A man can dream
Thread Starter
A man can dream
Just supposing a new but sensible PPL (say 60 hours on C150 or PA28) aspired to owning and flying a Spitfire.
If money wasn't an obstacle, but they didn't really want to spend more than necessary what would be the best way to proceed?
My thoughts as a low time PPL with no chance of ever flying anything more Spitfire like than a Chipmunk are as follows.
Get 100+ hours tailwheel with plenty of circuits to practice take off and landings.
While doing this get some experience with variable pitch prop and retractable undercarriage, and an aerobatics course or two on a reasonably powerfull tailwheel type.
Then learn to solo a Harvard, then to do the same from the backseat.
This would add up to maybe 300 hours total time, which seems a bit thin considering 19 year olds in wartime were expected to take around 250.
Any thoughts?
If money wasn't an obstacle, but they didn't really want to spend more than necessary what would be the best way to proceed?
My thoughts as a low time PPL with no chance of ever flying anything more Spitfire like than a Chipmunk are as follows.
Get 100+ hours tailwheel with plenty of circuits to practice take off and landings.
While doing this get some experience with variable pitch prop and retractable undercarriage, and an aerobatics course or two on a reasonably powerfull tailwheel type.
Then learn to solo a Harvard, then to do the same from the backseat.
This would add up to maybe 300 hours total time, which seems a bit thin considering 19 year olds in wartime were expected to take around 250.
Any thoughts?
Join Date: May 2001
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Find an instructor who has loads of Spitfire time, and pay them to teach you to fly THE spitfire. In the USA in Florida you can learn to fly the P51.
Roald Dhal recounts in his book "going solo" (biography of his war time fighter pilot role) about how he turned up to his new unit and found a hurricane (I think) waiting there for him. He had about less than 200 hrs at this point I seem to remember.
"Who's going to teach me to fly it" he asks his CO, "You are" he answers and gives him something like 6 hours to learn to fly it before sending him off from North Africa to Greece (I think) to join his combat unit.
Roald Dhal recounts in his book "going solo" (biography of his war time fighter pilot role) about how he turned up to his new unit and found a hurricane (I think) waiting there for him. He had about less than 200 hrs at this point I seem to remember.
"Who's going to teach me to fly it" he asks his CO, "You are" he answers and gives him something like 6 hours to learn to fly it before sending him off from North Africa to Greece (I think) to join his combat unit.
Yes, but that 200 hours would be all training, mostly with some of the best instructors in the world, in aircraft that pushed him constantly. Plus, it was at a time when we had a very strong need to get pilots in Spitfires quickly.
That is very different to 200 hours in a modern and relatively undemanding GA environment.
It was obviously doable, since many young men in many countries did it at that time. But, I'd take a new PPL as maybe equivalent to 30 hours of that - so you're looking at 170 hours (ish) of robust training in demanding aircraft - leading up to reasonable hours in something similar to a Harvard, just as it would have been there.
That said, there's no need now to know how to fight a Spitfire, only to fly it so, maybe, you could bring that back to 100 hours. Maybe - but it would still have to be very demanding training.
Just as a semi-comparison, I fly in a syndicate a Stinson S108-2 which is a 1940s taildragger of WW2 ancestry, with a relatively small (165hp) engine and moderately demanding handling (certainly harder work than, say, a Cub - although just as fun). About 1 in 3 of PPLs who try to join the syndicate can fly the aircraft well enough to satisfy the rest of the syndicate that we'd trust them with it unsupervised. This is a much, easier aeroplane to fly than the Harvard or N3N-3 (both wartime trainers that I have flown) and from everything I've heard from reliable sources, the Spitfire is a much harder aeroplane than those.
G
N.B. Quick and gratuitous plug - whilst I'm very happy personally, a couple of our syndicate members are trying to sell their Stinson shares, so if you genuinely are interested in some warbird-ish flying, drop me a PM and I can tell you a bit more and put you in touch with the chaps trying to sell. Or chip in something for petrol and give me an excuse to go flying!
That is very different to 200 hours in a modern and relatively undemanding GA environment.
It was obviously doable, since many young men in many countries did it at that time. But, I'd take a new PPL as maybe equivalent to 30 hours of that - so you're looking at 170 hours (ish) of robust training in demanding aircraft - leading up to reasonable hours in something similar to a Harvard, just as it would have been there.
That said, there's no need now to know how to fight a Spitfire, only to fly it so, maybe, you could bring that back to 100 hours. Maybe - but it would still have to be very demanding training.
Just as a semi-comparison, I fly in a syndicate a Stinson S108-2 which is a 1940s taildragger of WW2 ancestry, with a relatively small (165hp) engine and moderately demanding handling (certainly harder work than, say, a Cub - although just as fun). About 1 in 3 of PPLs who try to join the syndicate can fly the aircraft well enough to satisfy the rest of the syndicate that we'd trust them with it unsupervised. This is a much, easier aeroplane to fly than the Harvard or N3N-3 (both wartime trainers that I have flown) and from everything I've heard from reliable sources, the Spitfire is a much harder aeroplane than those.
G
N.B. Quick and gratuitous plug - whilst I'm very happy personally, a couple of our syndicate members are trying to sell their Stinson shares, so if you genuinely are interested in some warbird-ish flying, drop me a PM and I can tell you a bit more and put you in touch with the chaps trying to sell. Or chip in something for petrol and give me an excuse to go flying!
This is a much, easier aeroplane to fly than the Harvard or N3N-3 (both wartime trainers that I have flown) and from everything I've heard from reliable sources, the Spitfire is a much harder aeroplane than those.
I've never flown a Spitfire, but I did treat myself to an hour of dual in a P-51, and that was an absolute delight to fly. I've heard that the T-6 (/Harvard/Texan/...) was deliberately made harder to fly than the real combat aircraft.
But unless you've got around $10M to spare, and maybe $250K/year to run it, it's all a bit academic, though a pleasant enough dream.
n555q
