Sketching, "Up On The Roof"... Just Me And The Drifters!

A DeHavilland trainer?

Developed just after World War II, the was the first aircraft designed by de Havilland of Canada to replace the de Havilland Tiger Moth as a single-engine basic trainer. The Chipmunk first flew on 22 May 1946. Initially, 218 Chipmunks were built for the Royal Canadian Air Force, followed, after a change to the Gipsy Major 8 engine, by 735 planes for the RAF’s primary pilot training bases.

Well, that's what "Wikipedia" and "PilotFriend Aircraft DataBase" have to say about this aircraft that I sketched from the vantage point of a storage loft at the Allen Airways Museum in El Cajon, CA. Before I even looked for the info on this chromed beauty, I knew it was a DeHavilland product from the vertical stabilizer design. They all look alike at DeHavilland. 

Consider the plywood versatility of the "Mosquito," for example. The "rudder" is almost exactly the same! Someone once told me that rudders ( vertical stabilizers ) on an aircraft is more about a company's logo, than it is about aerodynamics. I wonder...

I probably shouldn't have been up there, but in my career as an artist, I found that you do what you have to to get the best angle that helps sell the product... Whatever that product might be. 

Oh, the stories I could tell... "When this old world starts getting me down,

And people are just too much for me to face.
I climb way up to the top of the stairs,
And all my cares just drift right into space.

Up On The Roof!"

I wonder if that's how pilots sometimes feel!

Unfortunately, the price I had to pay was the heat. It wasn't horrible, but it was clear I wasn't gonna spend too much time high above everyone else... sketching for fun. This took me about forty minutes to complete, I guess.

Copyright 2014/Ben Bensen III