Warbird Information Exchange

A few from Saturday at Schellville in Sonoma CA. Ken Copp asked Eric Presten to take his Tigermoth up for a spin, so Eric's wife Debbie flew camera plane for me with the Piper Clipper. Afterwards she went for a ride with Eric in the Tigermoth.









Dave Masters' Ryan PT-20.




Tom Numelin getting ready for a flight in his Globe Swift.


Bob Campbell leaving for work in his Helio. The plane was in the air two seconds after I took this.


Fresh from recover and new decals for another season of advertising - Jelly Belly Candy - Flown by Bernie Vasquez from Nut Tree Airport

Another great set of shots!! Great work!

Amen! Love them all, but especially the Ryan...

The head-on shot of the Ryan gives a good view that many people never see! My favorite!

Thanks Roger!
Those photos warm the heart! Especially in Connecticut where it's been freakin cold lately!
I love Tiger Moths!
Jerry

Thanks all, glad you liked them.

Here are a few more from Sonoma Skypark a week or so before. The Cessna 180 is being flown by Jerry Anderson, and my photo plane was Eric Presten with his Piper Clipper.


This Piper Vagabond was briefly owned by Presten, before he sold it to the new owners.


A Champ going out for a flight.


Couldn't resist the lighting on this Cessna 175.

I always look forward to your images Roger - well done!

Thanks for posting! Mark

Thanks for the Tiger Moth pix ,Roger. Could you give me a bit of background on the color scheme of the a/c?
Doug

Canso, Maybe Eric or Mike can fill you in........

Neat photos, especially the 180..

Canso42 wrote:Thanks for the Tiger Moth pix ,Roger. Could you give me a bit of background on the color scheme of the a/c?

Until someone better qualified comes along, I'll give it a go...

Looks like a pretty standard RAF Training Command scheme to me, pretty accurate overall, too. I think the pattern's about right, and the main colours look about right too; a neat touch which is very nice to see is the 'shadow shading' of the lighter camouflage colours on the lower wing. IIC that was dropped later in the war, and lots of restorations miss it on aircraft because it's not too obvious in photos.

The 'NL-838' is unusual, but certainly occurred - the standard should be NL838, but there were variations in service - that may be absolutely correct for this aircraft. The nose 38 would ID the aircraft on the flightline among (potentially) hundreds of others, and was quite common - they weren't always numbers off serial, but sometimes allocated 1-100 or whatever at that base.

The gas detector patch on the rear fuselage is a nice touch. Generally dropped by '42 or so, but the roundels make this an early scheme anyway.

Picky details - the struts should be the colour they stand on - this was another thing dropped for serviceable utility, not sure how far it was ever applied to Tigers. Tailwheels were never seen on Wartime RAF Tigers (grass fields and no brakes) but make sense for modern ops in this case, obviously. The DH logo on the wheels often disappeared in service. The only nitpick I'd make is the red of the roundels is too bright - it should be a dull red, but that's a minor beef in a lovely scheme.

Happy to be corrected on any of that!

Thanks for the fill in.

Additional notes, the plane is registered as N838KC and the FAA s/n is NL-838

Roger Cain wrote:Thanks for the fill in.

Additional notes, the plane is registered as N838KC and the FAA s/n is NL-838

No problem. Mike did a post with some of the history here:

http://forum.planetalk.net/viewtopic.php?t=5803

I went to Schellville today to see expat Brit Ken Copp's 1943 Tiger Moth fly. Unfortunately by the time the early-morning mist had burned off a stiff crosswind had sprung up, so no flying today. However, it was taken out and ground-run, so I took these pictures which I thought you might like to see.

The aircraft was built in 1943 as NL838, and went to the French AF in Algeria. After the war, it served as a glider tug in France as F-BGEP until retired and imported into the US in the mid-60s as a project, and registered as N4970. Ken acquired it in 1979 and spent 12 years restoring it, re-registering it as N838KC, and flying it again in 1991.

Very interesting! The French Algerian scheme, if known would be intriguing...

So it's in an earlier scheme than the serial batch / year of construction fits, if that is the sort of thing that bothers you. I'd say, and I may be wrong, that it's a 1940-41 scheme going by the roundels.

Having another look, it's got a set of lights fitted, which are presumably a non-standard item for operations - California nights by Tiger should be fun!

Early Tigers predate lights, but would've had flares fitted in brackets below the lower wing to fire off before landing. It was not unknown for the aircraft to catch fire after touchdown...

We will NOT be fitting flare brackets to N9714! I noticed the lighter shading on the lower wings-that's the first one I've seen. Most I've seen with the green/brown over yellow have a yellow stripe along the lower edge of the fuselage side.
I'm going to the museum Saturday so Ill try to post an update and make another attempt to post pix.

blue skies,
Doug

Very cool pics !!!

Thanks for posting them.