AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2014 - 69

made the Spitfire famous. The airplane is
neutrally stable around all axes, so a constant hand on the stick is needed. A light
hand, too, as stick forces are minimal in both
pitch and roll. At higher speeds, the ailerons
stiffen, but the elevator remains, as the Pilot
Notes phrase it, "particularly light."
Climbing northward, I explore the
Spitfire's envelope. S-turns and Dutch rolls
felt conventional so, with a word of warning to Al, I rolled left into a steep turn.
Nose on the horizon, a little back pressure to bring her around, and suddenly my
arms and brain felt like lead. The back pressure I associated with a two-G steep turn
was generating more than four Gs in the
Spitfire. I was going to need a much lighter
touch on the stick to fly well.
In spite of its dogfighting history, the
Spitfire does not like negative-or even
zero-Gs. For wingovers, set the throttle to four inches of boost, prop to 2,400
rpm, and lower the nose slightly to get 240
mph. Then pull gently until you're "feet to
the sky," and roll over 135 degrees. Increase
back pressure to maintain one G as the airspeed drops off, then go over the top, still
pulling as the nose comes down. Roll back
upright, and done. Except that now you're
aimed for the dirt, staring straight into the
lovely English countryside as the airspeed
indicator winds up like a crazy clock.
The instinct, of course is to pull back
hard, but that will get an overstressed airframe. As the airspeed builds up-and
there's plenty of room for it to build before
getting to the 400-mph never-exceed
limit-the elevator forces do get lighter. And
with the aft center of gravity produced by
having both student and instructor aboard,
the Spitfire likes to tuck up; push forward
to keep from exceeding the recommended
four-G recovery limit as you bring the nose
back up to level flight.
Al had me do a couple more wingovers
until I got the hang of it, and then talked me
through loops and victory rolls. Can't be a
proper Spitfire pilot without a good victory
roll, can you?
Slow flight and stalls were, surprisingly, nonevents. We've all read about that
famous elliptical wing, how it wrings everything it can out of the air before suddenly
and completely giving up. So I was prepared for a somewhat dramatic transition
as we crossed the line between "flying" and
"plummeting." With power reduced and

Can't be a proper Spitfire pilot without a good
victory roll, can you?
the nose raised for slow flight, G-ILDA
was happy to make gentle turns while the
airspeed indicator bobbled down near
the bottom of its range. Controls forces
softened, but the airplane felt buoyant,
reminiscent of something with much lower
wing loading. Then, somewhere below
what felt like reasonable flying speed, the
wings bobbled momentarily. The nose
dropped a little more suddenly than I'd
expected, but a nudge-just a nudge-of
power got us flying again.
Between the high-strung Merlin engine
and the airplane's propensity for getting
shot at, dead-stick landings were high on
the list of Spitfire pilot survival skills. Best
glide is 100 mph, and even as aerodynamically clean as she is, the airplane comes
down pretty quickly. From 3,000 feet, I've
got time for one 360-degree turn over the
designated field before I'm set up on high
key for the downwind. A gentle curving
base leg, keeping gear and flaps up, puts me
on high final, lined up with perhaps a fivedegree slope to the intended touchdown
point. Al let us come down to about 200 feet
over the field before instructing me to add
climb power, and we clattered away over
farmhouse roofs in a stampede of cylinders.
LANDING

They say that the Spitfire is an easy airplane
to fly; it's landing that brings pilots to grief.
In a normal approach you throttle back
to 140 mph on the downwind, typically zero
inches of boost or less; set trim; open the
radiator flaps; and select the air intake to
filtered. About 10 seconds before you're
abeam the touchdown point, you switch
hands, do the gear dance in reverse, and
verify it's down and locked.
If this has gone smoothly, you're now
abeam, and it's time to start down. Bring
power back for the descent and slow to
110 mph, beginning a smooth, continuous
turn back to the runway. Al advises trying to keep my wing tip on the touchdown
zone for the first half of the turn, throwing
in those 85 degrees of (clunk! clunk!) flaps
and trimming as I go. The nominal start of
the base leg is when one pushes the prop to
fine pitch and slows to 90 mph. But rather
than a square turn to final, Spitfire pilots

prefer to come at the runway from a 20- to
30-degree angle, crossing the fence at 85
mph before aligning for the landing.
In all my landings over four days, I
rarely managed that perfect approach, and
found myself making S-turns and peering
down either side of the nose, grateful that
we had a control tower to assure me that
no stray livestock was obstructing my path
forward.
Then, the landing itself-you really
want to be at precisely 85 mph coming over
the fence. None of that, as Al would say, carrying an extra five for Mum. If you do, you'll
be carrying it all the way down the runway
to the farmer's field. I consistently found
myself high and hot, carrying not only an
extra five for Mum, but another few for her
sister, the kids, and the cousins. Most times,
I was able to compensate, juggling pitch,
power, pitch, power-but never properly
catching up before the ground loomed and
I had to transition to the roundout.
Al staved off the worst consequences of
my misjudged approaches and badly timed
flares by nudging the stick and cushioning
the blow with a judicious jab of power, but it
took well more than a dozen landings before
I managed to get the sight picture right.
Finally, on the last flight of the last day,
it all came together. Hands and eyes dancing across the cockpit, lighting on the right
thing at the right moment. Swooping down
on the 20-degree angle from centerline, airspeed glued on 85 mph. Over the threshold
at 30 feet, into the roundout, held precisely
at three-point attitude as speed bled off, and
the wings negotiated with the diminishing cushion of air keeping them from the
ground. Then not so much of a thump as the
sound of wheels catching fresh-cut grass
and settling in. Feet not only responding,
but anticipating any notion the tail might
have to swing wide. Slower and slower, with
the stick back-and then taxiing, making a
slow turn in across the grass, keeping it
rolling as I let myself savor the exquisite,
improbable sensation. This is what it feels
like to fly a Spitfire.
AOPA
DAVID "PABLO" COHN is an antique aircraft

owner and flight instructor in the San
Francisco Bay area.
www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 69

http://www.aopa.org/pilot

AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2014

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