Flying June 21st 2010

I got a call Monday afternoon from my friend, Tony. He needed another pilot to fly with him on a formation photography flight. I hadnt flown his musketeer before but it was an awesome flight. We flew in formation with a Chipmunk and a pitts special from Little Gransden. When routing home to Cranfield we spotted a virgin balloon over bedford. After a quick call on the ballooning frequency the balloon pilot gave us his permission to fly around the balloon and take pics. We circled around the balloon until it landed near cardington.

Unfortunately theres no formation flying pics from me as I was flying the plane as my friend took the photos.

Plane I was in Beech Musketeer G-AWFZ:

The Pitts Special that we flew in formation with:

The Chipmunk we flew in formation with:

Another chipmunk departed while we all chatted about our flight..

G-BMLT

On our way home we made a friend between Bedford and the Cardington Hangars – G-VBFV

Once taking turns taking pics of the balloon and flying we headed back to Cranfield. ATC had gone home and my friend got me to practice an ILS approach which was great fun, I think he was surprised how well I managed it. We then flew another circuit while I took pics and he also got a landing in too – here we are, coming home after a fun days flying.

I hope you enjoyed the photos! I know they’re not perfect but I just thought i’d show you what I got up to this week 🙂

For those interested in how the air to air photography and formation flying went, heres my friends flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonycrowe/sets/72157624203516985/