12Jun14
Virtually wall to wall sunshine and very little wind made for a ‘Scorchio’ day at Duxford. Apart from the school parties, it was very quiet during the morning but the flying action picked up later in the afternoon. Spitfire T.9/MJ627 went for a test flight and then later on headed down to its new home at Goodwood. The TFC Spitfire Vb/EP120 headed out to the ORP and tied down for an engine run during which Anna Walker arrived in a spotless Tiger Moth/G-BJZF which was put to bed for the night in the TFC hangar. The pilot of the Catalina was having a DA flight with several landings and a couple of display routines followed by a display by Rats in the Spitfire Mk.1/P9374 which I believe is on air show duty this weekend.
Brian
05Jun14
A group of primary school children descended on hangar 3 this morning, and along with Paul Bonhomme, gave a ‘hand’ on a bit of a make over on Spitfire/MH434. Later Paul took his Red Bull XtremeAir Sbach for an aerobatic display for said school children and as is the way, the clouds rolled in and it went quite dark. I doubt he heard it but he got a round of applause from them when he touched down. He was joined later by Steve Jones in the other Red Bull Sbach and they both had a practice display to the north of the airfield. Late in the afternoon and SpitfireT9/MJ627 went for a test flight and while waiting for it to return a Nanchang CJ-6A did a low fast pass along the grass runway. The Grace Spitfire was parked outside the control tower and the HAC Spitfire was being fueled as I left as they were both flying after the museum had closed.
Brian
31May14
For a non airshow Saturday, there was a lot of war bird activity. The TFC Bearcat left for Le Ferte-Alais at around 9.30 and when the museum opened at 10.00, Spitfire/P9374 was lining up for take off to an air show in Antwerp but was back again 90 minutes later following a technical hitch. ‘Taz’ the ARCo Harvard was in hangar 2 parked behind two Spitfires and as it was required for flying on Sunday it unfortunately meant that the two Spitfires had to be parked out in the sunshine so ‘Taz’ could be extracted from its resting place. The TFC Hawk 75 went flying, once in the morning and once after lunch with a bit of aerobatics thrown in on both occasions. The TFC P-40F also had an engine run. At about 4 o’clock the OFMC Spitfire/MH434 took off on display duty and was due to return 90 minutes later so I didn’t hang around for its return.
Brian
Sign In
