A few months ago, Dan (neighbour and flying buddy) had generously bought me half an hour flight in a Harvard at Transport Command in Shoreham as a birthday present. When his birthday came, I could hardly buy him a pair of socks, so I bought him half and hour or aerobatics at the Ultimate High in Kemble (in a Bulldog – he is a bit too heavy for an Extra 300). Since Dan is due to be posted back to Canada at the end of July, we thought we had better get on arranging these flights. Dan suggested that we could do them both on the same day if we flew – good idea! So I booked the Ultimate High for 10:00 and Transport Command for 14:00.
So we booked Thursday 1st June and prayed for the weather (which had been truly awful virtually every day in May). The forecast was OK and the day dawned, cloudy, but fairly high cloud and forecast to clear progressively during the day. So we saddled up and headed off to Gloucester at 08:30. On arrival at the airfield, the fire crew had already pulled G-GYMM out and all that was left was to do the A-Check and fuel-up. We were off by 09:15 for the very short 15 minute hop to Kemble. No sooner had I cleared the ridge at 2000’ than I put a call into Kemble. I got a right base join for 26 (avoiding Kemble village). Did a tight right base and floated down for a good landing at Kemble. We taxied and parked up on the grass outside the AV8 and paid the £16 landing fee.
Dan was straight in to the Ultimate High and I was continually clicking digital pictures. After filling in various forms and generally signing his life away, he was stripped of all loose items (watch and sunglasses excepted) and given a thorough brief on safety and the various manoeuvres they would carry out. Now Dan is a big chap and they had to carefully select the flight suit for him. The hardest part of the preparations was Dan selecting his ‘handle’ for the flight suit from a number on the board. Personally, I wanted him to go for ‘Limpwrist’, but surprisingly, he went for ‘Shadow’.
We trooped outside with the dispatcher to the pumps while ‘Nitro’ (his instructor) wandered off to get the Bulldog from the hangar and taxi to the fuel pumps while we waited at the pumps. The dispatcher got Dan kitted out with his parachute, then we fuelled up and Dan carefully clambered into the Bulldog and got strapped in. His instructor (as they all are Ultimate High) is immensely experienced and turned out to be 68 years old (he used to fly Canberra’s etc.). They lined up on 26 and were off in short order. While Dan is away, I make the most of the time and order a coffee and sandwich from the AV8 as I don’t want to be cramming something down at Shoreham immediately prior to doing aerobatics!
Dan tells me that at a suitable height, they did the time honours ‘monkey see, monkey do’ training where the instructor showed Dan a manoeuvre with Dan following through, then Dan did it by himself. Although it was only half and hour, they did aileron rolls, barrel rolls, loops and a Cuban eight. The next I saw of them was when they roared overhead at 90 degrees to the runway and did an abbreviated run and break with a tight low level descending turn to bang the plane on the numbers at 26 – that was one very impressive ‘final’!
Dan unstraps and is all smiles – wot – no sick bag? Dan regales me with tales of derring do. The instructor was apparently impressed Dan flew through his own wake turbulence in the loop twice (i.e. not a fluke the first time). Dan gets his logbook completed and signed. He now has two entries in his logbook – the first being circuits at Aeros and the second being aerobatics at the Ultimate High – some first two lessons! He of course has many ‘unofficial hours’ (SNY) flying with me and is perfectly competent in many aspects of general handling. He does confide that he was starting to feel a little green and that another 10 minutes might have yielded results. However, he was suspicious as Nitro was constantly asking him how he felt and only in the last part of the flight did the air blower mysteriously start to work – hmmmm…..!
He changes back and we trooped back to my now boring Arrow and head off to Shoreham. I route CPT DCT GWC DCT and speak to Brize, then Farnborough, then Goodwood. We easily manager 3200’ but have to duck under a line of clag at 2000’ about 15 miles north of Chichester. I speak to Shoreham who are busy as ever and get a standard overhead join for 02 with left hand circuits. On the downwind leg I am number two, until another aircraft calls ‘rough running one one of the mags’ and is rightly given priority. The aircraft on final is ordered to go around and I am told to extend downwind. The chap gets down and of course the rough running clears on the ground, meanwhile I am three miles out to sea and advised that I can now turn final. I shoot the long final with the wind at 300/12. I try to crab in, but over the narrow runway, I start to drift, so I drop the wing in the flare and carry out a ‘wing-down’ landing, one wheel at a time.
I pay the £14 fee and we head to the café where Dan has his overdue lunch. We troop off to Transport Command, which is not far from Transair near the 02 threshold. Karen is expecting me and I am suited and booted while they try to find a suitable helmet (one that fits). My instructor for the flight is Craig McKinnon, a young chap who seems to fly short-haul for British Airways and instructs on tailwheelers. Dan is the photographer this time. The aircraft is actually a T6 as it is American built. It is in lovely US Navy colours and first went into service in 1941. It has recently completed an full ‘annual’ and Stuart wisely takes his time on the walk-around. It really is a huge beast although only a two seater. Many people have told me how light it is on the controls and a delight to fly, but I am sceptical at this stage.
