The Chippie Thread

[Alisoncc]

This is scandalous. Seven topics started in a nostalgic aircaft forum, and no Chippie thread. Had my very first flight ever at RAF Chivenor 1957 in a Chippie, probably not dissimilar to this. Hooked from day one. Getting to sit in the front seat with the pilot behind also made it special. I know that happens for everyone in a chippie, but I didn't know then.

chippie.jpg

[stuart]

My first flight in a chippy was from Filton in 68 as an ATC cadet, having to wear a parachute didn't exactly inspire confidence then bang some kind of starter cartridge went off ! by now as a 15 year old I was cacking myself then after take off I felt ok this is nice a little trip over the Severn bridge and see if I can see my house kind of thing lovely...........then the chap flying said something like 'now lets try some aerobatics' OMG !

[CharlieOneSix]

As an aspiring Fleet Air Arm helicopter pilot, and having done my first solo at 18 in a Tiger Moth whilst at Dartmouth Royal Naval College, a few months later the RAF then taught us to fly the Chipmunk at RAF Linton-on-Ouse before we went on to helicopters with the RN at Culdrose.

My last Chipmunk solo flight was a cross country flight in WP857. Piccy of me in that aircraft around that time:

Charlie16.jpg

42 years later in 2006 I became aware that WP857 was still around and flying, still in RAF uniform, with the Caledonian Chipmunks at Prestwick. Having contacted them I received an invitation to fly with them when they came to Perth that summer and I had a superb hour in WP857 recreating the days of my youth with some poor attempts at aerobatics. I'm sure the cockpit was a lot narrower than it used to be when I was 18! Piccy of a more elderly C16 in WP857 below:

WP857.jpg

[henry crun]

Awww - those luvverly chippies - like superq my first chippie flight was from Filton but during the late fifties. Lots of flights there, and another from Chivenor, where the man up front kindly let me take the controls, whereupon the engine stopped. Eeerrgghhh - instinctively I pushed the nose down a bit to maintain airspeed before politely letting the pilot know we were without power. "Oh," he said "So where are you going to land?" I had to do some quick mental arithmetic based on altitude, rate of descent, speed and deduce a distance. "That corn field ahead looks right," "Okay, go ahead." We were quite low when he fired the cartridge and said "I've got her." Just east of Croyde Bay.

[CharlieOneSix]

Continuing from my earlier post, here are two photos taken at my second annual visit to Caledonian Chipmunks at Perth in 2007, the first being a clever photo of an electric powered 69" wingspan scale model of a Chipmunk (made by Murray Hackney of Dundee Model Aircraft Club) in front of two full sized ones and the second is of the Caledonian Chipmunks display at Perth - WD305 and WP857. They are now painted as '170' and '169' respectively to reflect the first batch of Chipmunks delivered to the Irish Air Corps (Army Air Corps as it was known back then) in 1952.

Both photos taken by Berry Vissers of Squadron Prints down the road from me in Arbroath https://www.squadronprints.com/ and reproduced here with his permission. Berry's air to air photos of all kinds of military aircraft on that website are quite stunning.

Chip1.jpg

Chip4.jpg

[Shaggy sheep driver]

IMG_0326 res.jpg

Me in one of my favorite places back in 2010

Other Chippy in formation r.jpg

May 2010 taken by my passenger as another Chippy flies in formation with us down the coast to celebrate 100 years of flight at Formby Point.

DSC03621res.jpg

Nearly home... turning short final, Liverpool John Lennon, G-BCSL, 22 September 2011.

[om15]

Standard apprentice air experience at Halton was a Chipmunk flight with a few aerobatics, my flight took in a sightseeing trip of the bridge where the great train robbery had been quite recently carried out and a low circuit of Leatherslade Farm.

[Shaggy sheep driver]

Bluddy edit timed out before I'd edited the above post! Mods - that's a big flaw you need to fix!

[Shaggy sheep driver]

IMG_0326 res.jpg

Me in one of my favorite places back in 2010

Other Chippy in formation r.jpg

May 2010 taken by my passenger as another Chippy flies in formation with us down the coast to celebrate 100 years of flight at Formby Point.

DSC03621res.jpg

Nearly home... turning short final, Liverpool John Lennon, G-BCSL, 22 September

[henry crun]

[bbvideo=560,315]https://youtu.be/IyHAj8broT4[/bbvideo]

[CharlieOneSix]

....and to refresh the commentator's memory about the lady who solved the problem of the Merlin cutting out in negative 'g', most pilots will know that she was Beatrice Shilling and the fix was known as Miss Shilling's Orifice.