Pilot – June 2018

pilotweb.aero | Pilot June 2018 | 31

New Regs

Forgotten hero

The R J Mitchell-designed

Supermarine Walrus was an ugly

duckling compared to his Spitfire,

but must have been a beautiful

sight to the more than one thousand

ditched airmen it pulled from the

sea. It was a biplane amphibian

with a pusher radial engine

mounted between the wings, and

a metal flying-boat hull with fully

retractable undercarriage. Initially

it was used as a fleet observation

aircraft, catapult-launched from

the deck of a warship and winched

back on board from a sea landing,

but excelled in a ground-based

air-sea rescue role. W2718 was on

show at the Solent Sky Museum

but was registered as G-RNLI for

a full rebuild in 1990. It has been

withdrawn this month, hopefully

just a temporary hiatus.

Exhibits arise

Air-sea rescue was also one of the

multifarious uses of Royal Navy

Westland Wessex helicopter XT761,

which has been bought for Navy

Wings as G-WESX for restoration

to flight. Built in 1966, it served for

thirty years before being grounded

with the Fleet Air Arm Museum.

If all goes well, this summer’s

airshow circuit should see a

Westland Whirlwind, Wessex and

Bristol Sycamore all flying. Eighty-

year-old Tiger Moth G-AHMN had a

long post-war civilian career before

being bought by the Museum of

Army Flying for displays, but was

Piper Malibu Matrix D-EEPD has been imported as G-EXPO

damaged in a takeoff accident and

became a static exhibit. It returns to

the active register this month.

Deferred delights

Thirty years ago, a customer

commissioned a hot-air balloon

from Thunder & Colt but rejected

the finished article and was

supplied with a replacement. The

discarded envelope was stored

and recently donated to the British

Balloon Museum & Library, which

has registered it G-MUSM and so

gets a vintage exhibit with one hour

‘on the clock’. Similarly, in 1983

Thunder Balloons merged with Colt,

leaving a short-lived rump company

called Thermal Aircraft, which

registered its only product G-BRAP

but never flew it. Now, company

founder John Yarrow has taken

up the needles again to bring it to

fruition. Meanwhile, the Cameron

Ronald McDonald special shape

balloon, built to a French order,

finally gets a British registration,

G-CKWH, after 25 years.

Old ones, new ones
The UK’s first PZL Mucha Standard
glider has been registered G-CKXD;
this is a single-seat, wood and fabric,
aerobatic sailplane built in Poland
in 1960. Single Seat Deregulation
has breathed welcome new life into
some heritage microlights, and this
month sees the return of Britain’s
earliest American Aerolights Eagle,
G-MBEP, dating back to 1980. It
has a semi-rigid, high-dihedral,
parallel-chord wing set above a
skeletal trike. Pitch control is by a
canard foreplane actuated by the
pilot weight-shifting in the sling seat.
Right up-to-date is the Airplay Grif/
Eurofly Snake SSDR microlight with
a nanotrike, designed to fit in an
estate car. It is registered G-MADC,
but in case anyone is mad enough
to buy one off the internet and go
straight out and fly it, the company
offers five hours of free, dual, weight-
shift training. Finally, the wonderfully
named Earthstar Thunder Gull
G-TGUL is an American three-axis
SSDR, resembling a cut-down Kolb
Twinstar.
PZL-104 Wilga 35 G-WILG was temporarily withdrawn from use this month