Flying Report From The Colonies!

I tell you, I'm exhausted.

Last year a friend of mine forked over some cash for my THIRD Lancaster flight. Because I'm a member of the museum, I'm entitled to a flight in one of their passenger aircraft either an Expeditor or a Dakota. Well, we chose today (7 October) early this year and hoped for nice weather. The museum said as I had booked the Lancaster flight, they'd book the Expeditor again as the Dakota at that time was still grounded. (They had it up for a test flight today)

So, at 10:00 I attend the briefing for the 11:00 Lancaster flight. Great flight in a sky without a cloud in sight! So, we land at noon and my Expeditor flight is set for 14:00 hours. We take off at 14:00 and are back on the ground by 14:30. So, I figure we are done and the flights were great.

Oh, no! The marketing manager comes over and presents me with a small envelope. My friend has sprung for a flight in a Harvard trainer as a birthday gift and I take off in about 20 minutes!!

Airborne again by 15:00 after a short pre-flight briefing and questions about any previous flying etc. The only flying I had done at the controls of an aircraft was some time on Otters in Air Cadets but I told him I didn't have a pilot's licence.

Anyway, we are up and and we are just flying level and we try some gentle turns etc and he asks how I like it. Of course I liked it so we did some steep turns to port and starboard. Steep my foot. The wing was about 90 degrees from the horizon and the G forces are making me feel a lot heavier! A climb and a dive off the top and now I don't weigh anything!! Climbing from the dive I weigh a ton again and loving every moment of it!

So we level out then I hear over the intercom. "Try some gentle turns and we will see how you do. You have control." I respond with "I have control"

I did some turns and the nose climbed a little but I soon got used to the feel of the stick and we tried some steeper turns and gentle dives and climbs. After about 5 minutes which seemed a lot longer, I heard, "I have control" to which I confirmed he had control again.

We slid the canopy sections open for a little while and it was like being a WW I pilot!

I didn't figure I did too well but he disagreed and said I did a lot better than some as I was easy on the stick movement at first to get the sensitivity feel of the controls and at least kept the nose reasonably level for the most part especially in the turns!

I thought the whole experience was great!! Sadly though we were down again by 15:40 and that was the end of my day's flying.

3 different aircraft and I had the time of my life, especially in the Harvard never having flown in one before!!

That might be my last Lancaster flight as well for a very long time but flight time in the Harvard is very reasonable. I think mine was a little longer than normal because it was the last flight of the day but it went by pretty quick!

I took pictures on the Lancaster and Harvard flights. If I can figure out how to post them I will. If I have problems I'll ask for help.

Gee, it's no wonder I'm exhausted!!

Cheers,
Clive. Stranded in the colonies. (Canada)