ro b d av ies : m ilitary m in d e d
S
HE has served me well... 1000 hours of flying time and some of the best flying a pilot could ever wish for!” The words of Rob Davies, following the flight and delivery of his beloved Mustang P51-D Mustang to pastures new, as he parted with the aircraft which has become well-known at shows across the UK to its new owners at a collection in Germany. Rob owned Big Beautiful Doll for 15 years and his displays throughout the UK and Europe will be a muchmissed feature of the many air shows he has flown in. Sentiment obviously played a big part when considering whether to sell Big Beautiful Doll but down-toearth common sense figured highly as Rob nears retirement age and he says that the Mustang was always part of his pension plan. Running it was becoming prohibitively expensive and, as he explains, it was a case of the the right offer coming along at the right time. So what is it like owning a piece of history? “Expensive and difficult!” says Rob. “There is an awful lot of maintenance and an awful lot of cost involved. Air shows and filming work recover some of the costs but they only ease some of the pain, they don’t pay for it. “I have enjoyed flying the Mustang and I hope spectators at the many air shows I have visited have enjoyed seeing it as much as I loved flying it. But of course, behind the romantic notions that surround a plane like the P51 there are hard-nosed economic realities. “It is an expensive aircraft to fly and the upkeep to CAA standards comes at a price as well. The cost of putting the P51 in the air is £3000 per hour. Added to that you have to consider reality and I am not getting any younger.” One aspect many pilots ask is how one learns to fly a Mustang, a
APART from flying his own aeroplanes, Rob’s position as MD of Meggitt Defence Systems UK ensures he doesn’t have a lot of spare time on his hands. In 1982 Rob left AEL, where he had worked for five years, to start his own target drone manufacturing. Target Technology and Target Electronics manufactured drones designed by Rob and were very soon suppliers to British armed forces and many NATO countries. In 1989 Meggitt PLC bought Rob out and today he is MD, based in Ashford, Kent. He said, “They asked me if I would stay on as MD and guide the company through the transitional period for three years until 1992. I’m still there and I think they forgot what the deal was. The pay cheques keep arriving so I keep on working.” Rob spends a lot of his time jumping on jets and travelling the world, instructing buyers how to operate the drones, and production has gone through the roof with 60 of the latest Sprite Maritime Threat Simulation drones being
situation made no easier in the UK by there being no two-seat examples to train in. Rob says: “Before learning to fly her I had a lot of hours on Harvards and other warbirds, so the transition to the P51 wasn’t too difficult. Ray Hanna’s son Mark gave me quite a bit of instruction. “There are no two-seater P51s in the UK, so no dual-seat learning was possible. It was a case of read the manual, sit in it, perform cockpit drills, and go for it. For someone buying one now, get some hours in something like a Harvard, then go to somewhere like Stallion 51 in the US and get some two-seat instruction. “I’ll really miss the flying. It was known as the Cadillac of the Skies, and after flying other WW2 aircraft like Yaks and Spitfires, I can say she truly is the Cadillac of the Skies. It’s a very comfortable cockpit, and ergonomically everything is just where it should be. And it’s fast too.
Rob Davies with one of his drones delivered to customers in the next month. In 1997 Rob was made an MBE for Services to the Defence Industry & unmanned Air vehicles, and is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.
Behind the romantic notions that surround a plane like the P51, there are some hard-nosed economic realities...
The laminar flow wing makes it faster than a Spitfire, and it has long range too, enough for me to fly to Berlin regularly. “Comparing her to a Spitfire isn’t easy as they are very different aircraft. The Spitfire was designed in the 1930s, and the Mustang in the 40s with a lot of advances in aerodynamics by that time. They are both unique aircraft. “The Spitfire is much lighter in pitch and in a loop she can be flown on the buffet nearly all the way round. The P51 is much heavier on pitch and gets heavier the faster you go. The P51 has combat flaps which can be lowered a little in a loop which can help – the Spitfire’s were either up or down only – but the Spitfire was a more manoeuvrable aircraft, but slower. Conversely, the Spitfire gets heavier on the aileron the faster things go, where the P51 is not so heavy.” Flying them is one thing, but as
www.loop.ae ro JUNE 2011 LOOP 31