As this is obviously attracting a bit of interest, you can now download David Boddington’s excellent 1977 articles on building and flying the scale models for Wings, at http://www.biggles-biplane.com/wings%20models.pdf

Enjoy! 😉

By the way the Rumpler was never used in Wings!!;)

As always. I bow to the knowledge of the true expert!! 😀

Yes. Sorry folks. The Blue Max is currently bolting Stearmans together in some desert oasis, while I’m back on maximum rate jetlag from even further East!

But, back to Wings. It seems the aerodrome locations and flying sequences were actually filmed in two specific locations, Old Warden in the UK and Bealeton, Virginia.

At OW, the Boxkite and Avro were used, along with at least one ground-taxiable BE-2 replica and a fuselage ‘mule’, plus a Gunbus film prop. Derek Piggott (Lasham gliding guru) was the aerial co-ordinator and the pilots were James Gilbert and Neil Williams, who also flew the PPS/Bianchi Eindecker in a couple of sequences.

The flying in the USA, with the BE-2c and Rumpler replicas and Cole Palens Avro 504K, was cleverly integrated with the OW footage with David Boddington also providing a lot of large scale models for the flying sequences too.

As for survivors. Well, there’s ‘our’ BE-2. The Rumpler is airworthy again in the USA, and so of course are the OW aeroplanes. Whether the Gunbus ‘prop’ is the same one as graces Hangar One at Sywell, I don’t know.

A year or two ago, the fuselage of one of the BE-2 ‘props’ came to light in Doncaster, but I seem to remember it was in pretty poor condition having lived in someone’s back garden for 20 years or so!! 😮

Hope this helps!!

Steve;)

What a great tribute Skybolt!

I suspect that in the politically correct, regulated, times of today, no-one would be allowed to get away with some of the displays that went on then!

Any comments on these ‘blasts from the past’ Skybolt? 😉

I think you will find that the safety, speed and duration of modern microlights both flexwing and 3 axis have made dramatic improvements since the mid 80’s. So most Microlight flyers have upgraded to aircraft that can really go places. Many 3 axis aircraft are cheaper to run and just as much fun as a Taylorcraft or similar Vintage aircraft.
I prefer a flexwing, which some people say is not a “real” aircraft but unless you have tried it taking off in 50 ft and landing in under 200ft you have never lived! I even have more instruments than some vintage aircraft – not that I need to look at them much.

Totally agree Robert. There have been quite a few times when I’ve been humbled by the speed and rate of climb of both flexwing and 3 axis microlights.

I really like the look of Flylight’s new microlight self-launching sailpane too. Now there’s an aeroplane that ticks just about all the boxes!

….And this glorious beast still races regularly today, a perfect cross-over between wings and wheels, with a 24-litre Napier Lion aero engine, mounted in a vintage Bentley chassis.

And as proved at Goodwood in September, it comes in handy for barbeques too. Yum!:D

OK, no.4 at fast idle then! 😀

I came across this thread and site from a random google link while looking for something else entirely.
I pretty much grew up at Sunderland airfield – both my parents flew there, as did my grandmother, briefly, in the late 60s and 70s and my father was a flying instructor there.
If anyone is still looking for photos I have quite a lot and I also recently found some old video footage of the airfield and some of the members. I only recognise one, Les Richardson, but the others might be familiar to some of you who mention flying there.
Anne

First of all, welcome!

I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping you’ll get time to post some of your pictures. As you’ve seen from the posts above, there are a lot of us that would love to see them!