Page 3 - October 2018
P. 3
An easy fix, but was very surprising to learn, that
with one failed flap, the airplane did not roll over as
we, and many other people expected. This was a
very good demonstration of what a superb handling
aircraft the Chipmunk is and gave me enormous
As it turned out the more we researched the type
certificate and the airplane’s history, we realised
there was no need to get a Canadian registration.
With Phil and Graham’s help we could maintain
KDN’s identity and heritage and continue to fly it as
De Havilland Canada Chipmunk DHC-1 G- it has been flown since being built in 1947. This
AKDN — 2016 United Kingdom Tour Pt. 7 decision also helped focus our plans for the recover
By Dave Gillespie job and also the appearance of the final finish. We
found many photographs showing KDN’s role in the
Spring is a happy time on the prairies, but we were not A&AEE evaluation trials, as well as many images of
too happy to see the Chipmunk shaped outline of paint it during it’s time at the London School of Flying and
on the hangar floor, under KDN. As we were trying to also in it’s air race competition form. We decided to
decide what to do about the paint, we went flying. While preserve it as much as we could. We would only
flying it from my home runway into Saskatoon, I was in replace the fabric with new material. We would
the back seat with James flying up front. As he levelled strip all the paint off and expose the original bare
off and started to accelerate I noticed the fabric on the aluminum, as this was the way it appeared when it
right wing starting to peel back from the inboard leading came out of the factory and shipped to England. It
edge! James immediately slowed down to minimum had a dark green stripe with cream colour edges
airspeed and we limped back to my airfield. running the length of the fuselage and curving up
The Chipmunk was advertised as deHavilland’s first all over the nose. The line was broken with green and
metal trainer. This is odd, because half of it is covered in cream registration letters on each side of the rear
fabric. Perhaps they meant that it had no structural fuselage. There were also huge green and cream
wood. Who knows? We had an airplane that obviously registration letters running across both wings top
needed a complete fabric recover job. Most of the and bottom . The aluminum was polished bright
material was ok, but a few critical areas, like the leading silver and the fabric painted in satin finish silver.
edge joint was an unusually complex design and prone to Our goal became to preserve as much of the
wear. With some expert help, we patched it to get us thru original airplane as possible. Thus keeping it true to
the summer as we contemplated our options. The it’s roots and allowing people to see what it was,
expense of a fabric recover was substantial, even if we and still is -a great Canadian design that represents
did most of the work ourselves. the beginning of the deHavilland Canada aircraft
At the same time, we had been reviewing our options to dynasty. But first we had to take it apart again, and
license the airplane in Canada with Transport Canada. We strip off all the fabric and paint, to expose what was
had kept the UK registration G-AKDN that it had had since lurking underneath.
day one of its operational career. To keep it registered as
such, we needed a UK resident as part owner. Phil Derry
was happy to stay as a minority shareholder and have the to be continued...
UK registration maintained in his name. We were also
very glad to have Graham Fox from Bagby, agree to come
to Canada to do our annual inspections. Lucky for us
Graham was an avid hunter and looked forward to some
big game hunting in the great white north.
