MY OTHER JET’S A JUMBO!
Airline pilot swaps Boeing for a hand-made one-man bubble car of the skies
AS a former British Airways captain, Bob Grimstead is used to being behind the controls of jumbo jets.
But the pilot has now swapped 400-ton passenger planes for the world’s smallest – as these remarkable pictures show.
Mr Grimstead travelled to Western Australia to fly the mini jet, which has been described as looking like a bubble car with wings, or something from The Jetsons, the 1960s cartoon set in the future.
Measuring just 13ft long and 4ft wide, the custom-made Colomban Jet Cri-Cri weighs a mere 180lb and is the world’s smallest twinjet aircraft.
The pilot’s seat is a sheet of aluminium with a canvas back, similar to a deck chair.
Mr Grimstead, 70, from West Sussex, admitted the cockpit was ‘snug’ but said the mini plane was a pleasure to fly.
He took it to 5,000ft, reached speeds of 140mph and even performed several loops, rolls and a dramatic dive – which were all caught on camera by his wife Karen, 62, who was in a regular- sized light Piper Aztec aircraft next to him.
The jet, which is almost entirely made of aluminium and has a wingspan of 17ft, was built by South African engineers Sakkie Van Heerden and Davie Botes, who spent £17,000 on the two-year project.
Mr Grimstead took the controls for three 40-minute flights. He was there to carry out a review of the Cri-Cri for Pilot Magazine. It was the 250th type of plane he had flown, as well as his 350th article for the publication.
‘I’ve flown for 50 years, working as a commercial pilot in Boeing 747s, so you can say I’ve flown the largest planes and now the smallest,’ he said. ‘I have known Davie and Sakkie for many years, knew they were building it and asked if I could fly it when they had finished.
‘When I sent friends photos of the plane some joked it looked like a Noddy plane, a bubble car on wings or something out of The Jetsons. But my more knowledgeable aviation friends were jealous because they understood what a great opportunity it was.’
Mr Grimstead, a commercial airline pilot for more than 50 years, said the plane was the ‘most fun’ he had had in a new plane in a ‘very long time’.
He said the controls were extremely sensitive and took a bit of getting used to. ‘It’s a bit like the difference between sailing a little dinghy and steering a large ocean liner,’ he said.
‘There was no apprehension before I took off because I knew it was designed by proper aircraft designers and Sakkie and Davie have done a really good job.
‘The smaller the aircraft the more responsive it is so it was a lot of fun to fly.
‘I went up for three 40-minute runs and when I was doing the acrobatics I was at full speed.
‘It was superb fun. I could have flown it all day. I can’t wait to return to Western Australia to do aerobatic displays in it.’