Sally-B's Day at Duxford – 31Jul11

Along with the general public, a variety of World War II Re-enactors, period vehicles and visiting aircraft descended on Duxford on a very warm summers Sunday to celebrate Sally-B’s 66th year since rolling off the Lockheed-Vega Burbank production line in 1945 and 36 years on the UK display circuit. Considering that the Sally-B & Friends Day was billed as not being an air show, it was in fact a very good little air show and possibly a format to be followed for future themed events. On the ground there were two tented encampments either side of the control tower. One was the Pitsford Home Guard as in ‘Dad’s Army’ and the other, much more substantial tented city, was dedicated to the ‘Friendly Invasion’ of British soil by US Forces with WWII period vehicles and personnel. On the hangar base outside Wing Co Joe’s café, was ‘Room 21’ an orchestra providing music from the war period big band style and ‘The D-Day Darlings’ a female vocal group singing 1940’s songs in the style of the Andrews sisters. Very good they were to. Throughout the morning there were various other events, talks, tours and demonstrations taking place around Duxford.

The flying was split into three periods starting on the hour at two o’clock and lasting thirty minutes but invariably over ran a bit. Sally-B was first up and flew around for a few circuits and then in formation with the Mustang & Spitfire of the OFMC. With the B-17 landing, the OFMC pair did individual displays and they were followed by the Fiat G-46-3B finished in a World War II Libyan desert camouflage scheme representing fighters that the G-46, first flown in 1948, was descended from.

After a short break the flying continued. The pair of SA1100 Silence Twister aircraft of the SWIP Team performed an aerobatics routine over the airfield trailing smoke. Lots of smoke. They were followed by a Beechcraft D17S Staggerwing of the Duke of Brabant Air Force, having flown over the day before from its home base in Holland, which took off from the grass strip for a short solo display. A Douglas C-47A Skytrain, also took off from the grass, and the Volper (Beechcraft) H18 from the hard runway. The three of them flew around in a very loose vic formation. Sally-B took off again and the four aircraft then flew a diamond formation over the airfield a couple of times followed by a well spaced line astern tail chase and finishing with a well spaced run and break before landing.

During the intervals, Classic Wings appeared to be getting as many flights and aircraft into the air during the half hour window of opportunity as they could. The Harvard flew in for a run and break with its wheels partly down following some aerobatic manoeuvres as it held to the west. The pair of crash trucks stationed at the ARCo compound sparked into life as the Harvard did another pass to check the undercarriage was properly down and then landed safely.

The final half hour of flying was running about fifteen minutes late and John Romain, who had taken off earlier in the T-28 Trojan, roared in for a very nice solo display. Mark Jeffries was up next and flew some incredible manoeuvres, with even more smoke, in his Extra 330SC. Finally the SWIP Team took off again followed by Sally-B for its third flight of the day. The B-17 flew in from the east with the little Twisters, trailing smoke, following a little way behind. On their return pass the Twisters pulled up and headed west and Sally-B performed a final solo display routine of the day.

All in all a very enjoyable day out with a flying format that seemed to work very well for a small themed event. Although no where near as packed as it is on a normal air show day, the Sally-B and Friends day was well attended by the public with the added bonus of it being a very warm and sunny day. The down side for photographers was that from time to time the clouds rolled in covering or diffusing the sunlight and just to make it even more interesting for me I was using manual settings on my Sony A550 instead of my usual shutter priority. Shooting in Jpeg instead of my usual RAW and restricted myself to a Sony 70-300mm G SSM lens for the flying display.

Brian