Miles and miles of smiles from Miles

Lucky Lucky Lucky

Top shots and beautiful country side aswell 😀 , Well done gents looked like a great day had by all, Thank’s JDK, And Hairyplane 🙂 , To far away to polish sorry :p , All you lucky lucky lucky Bast*rds over there can do it :rolleyes: , Cheers everyone, Tally Ho! Phil 😉

Cloth and bucket being mustered!!!!

Fantastic pics – looked like a great flight.

I’d definitely be in the queue as well if I wasn’t so far away! Really looking forward to going next weekend now.

Excuse me Mister,clean yer’e plane!

Thats it then another item to add to the airshow day out checklist!
sandwiches
flask
cameras
film
brolly
suncream!
family(optional) :rolleyes:
water
bucket
Mr Sheen
Rag
You do realise you might have a jostling queue at the next show!

Like many who’ve been up in Maggie, it’s been a real treat. I did though have it sprung on me so the anticiplation hadn’t been allowed to build so apologies if I didn’t appear immediately taken. What really did make my hairs stick out on end was primarily to do with being topless 🙂

1. Looking left and right out along those yellow tapering wings toward the blue contrasting horizon, you see that there is nothing holidng you there but the wings. The magic of flight 😎

2. Peter stuffing the nose down toward a tree to get into a good downwind position. Now that abstract degree of reality by having a canopy in front of yu is no longer. That tree is really there looking good, hard and dangerous if we hit it.

A Hairyplane supporters club (no donations other than sweat and beer in my direction) sounds like the deal of the century to me.

You have my number … I know some decent local pubs 😉

Glad the PT22 stayed in the area by the way

Cheers

Neil G

Just thought I would offer my cleaning services next time I make it to Old Warden 🙂 , although I am never able to visit as often as I would like 🙁

Will J (apprentice Anson polisher/ Rapide dustpan & brusher 😉 )

Darren if he hasnt I may have from the PT22 🙂

Open cockpits, so much more fun than steel tubes

Thanks folks!

Darren, a pleasure. If you PM me, I’ll happily see what I’ve got. Can you put a grid ref on multimap or similar?

Cheers

So we’ll be officially scrubbers? – Some of us already labelled as swingers!!!! Oh the joys of our hobby eh?
OAW

Hairyplane will you be at Turweston on the 19th? I believe it will happen and DO will deal with any aftermath…

James,

A fantastic collection of shots. I am glad to see your self portrait has the same serious look as the one I took in a Tiger. Flying in a vintage aircraft is such a great experiance that few will ever get the chance to try. We managed to get two of my cadets flown in a Chipmunk at Woburn last weekend, and there beaming smiles said it all. Our cadet squadron building is just off your Cardington hanger shot, do you have any to the left a bit?

In response to Hairyplane’s comments on helping hands, I know that the Tiger flights I have had the pleasure of this year, were finished of with a good polish and TLC before she went back in the hanger. If anyone has the time to help these owners, it shows a bit of respect to the aircraft and dedication to the cause that just may one day reap its reward.

Well done to Hairyplane for getting James airbourne.

And here’s a few more pics.

A few Miles Magister impressions.

It’s a lovely plane. The yellow scheme with the polished cowling is great. I kept looking at the roundel on the wing and going ‘ah, nice…’

It vibrates (bit more than the MG!) and with one’s feet on the floor, rather than on the Phillips & Powis pedals, you get a lovely massage. Also, the rear view mirror shows a lovely selection of blurred shapes in various colours as a result (see attached illustration!).

It felt steady and sold, much less twitchy than a Tiger Moth (or a Cessna 172) to me, but then I was in Smoooth hands…

It’s a GREAT view, lots to see in all directions, but the perspex windscreen distorts badly in the centre; so when you lean around it to see better, the voice-activated mike gets a bit excited, and the wind in the hair factor increases several fold. The frame of the windscreen is actually the rollover bar, and provides a handhold on the left for those of a nervous disposition (who, me?) Aparently the front cockpit gets a lot less buffet than the rear – one reason for the bigger screen around the rear (compare to the Miles Hawk photos) but I’ve not had the chance to compare (yet)!

