It’s a very benign aeroplane, but like them all, it’ll still try and make a fool of you once in a while.

It’s naturally stable, but you need your feet on the rudder pedals all the time and being so light at 750lbs, it bobbles around in thermals and any wind gusts. Although it’s got a short wingspan the aileron’s are a little errr, slow, so you need to take that into account. (Ideal training for the BE-2 Matt?)

As a low-hours pilot, I’m very chary of flying it in any wind of more than 12kts. I tend to fly in the early morning or evening – they’re ideal Luton flying conditions.

Sadly I work a lot of weekends, so haven’t been able to get to many fly-ins or shows yet. Hope to fly in to Old Warden sometime this summer though.

John Allison’s immaculate Luton was G-ASXJ (see attached picture). He now owns a gorgeous Miles Gemini a little further down the hangar from me at Bicester.

Have also attached a pic (thanks to Barbara Schlussler) of our furthest flung Minor yet. VH-HEP airborne over Australia!

Nice piccie’s. I don’t really no anything about these aircraft – fancy giving us a few details? 😎

Oh god, don’t set me off, I’ll be here for hours! The Luton Minor was originally designed in the late 1930s as a post-Flea kit built design. three or four were built before the outbreak of WW2.

After the War, Arthur Ord-Hume “rebuilt” G-AFIR mainly as a way of getting round the Air Ministry who tried to block homebuilt aircraft. Arthur also redrew all the plans, promoted the design in Popular Mechanics magazine and around fifty were built around the world. In the UK it was one of the aircraft that led to the formation of the PFA.

Mine was built in the early 1960s, has an 1800cc VW engine on the nose, a significant boost from the original JAP two-cylinder. Cruise speed is about 60kts, it stalls at less than 30 – therefore its one of the few aircraft that risks getting birdstrikes from the rear! Ceiling – errr don’t know, but it was jolly chilly at 3,000 feet last night!

Fancy a feature in Flypast (or Today’s Pilot) Ken?

Note that the tail’s falling off the BE (replica) model.

Just like the real thing !!

Anyway – we’re supposed to be talking about BE-2 replicas. Anyone with any more info out there?

Steve

Only in a very ‘Minor’ way Matt. But what a way to spend an afternoon, MV it burned more fuel in an hour than I use all year in ‘ML !!

Maybe we should divulge a bit more Matt, Ben’s sounding like he’s going to burst!