Happy Birthday Chipmunk!
Not looking a day over, well, let’s say 50, 22nd May saw the 70th anniversary of the first flight of the DHC-1 Chipmunk. Conceived as a replacement for the venerable Tiger Moth and featuring such mod-cons as an enclosed cockpit, flaps and even brakes, there must be thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of active pilots who – like the Duke of Edinburgh in 1952 – took their first flights in a Chipmunk. Although best known as an RAF...
Spaceports and robots
The Queen’s Speech is Government’s way of telling the UK – and the world – what its plans are. The Queen doesn’t actually write it, of course. That’s done by the politicians. She just has to read it out. I bet she sometimes has pretty strong views about the content, but she’s diplomatic enough to keep it all to herself. One thing the Her Majesty may have genuinely found interesting is the Government’s plans for a spaceport. One of the...
2015 Royal Aero Club Trust Awards presented at the RAF Club
A raft of aviation dignitaries gathered at the RAF Club in London last month to witness HRH The Duke of York present a number of awards to aviation professionals on behalf of the Royal Aero Club, which Prince Andrew is president of. Some fifty awards were given to individuals and groups involved in a wide spectrum of aviation disciplines, too many to mention here. Concentrating on those involved specifically in flight training, a...