Slingsby Dart 17 R – 109

First syndicated machine. A yellow aircraft with an all flying low set tailplane and seventeen metre wing. I don’t recall cross countrying this one. It was repaired quite a few times and I did quite a few spin checks in it afterwards.  Eventually it did fall apart around a repair in the monocoque  just behind the left wing. I’d rather not say any more about this one except, we did quite well out of the insurance payout and the picture above is a similar but not the same aircraft.

Glasflugel Libelle – 901

This is the aircraft I flew the most – over a 100 hours.  I got to know it so well I could land on a sixpence even with its’ infamous limited approach control. I flew this one from North Hill to Sutton Veny in converging sea breeze fronts for my silver distance. I had to land as I was surrounded by thunderstorms. The Libelle is a small aircraft so is easy to rig and derig especially with the rigging mnemonic that I developed (PATPUP). I had many adventures in this one…

Slingsby Tutor

A old red 1948 open cockpit single seater shared with 30 others. 1 in 12 glide angle so I didn’t go far in this one. It would thermal OK but was hard to get any height on a winch launch, usually 600 feet or so,  and was tricky to aerotow as the tug had to fly so slowly it was quite easy to fall into the prop wash where the Tutor’s ailerons would become unusable. You just had to sit there and wait for the aircraft to pop out of the aforesaid prop wash. I did give it the first test flight after its annual maintenance . There were only four instruments but even so one didn’t work. I had to keep tapping the cockpit coaming (never tap glass..) to unstick the altimeter. I thought I was higher…

Grumann AA5 Traveller – G BBSA

A beige powered aircraft also shared with 30 others based at Newcastle Airport. Although it had a yoke and plunger throttle  it was still a nice aircraft to fly. It had a large sliding canopy and a tricycle undercarriage. The nose wheel was a bit delicate so it was best to land on main wheels first. The only time I ever flew a friend, who wasn’t a pilot, was in this machine. I tended to fly up and down the Northumberland coast mostly as it was the easiest way to navigate although it did have DME equipment and an autopilot.  There was a slight incident once when we were getting low on fuel and  were held off from landing back at the airport for quite a while. The airport ATC were aware of my fuel state so I didn’t have to call a fuel emergency but I did a lot of tank swapping….

Volksplane VP2

Funny little blue Volkswagen powered kit plane. Two seat side by side with a stick in the middle and throttle quadrant on the left (if sat on on the left hand side). That I liked. Otherwise it was not very nice to fly. It was a tricky to land taildragger (I can land Cubs and Moths and the like quite happily). I tried side slipping once – it didn’t  like it. I didn’t do much with this one. We sold it for the Jodel below.

Jodel D100

A nice little red and white aeroplane to replace the Volksplane. Also a taildragger. I didn’t fly this much either as I sold my share (more or less) soon after – I needed the money…

Rolladen Schneider LS7

A state of the art 15 metre standard class fibreglass glider which I fetched back, brand new, from the factory in Germany, using my big black Rover Sterling(see my cars). It also had a clamshell, double axle trailer with a fancy  yaw damper. Although it had a small instrument panel it was very up to date including a Peschges variometer, a Bohli compass and a GPS. It also had a narrow cockpit, but I could get into such things in those days… It was so state of the art it was quite tricky to fly, but I enjoyed flying it nonetheless. It was also expensive, so we, my syndicate partner and I, ran the aircraft as a business for a while selling rides to experienced pilots who wanted to have a go.

Schemp Hirth Nimbus 2B

A very nice 20 meter glider with flaps (including negative), tail chute, etc. Flew this quite a lot and even got my diamond (and gold) height over Balmoral on a most interesting wave flight.  20,000 feet without an engine and an exciting landing to boot….

Pictures to follow