to fly. Every landing was seriously short field technique to minimize ground roll as the Tiger Moth did not come with the luxury of wheel brakes. But it had a tail skid which acted as a brake if you kept the stick hard back.

Minimum fuel was unheard of. You filled the tank first flight of the day usually 0600 and topped it as required during the day. I don't know what the max structural weight for take off in the Tiger Moth but two pilots and full fuel was normal for sea level. We certainly exceeded that for every take off and then some.

On my first take off with full hopper at Guyra NSW, I could barely maintain 200 feet to the drop zone even with full throttle. After having spread the load over the drop zone I returned for a short field landing and pulled up at the loader who quickly poured super phosphate into the hopper while I kept the engine running at idle (no brakes, remember?). I heard a frightful oath from the loader who happened to be the farmer paying for the load, and saw him point to under the Moth. I cut the engine, removed my dust covered flying goggles, and climbed out.

I then understood why he was so pissed off. Being a novice crop duster on my first operational mission it turned out I had forgotten to close the bomb bay doors (the dump valve) after the last run. When the phosphate poured into the hopper it went straight through and poured out at the bottom on to the ground. My zero fuel weight was thus only me and my Tiger. No payload. The farmer gave me a dirty look and made me shovel the stuff from the ground into the hopper. That was back breaking work. Phosphate was expensive so I guess he had a point.

I finished my two week agreement and went back to Uranquinty a bit richer financially, but to the relative safety of teaching sprog trainee pilots.
Postscript: About six QFI's were involved at various times with the Air Farm flying. The Commanding Officer of No 1 BFTS, Wing Commander Keith Bolitho DFC didn't know about it. We just took recreation leave for two weeks at a time. Some recreation that's for sure.

One of our bunch was Flight Sergeant Ted Dillon. Ted had hurt his ankle playing football and had it strapped up with plaster. He heard we were making money crop dusting so he hacked off the plaster and went to Tamworth. He pranged a Tiger Moth while crop dusting and broke the other leg. On arrival back at Uranquinty, questions were asked about his two legs being strapped up instead of the one when he had gone on leave. The CO twigged something was fishy about his pilots disappearing for two weeks and coming back with more folding money than when they left. Add that to Ted's broken leg in mysterious circumstances. We all admitted guilt. The CO threatened us with Courts Martial if we did that again.

What a fantastic career centurious. What changes you saw, tiger moths, P51s, the Avro Lincoln, 737s . Incredible . I am truly jealous . Such variety will never happen again .

If one was to peruse the original specifications for the aircraft fitted with a DH Gypsy Major engine, you would find words to the effect: " Use a good grade of motor spirit, well filtered".
This engine long pre-dated the use of "lead" in petrol, and the evolution of "high octane" fuels. "Back in the day", petrol would have been around 60-65 octane. Indeed, the introduction of "leaded" fuel cause all sorts of problems with engines that had brass cylinder heads, they had to be swapped for aluminium heads.
Tootle pip!!

tcas,
That's not quite the whole story, is it.
The methods of certifying approach speeds in modern large transport aircraft are not based on 1.3CAS, but the way they are done, the results are almost the same as if it was based on 1.3CAS.
Why the difference --- because stalling a modern large transport aircraft for real can and probably will do structural damage to the aircraft.
The last Boeing aircraft certified based on actual stalling was the B707.
Tootle pip!!

LS - it's a Gipsy. DH purists are offended!

I learnt to fly in the Tiger at the RQAC in 1955 - my last year of High School.. We often landed on the beach on South or North Stradbroke Island so my instructor could have a smoke - not many beachgoers then. I continued in the Tiger to get my Commercial Licence. No radios, naviads etc but at least I learnt to recover from spins and unusual attitudes under the hood - with a very limited pannel.

A few of the RQAC Tigers had slats - made short field landings very short! Unfortunately the RQAC and its Tigers are gone.

Well, they better get unoffended. The spelling from circa 1930's it seems that both means were accepted in the advertising of aircraft. The RAAF pilot notes of February 1944 spell it as "Gypsy", and calls for 73 Octane, though de Havilland used "Gipsy". Wonder how the alternate spelling came about so early in the power plants life?. Both means of spelling refer to the same particular group of people ie alternate spellings of the same word. I get where you're coming from though re purists, better tell the RAAF and all those 1930 era people they got it wrong I guess.

If you look at this article both spellings are used.

https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarch...0-%200477.html

The correct answer, as specified by Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, is Gipsy. Any other spelling is incorrect. This is stated in his autobiography "Sky Fever" and all DH advertising refers to Gipsy engines. The RAAF pilot Notes are wrong. In addition, the Gipsy was not named after a group of people but a moth (lepidoptera type) as were most of the DH single piston engine aircraft.

Sorry, my mistake, should know better after being the proprietor of several over the years.
The said purists get quite NOOJ (nose out of joint) when you point at it was a Renault engine originally, not a DH design, hence the metric threads.
Tootle pip!!

As a stand alone word "Gipsy" refers to a group of certain people, not a moth, though it can be seen where de Havilland derived the word, as a contraction of the "Gipsy Moth" aka the moth Lymantria dispar, which is also known as the "Gypsy Moth". Irrespective of the spelling used, both are referring to the same thing, though de Havilland used the "I" format. Purists can get their knickers in a knot over semantics, I am one. :p

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymantria_dispar_dispar

After a little research I find the entire world, save for the UK, call/spell the particular moth as "Gypsy Moth", the UK being the only English speaking nation to spell it as "Gipsy Moth". Trust the Brits to be the odd man out, but one has to ask why? Days of Empire superiority? Ref page 12 common names.

https://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/t...antria_web.pdf

Brits have now fallen into line.

https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/to...es/gypsy-moth/

"Gipsy Moth" or "Gypsy Moth" - one of those used to be my password at work last year - now I know why it would fail sometimes.

Should have used "Puss Moth" instead.