Tiger Moth: Old school flying without all those pesky flaps, brakes and instruments

Hold on! No brakes! How do I STOP?

I smiled and sat back. I was in a beautiful vintage plane about to take off and fly over the Salisbury plains in the sunshine. Could life get any better than this? David interrupted my day dreaming. “Now you too can experience the joy of taxiing a tail dragger. You have control.”

I choked and then rapidly grabbed the stick and looked for the rudder pedals. Memories of my first-ever training flight came back to me: I couldn’t reach the pedals. Weren’t they all a lot shorter in 1933? Clearly still not as short as me, though. David agreed to do the rudders. I increased the power and we trundled down the taxi-way.

“Here’s the thing,” said David. “We have no brakes. We’re following another aircraft. And we’re about to start rolling downhill.”

I twisted for a better look as the bi-plane picked up speed. We were coasting straight towards a small gyrocopter which was paused ready to enter the runway. How the heck was I supposed to taxi with no brakes?

“I think you should taxi,” I said. He laughed and pulled the power right back. “It’s all about thinking ahead.” David turned the aircraft right then left, zigzagging his way along the grass taxiway at a slow speed. I breathed a sigh of relief when the gyrocopter entered the runway.

Next it was our turn. David pulled us onto the runway. “You need to be very careful to ensure your nose doesn’t go forward on take-off,” David explained. “I’ll do this, but follow me through on the controls.”

I barely had time to find the controls before we were climbing away from the airfield. “That … what did we need the runway for?”

He laughed. “I have a 400 metre farm strip at home. I’ve never even needed to use half of it.”

Youtube Video

That’s not me in the aircraft but we looked just like that! Except it was louder and windier and a million times more awesome.

We flew. I remember it now with the wind blowing through my hair although of course I had the helmet on. But it felt like the wind blew through my hair and the sun shone on my face and I was out there, in an open top plane flying into the blue unknown.

We climbed and made a slow right turn. I was content to just watch, with the breeze flowing over us and the beautiful Wiltshire countryside green and languid below. But David wasn’t going to give me the easy way out. “Look out, see how the horizon is positioned here? That’s straight and level.” It didn’t look straight nor level to me but I didn’t get time to think about it. “You have control.”

I nervously gripped the stick and the aircraft tilted. “You have to be gentle,” said David. “She’s in trim, just let her fly.” I patted the Tiger Moth’s dashboard and hoped that she knew what she was doing. I tried to make sense of the compass but it was horizontal and bouncing. Every gust of wind seemed to make the aircraft sway. I gripped the stick again and the aeroplane tilted again.

“Let’s climb. I’ll show you how to use the trim.”

Now you have to understand, my understanding of a trim is the electric buttons on my beloved Piper Saratoga. I vaguely remember using a trim wheel when I was training and I figured I would still be able to do that. But that’s not what this was. The cables and rods were disconcerting. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be this close to the inner workings of the aircraft. It seemed unbecoming, like looking at the innards of a loved one. David talked me through it as I pulled a knob towards me, slid it towards the rear and then locked it back into place.

Of course, while I was concentrating on that, I stopped paying any attention to the flight or even the stick. I wasn’t confident that I was tugging on the right bit and had visions of the entire aircraft unravelling like an over-worn cardigan. I eventually understood that I had to actually be flying the plane in the right configuration in order to set the trim, for some value of “setting a trim”. In theory, I know this to be true but other planes would let me set the trim despite myself. I wasn’t used to having to get it right.

On the fifth try, David took pity on me. “Are you looking out?”

Of course not; I was staring at my feet wondering if I’d ever get this trim thing into the right place. I gave up and looked out.

It was a stunningly beautiful day and we had the entire countryside unfolding below us. The Solent was a glittering ribbon of light in the distance. Beyond that, the dark smudge of the Isle of Wight.

But of course the moment I started sight-seeing, the aircraft tilted and swayed again. It seemed like the slightest breath would set it her off. I began to understand why the Tiger Moth has such a reputation as able to separate the good pilots from the great ones. It may not be too difficult to fly (David certainly made it look easy) but even the smallest deviations were immediately noticeable.

I was helplessly confused. I wanted to lean back and just take it all in. I also wanted to fly the plane, of course I did, but that took concentration and at the same time I didn’t want to miss a single second of this experience.