DAY IN THE LIFE

The Shuttleworth Collection’s chief pilot is also a leading expert in vintage aircraft

Shuttleworth Collection chief pilot ‘Dodge’ Bailey

I’m the lInk between the people who fly and everyone else. The role is like that of an RAF squadron commander. I try to make sure we have the right pilots, ready for display flying, and to advise in the appointment of new ones. Pilot team planning and training are my responsibilities.

Hardly anyone, of course, comes to us with an in-built knowledge of how to fly a World War One fighter, but our typical pilot has changed a lot. When I started here in 1990 they were all ex-military and most were test pilots, very adaptable chaps who were expected to know how to fly lots of different aircraft. Now they come from all sorts of flying backgrounds, including civil general aviation.

We provide a very slow training process through the different types, usually starting with the Tiger Moth. The Tiger has poor handling qualities by modern standards. Our pilots need to learn the deficiencies in the stability and handling of early aircraft in comparison to post-World War Two designs. We have more than 40 early aircraft – all priceless artefacts – and their performance and handling vary hugely.

If one of the pilots has to drop out of a display at short notice, then I or one of the more experienced pilots can usually step in because we will have flown a wide range of the fleet.

These days, our 1909 Bleriot XI – the world’s oldest airworthy aeroplane – couldn’t get up a few hundred feet and stay there for 40 miles to cross the Channel. The truly impressive thing was Louis Bleriot’s courage in attempting it. Our Bleriot’s main flight limitation is its lack of power. You have a very old 24hp engine, and that makes climbing problematic. So even a circuit of the aerodrome is now beyond its capabilities. It’s safer just to fly a hop along the runway!

Eton College recently asked us if we could take off and fly our SE5A from their school playing fields, to re-enact what happened there in World War One. It’s the only WW1 plane to return from a combat mission surviving today. In the end we couldn’t get permission from the Civil Aviation Authority, because the perceived risks following the 2015 Shoreham Airshow Crash were too great. We took it there by road, assembled it, and then I taxi’d about. The whole thing took four days and was really appreciated by the students there.

I have given talks about flying the Collection’s aircraft and people ask different questions every time, but there’s a tremendous enthusiasm about flying and vintage aircraft in particular. If they’re not pilots then they have an impression entirely driven by what they’ve read, which is often misleading. I try to be more objective, which surprises some people.

While I have a few aviation heroes, there are some design engineers who impress me more. Robert Blackburn, though less well-known than Geoffrey de Havilland, was a brilliant engineer who built his first machine in 1912. To be successful, aircraft had to be strong, rigid and lightweight, and the relevant structural designs and construction techniques were best understood by designers of furniture and bicycles in those early days.

I live half an hour’s drive from Old Warden, and my days vary because I’m a trustee as well as chief pilot. Most of my time is associated with the Collection, one way or another: flight tests, reports, display pilot planning, documentation such as flying order books and risk assessments. There isn’t much time left for any other hobbies.

In 2014 I crashed our Sopwith Triplane at a display. The wind changed direction after take-off, and the aircraft has to be landed into the wind, but it was blowing at 40º to the runway. Space was limited and I misjudged it in the conditions. A wheel clipped a gate and the aircraft ended up on its nose. I was incredibly lucky not to bang my head on the gun, in fact there wasn’t a bruise on me, but the Triplane has taken two years to rebuild…

Recently we’ve expanded the boundaries of the aerodrome; it’s a small grass airfield and we need to make the best of its restrictions because we’re not likely to move anywhere else. The perfect airfield for vintage aircraft would be circular and a mile in diameter. We have simple flying plans with gentle manoeuvres, with very little aerobatics. You tend to run out of things to do after about seven minutes.

Apart from liaising with the chief engineer on matters such as flight checks, the envelope expansion programmes, and the inaugural flights of newly rebuilt aircraft, I don’t get actively involved in the engineering side. We’re currently preparing a totally authentic reproduction of a Sopwith Camel. It was worth sitting in it and looking for snags well before it was ready to fly because I found my foot could get jammed between the rudder bar and a crossmember, so I asked for little ramps to be fitted; then the heel of the retreating foot could slide up and over the crossmember.

Shuttleworth is a lovely location, with world-class collections of vintage aeroplanes and cars, a landscaped Swiss Garden, rolling parkland and a mansion house. It’s a very pleasant day out for everyone, and that’s the delight of the place for me.

‘We have over 40 early aircraft – all priceless artefacts – and their handling varies hugely’