The Flight from Australia to UK prompted this posting. Rick Noland
 of New Zealand is alson rebuilding a tiger moth. Jim
               TIGERFLY - The World's smallest Airline
     Tigerfly styles itself as the World's Smallest Airline with some
 justification, the fleet consists of a single aircraft with just one
 passenger seat available per flight!
     Tigerfly operates one De Havilland Tiger Moth (DH82a), built at
 Cowley, near Oxford, during 1940. The aircraft has been operating out
 of Wycombe Air Park (Booker) - 30 miles west of central London, Eng-
 land, since autumn 1986, and has flown over 4,000 passengers to date.
 Trips are usually along the Thames between Marlow and Henley each
 weekend, weather permitting, from April through October. Until now
 (spring 1998) we have been able to provide aerobatics for passengers
 who wanted them, unfortunately because of a mandatory directive from
 the Civil Aviation Authority, NO Aerobatics are permitted in any
 Tiger Moth in the UK. This restriction may be lifted later this year,
 but we have no idea when.
     To make a booking call Brian on 01697-371472
     Tigerfly can be contacted when operating (normally weekends,
 April-October) on 01494-447575 Answering machine if we aren't there
 or are busy.
     Flights cost 75.00 Pounds for fifteen minutes, or 140.00 Pounds
 for 30 minutes.
     If you print this page (from net) and bring it with you, we will
  give you a 5.00 pound discount when you buy a flight)!
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
          de Havilland Moth Club History of G-ANMV (T7404)
     G-ANMV was built by Morris Motors at Cowley in 1940 as construc-
 tion number 83745, handed over to no.15 Maintenance Unit (MU) at
 Wroughton on 12th October 1940 and put straight into storage. On 14
 August 1941 she was sent to No.26 Elementary Flying Training School
 (EFTS) at Kidlington, then on to no.10 Flying Instructors School and
 later to no.8 EFTS at Woodley. The aircraft stayed at Woodley until
 December 1948 when it went to Barton near Manchester.
     T7404's last RAF Unit was no.22 Reserve Flying School at Taver-
 sham from 19th. June 1951 until 16th. December 1952 and after six
 month's storage at no.20 MU it was sold to Mr A J Whitmore, an air-
 craft dealer, and registered as G-ANMV on 22nd. January 1954. A year
 later the aircraft was exported to France as F-BHAZ and for several
 years was operated by the Aero Club de Royan.
     The aircraft returned to the UK in 1969 and was used by Norwich
 and Norfolk Flying Club and the Compton Abbas Flying Club, until
 purchased by Tigerfly in 1986.
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
                  TIGERFLY - Background information
     Tigerfly was founded by six people in 1986. The original idea was
 conceived by Verdun Luck, who thought it would be interesting to
 write an operations manual for the commercial operation of a Tiger
 Moth.
     He was so pleased with the result that he decided it would be even
 more interesting to actually do it. So, after putting his idea to a
 group of us one rainy day at Booker, we came up with some cash and
 a substantial loan from a bank. The next thing was to find a suitable
 aircraft. Rumours of Tigers on the market were followed up and we
 looked at a few. The best one we found was G-BHLT(152k) which was then
 based at Enstone. We negotiated the price and asked that it should be
 delivered to us at Booker. Came the day and we were waiting with the
 cheque. The aeroplane duly arrived, but unfortunately came to rest
 upside down(123k) in the middle of the airfield.
     From this incident we discovered an awful lot about Tiger Moths,
 as we then dismantled it, moved it to a place of restoration and then
 spent several months rebuilding.
     At the end of all this, the aircraft was deemed airworthy again,
 but we were not able to get her to fly hands off - she had an unfor-
 tunate tendency to drop a wing and was generally not too nice to fly.
 (We subsequently discovered that one of the lower mainplane spars was
 split)
     The hunt was back on and due to a chance conversation at the Air
 Britain / Chipmunk fly-in at Wroughton, we discovered a gentleman
 with not one, but three Tiger Moths for sale, two at Carlisle and
 one at Compton Abbas.
     The one at Compton Abbas sounded right: It was the right price
 and already had a Public Transport C of A.
     So one beautiful summer evening four of us decamped to Compton
 Abbas to test fly G-ANMV. It was the sort of evening which makes
 Tiger flying a real pleasure; perfect blue sky, visibility unlimited
 - from overhead Compton Abbas we could clearly see the Isle of Pur-
 beck and the English Channel beyond. The aircraft performed beauti-
 fully, flew hands off, engine ran smoothly - there did seem to be a
 tendency for it to turn upside down a lot (but that was caused by
 instability of the pilots).
     Money changed hands and on the 11th July 1986 we became the proud
 owners of one 1940 vintage DH82a Tiger Moth.
     MV was collected by us and flown to Redhill to be fitted with
 wireless (a requirement of the AOC) and ten days later we finally had
 MV back at Booker and we started learning how to fly properly.
     Commercial operation of Tigerfly started in August 1986. We sold
 joyrides for 25.00 for 15 minutes (or 27.50 to include aerobatics).
 Unfortunately since then the price has more than doubled, but the
 aeroplane now pays for itself and we make a small profit - not enough
 to give up our jobs though!
     The downside of operating commercially is that we don't have
 enough time when we can fly for fun, although we do try to make time
 to go to the Moth Club Rally at Woburn each August, and we did take it
 to Switzerland for a long weekend in 1993 and 1995, where we visited
 the Old Timers Meet at Ecuvillens and made a lot of new friends. ===
--- DB 1.39/004487
---------------