The Chippie 'Duster

Adapted as an agplane, now enjoying a second life as a glider tug, the only airworthy Mk 23 is a fine flying machine

- Dave Unwin

Truth be told, I’m a little anxious. It’s the bleak mid-winter, the Chipmunk hasn’t flown for a month and the battery is far from the first flush of youth. I prime carefully, cross my fingers and turn the key to ‘start’. The prop lurches arthritically, pauses and then morphs into a shimmering blur as the engine roars into life Hoorah! Generator Flow on, Generator Supply on, Instrument Supply on, fuel pump off then lean the mixture slightly, and while photographer Keith and his pilot Al wedge themselves into the long-suffering EuroFox, I taxi out. It’s a stunning December day with not a cloud in the sky and the sun a great orange ball barely twenty degrees above the horizon. Bumble Bee is trembling with suppressed energy, it wants to fly−and so do I!

Generations of RAF pilots and Air Cadets had their first flights in a de Havilland Chipmunk. It’s possibly−if not probably−one of the most recognisable British light aircraft, even though it was designed in Canada by a Pole, Wsiewolod Jakimiuk. Intended as a replacement for the DH Tiger Moth, it was the first indigenous aircraft designed by de Havilland Canada, and the prototype took to the air from DHC’s Downsview, Toronto factory on 22 May 1946. After a thorough appraisal by the RAF, production was initiated in both Canada and England and ultimately around 1,300 were built−approximately 1,000 in England, 200 in Canada, and 60 in Portugal, under licence. As there are at least 500 Chipmunks still airworthy, the aircraft is far from uncommon. But this particular one, Golf Alpha Oscar Tango Fox, very much is. It is a rare Mk 23, in fact the only Mk 23 still flying.