Avoid Daks Over Normandy – Sat 8th June

Last few paragraphs of this report of rather enlightening:

http://thisisflight.net/airshow-reviews/review-daks-over-normandy-2019/

D Day Squadron statement:

http://ddaysquadron.org/d-day-squadron-responds-to-current-events-surrounding-european-commemorations/

Yup, the Dakota owners & parachutists etc have no blame in any of this. It’s all on the shoulders of one man..

Brauns miracle recovery from a heart attack has now been compounded by his claim he also suffered a “complete mental breakdown”. From the post I saw, it appears this happened as he walked out of the hospital.

Many thanks ZRX. Oh dear.

Well I’ve nothing useful to add to that but I would like to add my thanks to all those who did their part in getting the Daks together especially those from America and to all those who made what did happen happen. And even more heartfelt thanks to those who made it happen in 1944.

Jo (formerly posting as DoN) posted this:

Joanne Jones Hi, I wanted to address this issue…

I have stepped away from doing the social media for Daks over Normandy because this has been a very time consuming volunteer role over the last 12 months and I also have an even busier full-time job.

As the event is now over and I have returned to work today then I think my job on that side is pretty much done. However, as people still need a contact to air their grievances and for reassurance that someone is listening then I am continuing to answer emails and forward them where possible.

No-one has silenced me or asked me not to say anything. I just don’t want to be publicly vocal on anything at this time.

Again, thank you for all the kind words that have been offered to me. Many thanks, Jo

Can’t see that unless you have a Facebook account ZRX – anyone care to share the gist?

The basic gist is:
It’s rapidly becoming apparent that the whole deal in France organised by Braun was a scam from the start. All those photo flights he sold in T6’s were illegal, There were never any NOTAMs filed, He didn’t bother asking the tower to open at 7am instead of 9am. No permits etc. It appears all he did was collect money & lie to everyone. There’s a LOT of people very angry over all this & Braun has dropped off the radar.

& now the displeasure has spilled over on the Berlin Airlift 70 FaceBook page (another Braun deal) with people there bringing up that he owes refunds for the DoN fiasco… However, given that this event is taking place in Germany, I expect the level of competency will be a lot higher…

Do not get me wrong, I went to the Duxford side of things, the dedication and efforts by all of thosee to get their aircraft here and on show was nothing short of miraculous, kudos to them all and I take my hat off to them, Duxford being Duxford has the facilities to absorb any delays in the show with plenty to see and do, weather wise on day one I fully understood and there was nothing one could do to prevent that.

Day two with the delays one did get the feeling that the organisers didn’t really have any back up plan to fill in the gaps and a lot of the crowd wishing to retain their viewing patch were reluctant to move so ended up standing and waiting for something to happen.

My biggest disappointment was the lack of drops, that as I have said couldn’t be forseen because of the weather on day one and would never happen or was planned for on day two as chutes etc need to be repacked.

But the biggest of all disappointment was the lack of a flypast of them all, maybe it was ATC, limits of fuel or lack of formation flying skills.. etc, I do not know, but after the mass take off it would have been nce to have seen them all overfly Duxford, either in formation or as a stream, neither of which happened.

It is a shame that what has been possibly the last time for many veterans to mark a significant anniversary of D-Day has been marred by this controversy.

The efforts by owner/operators of the aircraft to get them over the ‘pond’ for the gathering shouldn’t be overlooked and it all seems to have gone very sour over the last few days.

Thankfully there was a bit more dot joining going on 75 years ago….

Feeling I got lucky with this. Our relatively minor experience of Daks Over Normandy was turning up at the Caen “official” parking on Friday, finding it to be a shambles and deciding not to bother. We drove down to La Ferte Alais early instead. I’m so relieved in retrospect that we didn’t have pleasure flights booked.

Having said that, the efforts of D-Day Squadron have been fantastic and created lasting memories. For us, that was Sunday 2nd at Shuttleworth, 3rd at Duxford, 5th at Sannerville for the para drops and we were on Omaha beach on the 6th when the Daks joined the French/US flypast. The magnanimity (in public at least) towards the whole DoN fiasco from D-Day Squadron on facebook etc. has also been impressive.

I don’t know if anyone from D-Day Squadron reads this forum, but if they do – Thank You.

Nah, still being asked for a log in… never mind.

‘SCAMMED OVER NORMANDY’ is a public group so any one can see it. Try this link

https://www.facebook.com/groups/628505980994699/

Brian

Can’t see that unless you have a Facebook account ZRX – anyone care to share the gist?

Looks like the SHTF:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/628505980994699/?fref=mentions

Interestingly, I posted on the DON Fb page about half an hour ago asking if anyone had heard anything since Saturday. No reply as yet and the last email I received from Jo was also sent by her on Saturday.

Last post from Jo was 16 hours ago:

Daks over Normandy Please note that I am no longer the Social Media Manager for Daks over Normandy. I will continue to answer emails and forward them to the relevant people but it is not me on this page or Twitter. Thanks everyone for your kind words to me. Jo

Was following this on FB and heard from somebody who went to Caen. They did a great job getting the Daks over but it seems event management was a shambles. Thankfully they had the IWM’s infrastructure to rely on at Duxford, but it did seem pretty amateurish at times. Yes the weather caused problems but the Caen event in terms of no buses, hardly any food, access for veterans and flights was a disaster.

Also the photo flights in T6’s paid for months in advance never happened & the photo opportunity for the punters at the airport never happened either… Dididn’t help matters that they had the Daks facing away from the crowd line.

The DoN volunteer (Jo) who was helping people with complaints & info about refunds etc appears to have been gagged by DoN & is no longer posting on their FB page or twitter.

Interestingly, I posted on the DON Fb page about half an hour ago asking if anyone had heard anything since Saturday. No reply as yet and the last email I received from Jo was also sent by her on Saturday.

Was following this on FB and heard from somebody who went to Caen. They did a great job getting the Daks over but it seems event management was a shambles. Thankfully they had the IWM’s infrastructure to rely on at Duxford, but it did seem pretty amateurish at times. Yes the weather caused problems but the Caen event in terms of no buses, hardly any food, access for veterans and flights was a disaster.

Edited:

The DoN volunteer (Jo) who was helping people with complaints & info about refunds etc “has gone back to her regular job” & is no longer posting on their FB page or twitter “under the DoN user name”.

Brian the VIP was what they were tannoying and the delay was a significant departure from the website.

Don’t mix up my gripe with those that made the magnificent efforts to fly in, it was the organisation that let it down, some folks that got there early were left waiting in the car park for an hour as they wouldn’t let them in,

There’s more than a few pointed comments & character assessments on the DoN FB page. Apparently 200 jumpers were left without their bags etc for 3 days & are going to be billing DoN for the clothes etc they had to buy.

Someone posting as DoN (Jo?) now telling people to open disputes with PatPal to get refunds..