Flying the De Havilland Chipmunk
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 ...