A Nice Day Out At Duxford – 05Jun10

I only went to Duxford to get some record shots of ‘Ferocious Frankie’ out in the sunshine after its winter maintenance. The T9 Spitfire was just firing up as I arrived and it departed to I know not where. Alister Kay took ‘Frankie’ up just after mid-day and could be seen just north of Duxford performing various flight tests before landing again. ARCo were having what I think was a supporters club get together and ‘Taz’ went flying a couple of times. Just before 14.00hrs, Alister took off in ‘Frankie’ again for some aerobatics over the airfield before landing. At the same time, John Romain fired up the Buchon and Cliff Spink did like wise in the Mk XVI Spitfire. There then followed an excellent display of close formation flying and I have to say that I lowered my camera several times just to watch. Well done Gents. As I had a bit of time before catching the bus, I had a bit of a wander around. Outside the TFC hangar, I thought, should I tempt fate and put my camera away. I looked around and apart from a few departures from the visiting GA types, it looked quiet. I put my camera away in my bag. Fate was tempted. Just getting near to the kids play area, I heard the sound of a Merlin. I thought it was the T9 returning. Wrong. It was a Seafire and it started doing some aerobatics. It’s not easy trying to walk fast with a sore foot. I made it to the crowd barrier, whipped out the camera and managed to catch a few snaps before it disappeared into the murk of the west. The sun shone during the morning but by the afternoon it had clouded over and got quite hazy.

These are in the order they were taken.

Brian