HRH the DoE retiring from public engagements.

[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