11 FlightCom Magazine
AT
maximum prop rpm, the last three inches
of the propeller blades are travelling at,
or slightly over, the speed of sound, so
each blade creates its own sonic boom as
it passes the spectator’s ear and hence that
distinctive growl and roar of sheer power
which accompanies a Buffalo on take-off.
It has dimensions, speeds and load
carrying ability very similar to a Lancaster
Bomber of World War Two. The Lancaster’s
wingspan beats the Buffalo’s by six feet.
The Buffalo, however, is ten feet longer and
it has two qualities which you will not find
on the Lancaster. One is that you can drive
a couple of Land Rovers straight into the
cabin, via the aft ramp and the second is
that the Buffalo will then get you airborne
in five hundred metres, even if you don’t
have a proper runway.
It has the face of a bulldog, with hints
of Churchillian authority, but once airborne,
with its wheels tucked away, it displays a
surprising gracefulness with its high ‘T’ tail
vaulting into the sky at the aft end, reflecting
the delicate dihedral of the wings.
Like most aircraft from the De Havilland
stable, the drivers’ seats are not designed
for comfort, in fact I defy anyone to get a
decent afternoon’s kip in a Buffalo’s driving
seat. The view, however, is spectacular from
the elevated flight deck and if you want an
even more spectacular one, you only have
to go down the back and open up the ramp,
which you can do in flight and then you can
even jump out, if you have the appropriate
equipment!Strangely enough, once you are on the
flight deck in the cruise the noise level is
muffled to a comfortable snuffle, in spite
of having those enormous props flailing
around just outside the window, and there
is an atmosphere of solid dependability
which instils a feeling of deep trust, maybe
even friendship, between the aircraft and its
crews. It’s almost as though it’s saying, “If
you want to go there, trust me, I am game.”
On one occasion, ‘Twiddly John’
and I had a frightful trip from Oman to
Luton, in the UK, via Corfu. We went into
thunderstorm country as we passed over
Sorrento in southern Italy and did not see the
ground again until we got to La Rochelle, on
the Atlantic Coast of France.
Being unpressurised, we were in the
thick of it, being chucked around with such
violence that the headlights on the Lotus
Elan sports car, which was chained to the
floor down the back, actually popped up on
their own!
Finally, as we approached La Rochelle,
we were spat out of the side of the storm,
to be assaulted by sunlight, reflected off
the Atlantic, which was so bright that I
momentarily thought that the windscreen
heat had gone out of control and caught fire,
as it had done, once before, during a trans-
Atlantic flight out of Keflavik in Iceland.
Anyway, after all the thrills of the
previous hours, being ‘controlled’ in Greek,
Italian and French, we were welcomed by
the friendly voices of ‘London ATC’, who
tenderly guided us round any build-ups,
to our final destination at Luton, where
we decided to demonstrate one little trick
which the Buffalo still had up its sleeve.
After the long haul of a flight from Corfu
to Luton, the aircraft gets down to the kind
of weight where the approach speed is below
seventy knots, and at that speed, you can
land and stop in one hundred metres, withthose enormous windmills blowing away
in reverse pitch out there on the wings. The
access taxiway is only a little more than that
from the threshold of Runway 08. Which
is not very easy to see from the Control
Tower, so, if we got it right, we could get
down, stopped and into the taxiway before
the Controller could set eyes on us!
And so it happened. We had already
landed and scooted off down the taxiway
when the voice came over the radio. “Charlie
Delta, Luton?”
“Go ahead Luton.”
“Charlie Delta, your position?”
“Charlie Delta on ground.”
There was a long pause, while the
Controller searched every metre of Runway
08, before coming back to us with a hint
of amusement in his voice. “Confirm on
ground at Luton?”
“That’s affirmative, Luton.”
There was another long pause and
then he came back with a note of triumph
in his voice. “Confirm on ground Runway
08?” There was a long pause while we
could almost imagine the gears in his mind
going around. “Confirm that you landed on
Taxiway Alpha?”
“Negative. Landed on Runway 08 and
exited first left onto taxiway Alpha.”
There was another long pause and then
the controller almost whispered, “How on
Earth did you DO that?”
Now it was our turn to smile... “You
can do that sort of thing when you are in a
Buffalo!”The De Havilland DHC-5D Buffalo is a glorious great
‘Grunt’ of an aeroplane. With 3133 horsepower each
side, it is massively over-powered, and it announces
this in no uncertain terms during take-off.
BUSH PILOT
HUGH PRYOR
BUFFALO