Well actually it was five days but Wednesday was very quiet apart from a few GA type arrivals and departures and Pete Kynsey taking the diminutive Cosmic Wind for a spin. The main attraction however was the arrival of the Polikarpov I-16 RATA from Germany. After a slight detour to Cambridge Airport, to clear customs, it touched down at Duxford mid afternoon in the company of a YaK-50.
Thursday morning saw the departure of the Catalina to attend the Scalaria Air Challange meeting in Austria.
It returned to Duxford Sunday evening after Flying Legends had finished.
This was followed by the I-16 RATA, sounding like a Harvard on steroids, with a display flown by Thomas Jülch.
Also during the morning, the ISS Fury of Mistral Warbirds and AD-4N Skyraider F-AZHK of Vega Team/Skyraider Avignon arrived.
As a guest for the weekend of The Fighter Collection, I was invited out onto the flight line, with high-viz vest, and spent the afternoon up close and personal to the aircraft, pilots and engineers. I also spent most of it in the shade of various aircraft tails as it was getting incredibly hot.
The Bremgarten based Meir Motors F4U-5NL Corsair and first time visitor TF-15D-25 Mustang along with the Max Alpha Aviation Spitfire HF VIII flew in together and parked up.
AD-4N Skyraider F-AZHK of Vega Team/Skyraider Avignon
It was interesting watching Nick Grey and Frédéric Akary ground walking their display routine for the T.20 Sea Fury and the blue ISS Fury and then performing a stunning routine in the air for the first time.
John Romain in the Buchón
Tracey Curtis-Taylor in the Ryan ST-3KR Recruit
Day Two to follow.
Brian
By: jrw128 - 22nd July 2010 at 03:32
Great photos Pen Pusher. I enjoyed seeing the Rata, The French Corsair (I’m assuming that it was an F4U-7) and the P-51 in post war markings. All in all a great job.
By: Pen Pusher - 21st July 2010 at 21:20
Day 3
DAY 3
An even earlier start with a pick up at 06.00 and on arrival had a wander around the TFC hangar with my camera and watched the choreography of extracting aeroplanes from a hangar and out onto the flight line. Due to the predicted heat wave, I decided to play safe and seek shade for the afternoon flying. With a good supply of liquids, I parked my self on the east side of the brick building down by ARCo & crash gate A. A big hello to Tim and Barry who I used to work with many years ago at RAF Finningley and met up with.
With the flying for the day finished and the public leaving, it was a question of how many airframes could you squeeze into the smallest space possible.
Brian
By: Pen Pusher - 21st July 2010 at 18:49
Day 2
Apologies for the delay in completing this thread but over the Legends weekend I developed a little bit of a toothache which developed into a big bit of toothache, so not really in the mood for doing anything, and following some root canal work, feeling much better now.
Anyhoo
DAY 2
Friday morning and many, many thanks the Greg, my chauffeur for the weekend, and the start of the early morning starts with a pick up at 07.00. By 07.30 we were at Duxford and out on the airfield, a team from GMTV were presenting a feature on the Flying Legends and the weather reports from the flight line.
Following its DA flight, the Corsair developed a bit of a leak which was quickly fixed by The Fighter Collection engineers.
Although the museum was closing at this point, there was still a lot of flying going on and I made my way from the M11 end towards the TFC office.
At this point I was standing at the crowd barrier outside Hangar 2 and I was asked politely by a member of museum staff if I could just stand up by the office till the paying customers had left. I actually put my camera away and just sat and watched the Nimrod, Polikarpov and Spitfire displaying.
Brian
By: Peter D Evans - 13th July 2010 at 21:42
Cracking set of shots as normal Brian… pity I couldn’t make it this year, but these more than make up 🙂
Cheers
Peter D Evans
LEMB Administrator
By: Flygirl - 13th July 2010 at 21:19
How lucky you are to get AIRSIDE 😉 us mortals have to struggle !:p:rolleyes::)
By: Merlin Madness - 13th July 2010 at 20:44
Great pics, love the Rata.
Sign In
July 13, 2010 at 7:18 pm