The Old Warned Runway resulted in a very amusing landing ‘film’ from the digibox – field-sky-cockpit, field-sky-cockpit… You get the idea.

Would I like one for Christmas? You betcha. Bearing in mind when I first saw the Old Warden machine it was the only flier in the world, and the chance of a ride was non-existant, it’s been a long wait, but well worth it.

Oh, and the last shot is at the end of the evening, when there’s lots still to do by the Old Warden crew – thanks chaps and chapesses, for all the hard work. (That’s Septic & friend in the background..)

Cheers!

Polishing….

Hi everybody, Hi JDK – it was a pleasure to fly with you and thanks a lot for posting the excellent images. We need to do the other 2.

The ‘polishing’ comment is interesting. I get inundated with requests from people ‘at the fence’ to take them flying. I don’t get inundated with offers of help….

My aircraft cost me around £300 per hour each to operate, plus a lot of elbow grease.

At the end of the shows, there is little time to clean them down hence the silly sight of me waltzing along the flightline from one t’other with a bucket and rags. I hate to put them away grubby. It takes a good 20 minutes per aircraft to remove the bugs and – especially in the case of the Maggie with its seemingly ‘total loss oil’ (non-ring modded) Gipsy 1 – to get the oil off.

I am not getting any younger so after a days flying, pushing, pulling and polishing my planes – I tend to get pretty knackered.

So, happy to fly the hard core enthusiasts, especially if they demonstrate their hard cores by rolling their sleeves up as JDK did.

New aquisition? – the P51 is more likely than not to happen. Patience is a virtue that I have limited quantities of but it is still 18 months – 2 years away.

A P51, more likely than not, will have acres of polished aluminium.

If I can persuade a hard core that elbow grease might be rewarded by the odd (maybe very odd?!) flight in the exisiting fleet then those ‘regulars’ may well be first in the queue for the occasional jump-seat rides in the 51.

Add a nought on the above hourly rate for a P51 and I reckon that a lot of polishing for a little flying will still be a good deal.

A Hairyplane supporters club (no donations other than sweat and beer in my direction) sounds like the deal of the century to me.

How about it?

SVAS – Always keen to recruit the ‘right’ volunteers – again no time for the engineers to clean the aircraft down immediately afterwards. Please therefore also consider the prospect of ‘moving on’ to the Collections machines after mine have been bulled up. The volunteers do get to fly occasionaly, usually in the Maggie or Tiger.

HP

Very nice! It is hard to say from which angle the Hangars at Cardington look more impressive, from above or below! (?)

Thanks for the feedback chaps; much appreciated. The big thanks goes to Hairyplane for sharing his toys so generously.

Here’s a few more shots. In less tha a half hour we flew from and back to Old Warden, over Cardington, Tempsford and the Glenn Miller Museum at Twinwood Farm (see MOTF photos for that one) and I suddenly realised that’s a hellava lot of aviation history in less than a handful of airfields. We are very lucky.

Here they are:
Old Warden,
Tempsford,
Cardington.

Well done James and Hairyplane,
James I can concur with your experience having flown in ‘tother’ maggie from OW.Its just a great aeroplane to bum a ride in, quite the best open cockpit iv’e been in.
I doubt however if Hairyplane will be offering many rides should he get his hands on the object of his desires, however I have my best duster and polish ready Mr Hairyplane sir should you need me!!!.
Phil

nice picture-story JDK……& good on yer Haireyplane for taking the time to give JDK the treat…..
WELL DONE BOTH OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!

And here’s the office.

Asking “What’s the meccano noise?” gets the answer “It’s the gyros running down.” and a quick frown, but an offer to help wash another aircraft puts the world to rights again.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the ‘virtual flight’. Many, many thanks to Hairyplane for doing the jollys he does – and it just goes to show what you can get for doing a chap a favour.

Oh. This also appeared on my camera, as well as a picture of a cone… Suspects?

Back to the parking place, via some guy who hid behind a pole. The high viz jackets are to ensure the pilots don’t miss you MOTF!

The above should answer your question, Steve…

All too soon it was over, and we headed back to the centre of the universe, otherwise known as Old Warden. It’s down there somewhere…