Karen gets me seated, adjusted and briefs me as to where everything it. It is all huge, robust and agricultural compared to my Arrow – I swear the trim wheel alone is a foot in diameter and solid metal! It really is an earlier generation, but of course charming for that. I have a lot of problem with the intercom and eventually, we change helmets, which does the trick.
Now we can hear each other, we start up and taxi out. Stuart explains that we won’t go full power on take-off as it upsets the neighbours (What! – aircraft noise when you move to a house near an airport? How unexpected and outrageous!).
Nevertheless, the big radial hauls the T6 very smoothly off the ground in very short order. We are climbing away and Stuart hands over to me. I climb the aircraft at the required 110 mph (this is all in mph and many of the key speeds are slower than my Arrow). I do a climbing turn to take us to the west heading for Ford disused airfield for some aerobatics. On the way, Stuart suggests I do a couple of normal turns to get the feel of the aircraft and the adverse yaw. He is right that modern aircraft are usually so well designed that you forget what the rudder is for and rarely use it in turns. I do the turns, trying to co-ordinate with the rudder as required. I think I do this pretty well as they feel nicely co-ordinated. I am really surprised by how light and responsive the aircraft is – they weren’t lying you know! We try some turns on ailerons alone and I can immediately see the difference the adverse yaw make – looks like I was getting it about right!
Next up, steep turns! So I pull it over into probably a 55 degree AOB and hold it there with good height. Stuart encourages me to go for a really steep turn, so I pull it over to the other side and I swear it must have been 70 degrees plus. I add power and pull back and hold height while the wingtip stays stapled to a point on the ground as we pivot around it – most satisfying! What a lovely plane!
We gain height to nearly 4000’. Stuart demonstrates the aileron roll. A bit different to both the Extra 300 and the Jet Provost that I have done these on before, in that he dives to pick up 140 mph, then pulls it up to quite a nose high attitude, then does the roll. I try these myself in both directions and it really is a respectable rate of roll for such a bit aircraft.
Then of course he asks if I fancy a loop – absolutely! Stuart shows me. Back up to a safe height, nose down to pick up 160mph, then haul back and keep pulling – head back at the top so you can see where you are going and down again. Then I have as I recall two loops. Both very nice, while Stuart works the throttle. The G is nowhere near what I felt in the Extra 300, probably we pulled 3 or 4 G maximum, but great fun nevertheless.
Unfortunately, my short time is up and we head back to Shoreham, while I put it into a cruise descent to 2000’. Stuart gets a standard overhead join for grass runway 31. He asks for and gets an aileron roll in the overhead (has to be done!) then approaches 31. A helicopter and another aircraft coming in on 02 at the same time persuade Stuart that we need a low level orbit on short final so he powers up and even though we are flaps and gear down and draggy, the T6 and the mighty radial obliged happily. We come back in to 31 and he adopted the classic ‘3-point’ attitude and correct airspeed and the laws of physics do the rest, we touch gently, get a bit of a ‘Spitfire bounce’ then are down again. Stuart invites me to taxi back to get a feel for tailwheel ground handling. This takes a lot more thought and work than a nosewheel. As we approach the narrow tarmac taxiway with aircraft on both sides, I ask him to take control as I have virtually no forward visibility from the back and would have to chop up a spamcan!
We get back to stand and Dan is still happily clicking away. I unplug and clamber down. I am all smiles and clearly have some adrenaline circulating, nowhere near the overdose I got with the Extra 300, but then I didn’t expect to.
What a great aircraft. A real delight to fly and yes, surprisingly light and responsive on the control – far more so than the TB10 I used to fly. I come away with the view that yes, I could definitely fly the T6 with a few more lessons on tailwheel handling and would love to do so, but would have to win the lottery first to afford it! I feel privileged to have flown the T6 and experienced what virtually every allied WW2 pilot did during their training – I can only imagine that it would have been an excellent stepping stone to a Spitfire, Typhoon or a Mustang – dream on!
The flight back in the Arrow is of course pedestrian in comparison, but I have to be careful, because complacency is where things start to go wrong. We arrive back at Gloucester and while I am on final, a visiting aircraft decides to try to follow the aircraft ahead onto the runway and technically causes an infringement. He is shepherded back to behind the hold, while the aircraft ahead takes off and I approach to short final. I know it can be confusing at new airfields, but most holds are clearly signed and easily visible – sometimes people seem to just stop thinking. I land and am aware of a twin behind me doing a low level circuit (for practice), but I am going too fast to make the intersection turn-off without hammering the brakes, so I roll to the end – not worth wearing the brakes out for.
I shut down and we pack up. What a fantastic days flying and what a great boys day out. I would have to put Air Combat in the USA as first, my flight in the Jet Provost second and this as the third best aviation experience ever (all of them of course behind my first solo though!).
Next scheduled aviation excitement might be a business trip to Peterborough next week and most certainly will be Project Propeller on the 25th June where I will fly some WW2 veterans to Wolverhampton and back for their reunion. The Europe Flying Safari has seriously denuded my fund and my stock of goodwill from the wife, but I do have a couple of cross-channel forays still planned for 2006 – nothing ambitious though.
