Flying The Fighters Of WWII

Bradburger

Bradburger

Charter Member
An interesting talk by former Test Pilot & current Warbird pilot Dave Southwood.

Part 1:-


Part 2:-


Cheers

Paul
 
Thank you for posting these, Paul! I knew they were going to be superb even before listening to them. For my own interests, I liked what he had to briefly say in reference to flying/operating the P-51C "Princess Elizabeth". It was also great to hear how he got into flying warbirds. In the Q&A section, he also touches on an aspect that I have heard some other highly experienced warbird pilots talk about within recent years as well - that being about the most challenging part of flying a warbird is just being accustom to managing the amount of performance, where as actually flying warbirds is really very easy (as Steve Hinton would say, that is sort of the 'secret' of warbird flying - it isn't really as hard as some may think it to be - once they are in the air, they are all just airplanes after all (with each their own unique characteristics). Where as Dave came from flying higher performance jet fighters, transitioning to WWII fighters was actually a decrease in performance and thus easier for him to manage than compared with someone trying to go from something like a light GA aircraft into a warbird fighter. Also, what he talks about from his experiences with flying the Hawker Hurricane, was quite interesting - having read a number of articles and a modern-era pilot report about the Hurricane, the items he discusses I had never heard before - fascinating about drooping the ailerons, ever so slightly, to cure the pitch trim issue, though of course it makes perfect sense.

Mr. Southwood is a great speaker - I always have enjoyed the interviews with him through the "Flying Machines TV" productions as well.
 
Back in the day nearly all planes were taildraggers and one did many things by feel and intuition, America was a more rural socieity and boys tended to grow up with an ear and feel for machinery. Even my generation of "boomers" pretty much still fit that bill. Flying when I started out was mostly seat of the pants, a lot of it anyway. A friend and I learned to fly taildraggers by buying a Supercub in Idaho and flying it back to Alaska, with a compass that only pointed East... These warbirds were flown by war trained, mostly ab initio pilots, with often little time. Of course they crashed a lot of them as well. The person we had in Fairbanks who had flown the most types was a woman ferry pilot! She said the Mustang was a real pussycat. Another guy we had in Fairbanks flew the only ski equipped Mustang, once, it' only flight. The biggest issue was the torque required you to start the takeoff run at a 90 deg angle to where you wanted to go....

Performance, indeed! Jets are pretty easy to fly for the most part, the engine management being more forgiving (some early example being an exception) but thinking maybe a hundered miles or more ahead is a challenge for many. Experience makes that easier. Employing an aircraft in a tactical manner, effectively, makes flying competence a given.

Maybe almost anyone could get away with a lot on a good day, not all days are good.... Where I learned to fly in the early 70's guy in the FSS had a Mustang and sold it because he couldn't aford to put 50 cent gas in it.... The FBO guy had a SNJ.. Neither spoke of them as hard to fly, just a lot of fun!

A lot of war trained pilots never flew after the war, I suppose if most of your aviation experience had to do with getting shot at it might dampen your enthuiasm.

Thanks! T
 
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