“Simply the finest aircraft you can fly”, in the author’s words
While you can joke about the propeller ‘turning the wrong way’, or the weird brakes, or the reversefunctioning mixture control, or even the ‘possibility’ that there’s some oil on the underside, it is hard to fly a Chipmunk and not get out of it without a huge smile on one’s face and a feeling of satisfaction, if not excitement.
The Chipmunk’s controls are beautifully harmonised in all three axes, requiring just fingertip control in most flight regimes. Even when flying aerobatics, a firm single hand on the stick is sufficient to apply full control in any axis or manoeuvre, and the aircraft has no ugly tendencies when in unusual attitudes. It is an honest aeroplane, even when deliberately treated egregiously just to see what its tolerance limits actually are. Its stall strips offer the pilot more than ample warning of any impending stall, normal or accelerated, and even when sideslipping the aircraft has to be seriously mishandled before it will ‘break’. Even then, the ailerons’ effectiveness allows a prompt recovery. With proper understanding and application of entry and recovery techniques, spinning presents no threat to its occupants.
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