A new venture based at White Waltham airfield now offers Harvard pilot training and enthusiast experience flights. Darren Harbar met the men behind the operation and went air-to-air with the historic type
There are several places across the UK where you can fly in a Harvard, but few are located as close to London as the latest enterprise that has ‘spread its wings’ at Berkshire’s White Waltham airfield. As one of the largest grass strips in Europe, Waltham boasts a special wartime history. Appropriately, the Harvard in this feature has a genuine wartime pedigree, too. Owned by James Brown of Oxfordshire-based Hurricane Heritage (www.hurricaneheritage.com), FE511 is operated alongside his Hawker Hurricane Mk.I R4118.
Having been based at White Waltham for several years, the Harvard was used by James during conversion training to fly his fighter, a role for which it was perfectly suited. In many ways, James’ conversion from the 600hp (447kW) advanced trainer to the 1,030hp (768kW) Hurricane Mk.I is precisely what the Harvard was designed for and, although its wartime logbooks have long since vanished, many pilots would have flown the airframe for exactly that purpose after it entered service in 1942. T…
