Building the Vimy:
Part IV: First Flight & Certificate of Airworthiness
by Miles McCallum
The first flight took place — sans cowlings — on 30 July
1994, just 18 months from the start of the project. The
probationary period was flown off over the next 18 days
and the aircraft awarded its Experimental Certificate
of Airworthiness. Then the outer wing panels were removed
as two units, and the entire aircraft pushed into hold
of a USAF C-5 Galaxy to be flown to Mildenhall in preparation
for setting off to the Antipodes. It departed from the
UK with a scant 60 hours total time to fly halfway around
the world.
After a season of display flights, the Vimy is now hangared
at Kemble airfield in Gloucestershire awaiting new engines
(V12s, same as the original Vimy). The Chevrolets proved
to be marginal on power. New props will more closely resemble
the originals technically, although they will be constructed
using latest techniques. The present props "go out of
balance with the slightest change of weather, something
of a worry for the pilots when the tips are barely 12
inches away." Neither are the existing props as efficient
as the originals.
A dedicated volunteer support crew is working furiously
on preparations for the next great re-created flight,
planned for April '98 — the 1920 attempt to fly from Brooklands
to Cape Town. Sponsors are being courted to fund the trip,
and a major television company is planning to document
the flight. After that, of course, is the greatest trek
of all — the Alcock and Brown Transatlantic flight of
1919.
After his moment of glory in Darwin, Ross Smith later
reflected: "The hardships and perils of the past month
were forgotten in the excitement of the present. We shook
hands with one another, our hearts swelling with those
emotions invoked by achievement and the glamour of the
moment. It was, and will be, perhaps the supreme hour
of our lives."
Peter McMillan and Lang Kidby knew exactly what he meant
but perhaps their finest hour is yet to come.
© Miles McCallum 1997, 1998.
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