Duxford Spring Airshow 2009

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This is for our Aviation Day friends, unfortunately, Air Commodore Beefsteak is unable to participate as he is probably finishing off his lunch at one of Rick Steins Padstow restaraunts while negotiating fishing rights.

Thanks to the suggestion by his nibs, I was able to get in at half price by showing my JobSeekers card and I met my brother and his mate from Derby and Nottingham respectively outside the AAM hangar.

The weather was appalling, high winds and occasional heavy rain, many of the participants couldn't fly and we had to sprint between the hangars to avoid a soaking. On the other hand, my brothers mate Derek had never been to DX before and simply enjoyed being there and taking in the atmosphere of the place.

What amazes me is that people arrive late and grumble about qeueing to get in, then dash off to leave early and have to qeue to get out, even when there was 2 hours of flying left, the traffic was jammed up trying to get out. If no-one has ever been there, it must be one of the best military history and aviation museums in the world, there's so much to do and see, especially for kids, I've been there more times than I've had hot dinners, but I never get bored, whats wrong with folk, especially considering how much it cost to get in yesterday, I thought everyone was skint, it didn't look like it yesterday.

Here's a few pictures, unfortunately my editing feature doesn't want to work and my crappy digi camera can't cope very well with moving targets, I'll see what I can do later.

This is before the rains came:-

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The flightline following the first downpour:-

We walked round the hangars and were surprised to find the airworthy Vickers Vimy replica which

the late great Steve Fossett had flown to Australia:-

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Just a few images from the day:-

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Incidentally, my brother offered to buy us a pint, guess what, the ( empty ) beer van was selling Greene King IPA 'Smooth' at £3:20 a pint, robbing evil b@stards, I hope they made a loss, vile exploitative scum, 99p at Witherspoons, lets take advantage of the airshow people and charge as much as we can for our p@ss, because they'll fancy a pint and have no other choice. I've said before, don't buy this evil empires p@ss and they will perhaps change their minds about what they are doing, as it happened, people seemed to be doing this, thank God.

Incidentally, GK now have all the rights to Loch Fyne kippers and their asscociated restaraunts, please don't have anything to do with them and they will rot in the money exploitative game that they are creating for themselves at every one elses expence.

No, we didn't fall for their little game and buy a pint, we complained and walked away feeling sick.

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Not bad pics (Under the circumstance) I must admit to feeling sorry for any atendees as we drove to Cornwall in the persistant rain!!

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Nice to have you back Beefsteak, as well as this site.

Something I forgot to mention, as you are aware, Sally B has had three engine changes to the port outer in the past two years. During the display, a plume of smoke was noticeable from the replaced engine, but the display routine went ahead and we left it to the experts on board, the cylinders bedding in? what do I know.

When she taxied past us, the smell of burning oil and cloud of blue smoke was overpowering:-

Sorry, can't pick it up on the photo.

According to the keen types, it wasn't a problem, but I gather that she took off from DX to display elsewhere over the weekend and had to abort, she was due to carry out a flypast over Madingley yesterday and couldn't, she's been grounded for 'technical' reasons, I presume that a fourth port outer will be neccesary then, very strange.

Did you see owt interesting in Cornwall, I'm sure you did.

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Just for info,

The reds flew low over my house yesterday teatime on their way back to Scampton, dint even know they were back in the UK!!

Rog

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Saw this fellow down near St Austell (It's a micro lite believe it or not!!!! ) then by complete coincidence I saw him again later in the week up on Davidstowe moor, loads of info was gleaned from the pilot ,including the invite of a flight in October !!!

And the local air ambulance landed on Widemouth bay whilst we were there but the camera was locked away , to keep the sand out, I got this shot later in the week

I also spent a bit of Saturday evening trying to get a good shot of the Swallows at Crowdy Moor Reservoir for you Firbeck

These are the best

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Just noticed all these pictures are blured (Or is it my eyes??

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Rog

The Reds arrived back at Scampton on Saturday from Cyprus then on the Sunday, flew down to Southend to perform their first airshow, I think stayed overnight at Southend airport, performed again on monday, must have landed at Southend again, then shot off back to Scampton.

There were 250,000 people packed on to Southend seafront each day, half a million visitors to an airshow must be something of a record.

It's about 30 odd miles from me, but always a nightmare to get in and out of the town, even on a normal day. What we did instead was to take the kids crabbing at Heybridge Basin and Maldon, just up the coast from Southend, it's only 15 miles from here, but all we saw was the Lancaster, and watched some aerobatic planes practising overhead, we heard the Reds while getting the tackle out the car but it was very hazy and we couldn't see owt in the distance. We had a nice time though, Heybridge is a lovely spot, only one bit of bother, the harbour side pub used to sell lovely Maldon Brewery Ales, we went in for a swift half and guess what, Greene bloody King, my missus went ballistic and threatened to walk out till we noticed they had Adnams Broadside, phew, saved.

Ian

Yes they are blurred, hope the long journey didn't affect your awesome lens.

I was overcome with memories when you mentioned Widemouth Bay, happy times there, is the container still next to the cafe selling cheapo wetsuits. I recall that the cafe had a very cool collection of cheapo gliders for sale, I bought a very large Stuka and proceeded to anoy everyone on the beach with my attempts at getting it to fly properly, it never did.

I thought you might be interested in this.

Have any of you seen the TV movie 'Tuskegee Airmen' starring Lawrence Fishburne. It's all about the first squadron of black US pilots who against all racial odds formed a P-51 bomber escort unit in Italy, fascinating stuff, they never lost a single bomber on a mission.

George Lucas is now remaking the film in a big way, currently over in the Czech Rebublic, using the erstwhile retired French B-17 'Pink Lady and associated aircraft, I came across these movie stills on another site:-

Looks pretty cool to me, I'm surprised though that they are only using a/c from France, DX has some pretty awsome stuff and Lucasfilms could have paid for Sally B's problems to be resolved, I assume that CGI will play a major role though, I look forward to this film, it could be pretty good.

I also hope that the 'Red Tails' keep their markings and turn up at Flying Legends, you've got to go to Duxford for that one Beefsteak, it's the best.

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I am going to try to get there but I can't promise owt yet !!

Re that George Lucas film all the life size models are being made in a little workshop near Delabole in north Cornwall, (See my Blog) I got to see them last week, but I was that busy chatting I forgot to take pics of the P-51s that were all lying in a heap on the grass (In kit form)