Aircraft History

Chipmunks were designed to take over from Tiger Moths as the training aircraft for the RAF and many other air forces. Perhaps tens of thousands of young Air Cadets would have had their first air experience flight in one. Unlike the Tiger it was originally designed and manufactured by de Havilland Canada, it is renowned for being an exceptionally pleasant aeroplane to fly.

G-ALWB was the first Chipmunk built for the civilian market. Built in 1950 at Hatfield in the UK and retained by the makers for 6 years as a demonstrator and used for racing and trials, it then passed to Elstree for some years to be used at the London School of Flying as their 'test aircraft' for when students flew to Stansted to be tested by a CAFU Examiner. After that it went into private ownership and eventually made it's way to Scotland where it flew for 15 years. In 1999 it was bought by Dennis who needed an aircraft that he could instruct on and was restored at Skysport Engineering by Dennis and based at Little Gransden.