HRH the DoE retiring from public engagements.

[Peter]

As honorary patron of the Tiger Club he did a great deal to encourage and support aerobatic and formation flying in the 60s and 70s. Without the Tiger Club there would have been no Neil Williams, no Nigel Lamb and no Brendan O'Brien.

So that's your 'point' utterly debunked.

I stand corrected.

[Sir C]

I stand corrected.

Here he is, in fact, flying a Turbulent. (I subsequently flew that exact aircraft, so I'm now semi-royal.)

dofe.jpg

[Burney]

Here he is, in fact, flying a Turbulent. (I subsequently flew that exact aircraft, so I'm now semi-royal.)

dofe.jpg

That seems a rather silly little plane. Shouldn't it be bigger than that?

[Sir C]

That seems a rather silly little plane. Shouldn't it be bigger than that?

It's a death trap, to be honest. It has a VW Beetle engine of around 40 bhp and can barely drag itself into the air. Anything more than a rate 1 turn is highly likely to end up with a dynamic stall/spin and subsequent painful connection with terra firma. I've no idea what they were for, really. It's a sort of Tiger Club tradition; you have to survive an amount of Turb flying to be a real Tiger Club pilot.

Here they are at an air show. Going very, very slowly.

turbs.jpg