NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: David Pike
Date: 2021 Mar 16, 13:19 -0700
Bill Ritchie you wrote: I learned on Tiger Moths too ... first solo on 10th April 1959.
You beat me by a few years Bill. I see from my civil logbook that I had a quick 30-minute check in DH82 G-APVT on 7th August 1965 and went on to fly her on 7th, 6th, and 14th Aug. I found her very like the Chipmunk apart from swinging the prop to start her, no brakes, and using engine and rudder to turn her in dispersal. Do you know why the Tiger Moth had swept-back wings. It wasn’t to achieve a higher critical Mach No. Apparently, the RAF wanted more room for the instructor in the front seat to be able to bale out with the aircraft inverted, so DH moved the inboard end of the wing forward and the outboard end backwards to keep the centre of lift in approximately the same place. Alternatively, it might have been to allow a better lookout from the front cockpit. I note that, ironically, G-APVT was destroyed in a fatal mid-air collision in 1973. DaveP
