The Flying Fish

The De Havilland Chipmunk, or “Chippie” as most affectionately call it, is a 1950’s British trainer. With 1283 produced from 1947 to 1956 , this aircraft gave many student pilots the opportunity to experience true freedom and spread their wings. This particular Chipmunk is one of the Canadian ones. The Chippie, clad in her red-and-white fabric-covered fuselage and wings doesn’t look too imposing. But once standing next to it, you get a true sense of its size and realise it’s actually a fairly large aircraft. Equipped with an inverted inline Gipsy Major Mk8 engine, the propeller spinner sits around 1.7m off the ground.    Pre-flighting is simple. Climbing onto the wing with the flaps up and canopy closed however, is not. Enter the ‘take-a-run-at-it-and-leap-onto-the-wing-without-sending-your-foot-straight-through-the-fabric’ method. Once on the wing, the bubble-canopy is easily opened and slides back to reveal the tandem cockpits, painted all-black with bucket ...

Yes, I'm still alive! Here's a video of my adventures so far...

Friday, 21 March It’s finally the start of my first proper holiday in about a year. Needless to say I was excited to get away and do nothing. The next 4 days would be spent watching planes, and soaking up the warm sun of Ballito. An evening flight to Durban had me checking out the sunset from the air, and what a beautiful sunset it was. The two hour flight went by quickly, much faster than my flights to Johannesburg (‘cause it’s not such a great place). Port Elizabeth in the distance We touched down at King Shaka International under the cover of dark. The last time I was here was around October Last year, and I didn’t get to see much of the area. Well, I couldn’t see much now, and would need to wait until morning to explore. ** Saturday, 22 March Time for the first Aerobatic Grand Prix, held on North Beach in Durban. A taxi ride from Ballito to Durban had us seated and ready for the action just after 10:00 at the Joe Cools bar. The...