Northolt 100 ~ 13Jun15

When I left Cambridge on the train Saturday morning, visibility was about a mile and a bit, low cloud just covering the tops of the tower cranes dotted around the building sites around the station and although it wasn’t raining, it was wet. By Stevenage, visibility improved but still low cloud and when I got back to Cambridge that evening, it was a repeat of the morning. At RAF Northolt, the cloud base was going up and down as the various weather fronts passed through and it was the low cloud base that stopped the Chinook from displaying and at 1600ft was to low for the Falcons to jump as they need a minimum of 2000ft. The low cloud base also put paid to the Queens Birthday flypast over the airfield. A Chinook and Hercules did land to bolster the static display and one of the two BA.146 aircraft that took off to take part in the QB flypast returned to Northolt. It would appear Duxford based war birds saved the flying show. I watched the Grace Spitfire display from South Ruislip station with it banking directly overhead, and the cloud base had lifted when B-17/Sally-B performed and Mark Miller was the first display act up in the afternoon and had a round of applause from the crowd just for taking off and a bigger round on landing for having displayed. The start time for P-51/Ferocious Frankie was put back but eventually cancelled when the weather in Cambridgeshire didn’t improve. One other act that did make it was was a Bucker Jungmeister/G-BTUX. Photos in the order they were taken.

Brian