Wish I could have flown one of these...

[Flying Trucker]

Goodly morning all...

I am sure many of you will find this an interesting read...enjoy...

http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/ ... -Kite.aspx

Several Decades ago I spoke with a family member who had flown the Westland Lysander, the Auster, the German Fieseler Stork and many more Allied and Axis Aircraft but I do not recall some of these points...mind you my old grey matter is not what it used to be...

-No floor...egads...what if you dropped your pipe I always smoked my pipe when aviating...

-Poor or No Brakes

-Pilot does not control Flaps

The Westland Lysander at the Canadian Warplane Heritage is also a Flying Aircraft...last time we were there I was admiring the Machine Guns mounted in the Wheel Fenders...It's livery is yellow and black Tiger Stripes...perhaps for Target Towing.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ca ... &FORM=IGRE

[Flacke]

Hello F.T., and old friend of mine [gone now] used to fly Lysanders on training while still in Canada . I don't remember why he flew them or where. He said he enjoyed flying around the countryside in them on training missions with a back-seater. To him at that time it was a big and powerful airplane. On one flight he was taking off from a grass field and it had rained recently. He hit a wet/muddy spot hidden in the grass and the wheels suddenly dug in. The airplane flipped before he could do anything. His back-seater was injured when he was flung out of the airplane because he had been slow in fastening his seatbelt. My friend felt pretty bad about that whole takeoff and the results of it.
He went on to fly Lancasters on missions over Germany. I saw his log books and the pictures that his crew took on some of the missions. In some photos I could see hundreds of black puffs where the ack-ack shells had exploded all around the aircraft. He said that the airplane was often pelted by shrapnel that punctured the thin skin of the airplane and made it even more noisy and drafty.
About 30 years after the War he checked me out on one of my favorite light airplanes, the Grumman Tiger. I still love that machine, especially flying around on a sunny day with the Canopy partially open. My buddy and I [he now owns an FBO in USA] used to fly the Tiger "hands off". We would both lean forward to dive, and backward to climb. Then we would put my hands out into the slipstream to turn left and his hands into the slipstream to turn right. We felt that if we really really really had to, we could get the airplane to an airport, descend with engine power and actually fly it onto the runway at a higher than normal but survivable speed. We never had to find out for sure, thank goodness.

[Gunslinger619]

@ FLACKE

I LOVE me some Grumman Tiger! I currently fly a 1991 AG-5B Tiger with many speed mods... Check out the link from my flying club, Plus One Flyers.
http://www.plusoneflyers.org/fleet/mont ... 675-n626ft

Click on gallery to see cockpit pix... Enjoy!!!

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks Flacke...your comments are always most enjoyable to read...

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks Gunslinger619...enjoyed the different pictures in the slideshow...

[Flacke]

Thanks Flacke...your comments are always most enjoyable to read...

HI FT, thanks for your nice comment. After all these years around aviation I have many recent and not-so-recent memories, just like you.

[Flacke]

@ FLACKE

I LOVE me some Grumman Tiger! I currently fly a 1991 AG-5B Tiger with many speed mods... Check out the link from my flying club, Plus One Flyers.
http://www.plusoneflyers.org/fleet/mont ... 675-n626ft

Click on gallery to see cockpit pix... Enjoy!!!

Wow gunslinger, that is the newest and nicest Tiger I have seen. They gave it a throttle quadrant and put the Carb Heat lever on the quadrant, pretty unusual! The speed mods make a fast Tiger even faster. The speed and the S-Tec autopilot coupled to the GTN650 gps make it a great IFR and cross-country airplane, I would gladly own that, enjoy.