No, not a joke! Over the 25th and 26th of October I attended a school reunion near Sutton Valence in Kent, overlooking (from several miles to the North) Headcorn. Throughout the Saturday Tiger Moths kept beetling over and I also saw what I assume was the Tiger Club’s Druine Turbulent display team – first dogfighting, then flying a perfect finger-four a couple of hours later.
But the NEXT day…
Mid-afternoon (not sure of exact time) I heard something old and powerful (ie it made a nice noise!) stunting at low level, and caught a glimpse of it through a tree in the vertical component of a loop. A couple of minutes later it came over the school at no great height and I could have sworn it was a high-back Mustang. Now, I grew up under a Duxford flight-route, with a father who grew up in Essex in WW2, so I thought my aircraft recognition – at least warbird wise – was pretty good. But I read in Flypast that the only high-back Mustang in the country won’t fly till the new year. So what on earth DID I see? The best I can guess is it was a later Mustang, and I just saw from an angle that made the fuselage look higher than it was. But if not?
Adrian
By: Yak 11 Fan - 6th November 2003 at 21:22
The Doll certainly has been into Headcorn before as has another UK based P51D ‘Janie’, a very busy airfield these days, always something going on, just wish the surface was a bit smoother 😀
By: adrian_gray - 6th November 2003 at 17:00
Cheers for that – the wings were right for a Mustang and if it didn’t have a scoop it certainly had a bulge underneath. I reckon that’s probably what and who I spotted then. Looks like I need to bone up on my spotting powers! I wonder if he landed at Headcorn – would be very appropriate, even if it was called Lashenden then.
Adrian
By: Yak 11 Fan - 6th November 2003 at 16:19
Could possibly have been Rob Davies in his P51D Big Beautiful Doll, the aircraft was out and about on the Saturday and Sunday that weekend and is based locally.
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November 6, 2003 at 4:04 pm