Chipmunk retractable undercarriage
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 49
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From: Sywell
As a lover of all things De haviland
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If you can correct your first post in this thread, I promise you will not be mentioned on that website group!
Here are some pics of Art Scholl's Chipmunks:
At the Smithsonian, Washington Dulles Airport:
At the utterly fabulous EAA Museum, Oshkosh:
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Appearance, practicality and maintenance aside I just wonder if a retractable gear could cope with groundloops.
Here's one I prepared earlier.....tyre tracks cross just off to the right. Had to play with my Airfix Chipmunk afterwards to figure that out.
I don't think retractable gear could take much of that.
Here's one I prepared earlier.....tyre tracks cross just off to the right. Had to play with my Airfix Chipmunk afterwards to figure that out.
I don't think retractable gear could take much of that.
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 3,325
Likes: 2
From: UK
I think you lot are a load of wussies! Of course it would't be pratical to fit retract to a Chippy... but. It's a very impractical aeroplane:
No luggage space
Not much fuel capacity
No heater
Noisy
Draughty (see: no heater)
Covers you in oil during pre and post flight stuff
Expensive to maintain
.....BUT
It is absolutely LOVELY to fly! (So I forgive it all the above, hence my 30-year love affair with one. I was unfaithful once - left her for a Yak 52 - but since returned to my first love).
And yes. It wouldn't half look good in flight with the mains retracted. They don't call it the poor man's Spitfire for nothing!
SSD
No luggage space
Not much fuel capacity
No heater
Noisy
Draughty (see: no heater)
Covers you in oil during pre and post flight stuff
Expensive to maintain
.....BUT
It is absolutely LOVELY to fly! (So I forgive it all the above, hence my 30-year love affair with one. I was unfaithful once - left her for a Yak 52 - but since returned to my first love).
And yes. It wouldn't half look good in flight with the mains retracted. They don't call it the poor man's Spitfire for nothing!
SSD
Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 441
Likes: 0
From: UK
Yes, it really is a delightful aeroplane to fly.
But, as has been said, not the type you can roll up to fly in your best designer jeans and expect not to get dirty. One of the few aeroplanes where it is de rigueur to wear a flying suit (or two!) in order to be fully integrated into the spirit of the machine.
No chance either of just going for a 'quick spin'. The flying experience is a half day undertaking by the time it has been prepared, flown and put to bed.
Those were the days - Austers, Chipmunks and Tiger Moths. I wonder if we'll look back through rose-tinted spectacles with the same affection for the current Cessna and Piper types. Probably!?
KR
FOK
But, as has been said, not the type you can roll up to fly in your best designer jeans and expect not to get dirty. One of the few aeroplanes where it is de rigueur to wear a flying suit (or two!) in order to be fully integrated into the spirit of the machine.
No chance either of just going for a 'quick spin'. The flying experience is a half day undertaking by the time it has been prepared, flown and put to bed.
Those were the days - Austers, Chipmunks and Tiger Moths. I wonder if we'll look back through rose-tinted spectacles with the same affection for the current Cessna and Piper types. Probably!?
KR
FOK
Joined: Jun 2002
Aviation Qualifications: PPL
Posts: 7,177
Likes: 297
From: Nanaimo (CAC8)
SSD
I absolutely agree with you on all counts. A wonderful aircraft. I've had the opportunity to fly both the RAF and the RCAF versions. The Canadian one has that wonderful bubble canopy, which makes it even more the "poor man's Spitfire" and of more practical use, it has a HEATER. It also has a throttle with a large horizontal handgrip that looks like it came out of a Mustang, rather than the wussie little throttle in the T10 - see here http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/imag...ockpit_lrg.jpg
I have to say that I don't like the lack of "trousers" on the gear legs - makes it look quite naked.
Speaking of Art Scholl, I had an opportunity to see his retractable Super Chipmunk up-close at Springbank in the 1970s, when he was performing at the Calgary Stampede. Certainly the change in the fin caused a loss of the "dh" character, but still a very impressive aircraft. He flew it from what would have been the back seat, presumably for Cof G considerations and it had full-span ailerons (no flaps).
[Edited to say, after looking at the pictures in Post 22, that the flaps had been removed and the aileron span increased.]
His performance at the Stampede consisted of a low-level night aerobatic display up and down the finishing stretch of the Stampede horse-race track (half a mile from the centre of the city), in pitch darkness, with flares on the wingtips, synchronized with the performance on the stage in front of the grandstand! The lights on the backstretch of the track were illuminated to provide a 400 yard long emergency strip. I cannot imagine trying to get permission to do that these days, even in Canada, never mind the UK!
I absolutely agree with you on all counts. A wonderful aircraft. I've had the opportunity to fly both the RAF and the RCAF versions. The Canadian one has that wonderful bubble canopy, which makes it even more the "poor man's Spitfire" and of more practical use, it has a HEATER. It also has a throttle with a large horizontal handgrip that looks like it came out of a Mustang, rather than the wussie little throttle in the T10 - see here http://www.courtesyaircraft.com/imag...ockpit_lrg.jpg
I have to say that I don't like the lack of "trousers" on the gear legs - makes it look quite naked.
Speaking of Art Scholl, I had an opportunity to see his retractable Super Chipmunk up-close at Springbank in the 1970s, when he was performing at the Calgary Stampede. Certainly the change in the fin caused a loss of the "dh" character, but still a very impressive aircraft. He flew it from what would have been the back seat, presumably for Cof G considerations and it had full-span ailerons (no flaps).
[Edited to say, after looking at the pictures in Post 22, that the flaps had been removed and the aileron span increased.]
His performance at the Stampede consisted of a low-level night aerobatic display up and down the finishing stretch of the Stampede horse-race track (half a mile from the centre of the city), in pitch darkness, with flares on the wingtips, synchronized with the performance on the stage in front of the grandstand! The lights on the backstretch of the track were illuminated to provide a 400 yard long emergency strip. I cannot imagine trying to get permission to do that these days, even in Canada, never mind the UK!
Last edited by India Four Two; 11th January 2009 at 22:07.
