My father passed away, on the way to 103, on the 31st May 2019.

RIP and sincere condolences to you P&P and family.

We hear so many harrowing stories about those who escaped occupied countries that it almost starts to sound like hype, but lives like your father’s bring us firmly back down to earth and prove that these sorts of things really did happen. Many thanks for sharing his story. Do you have any plans to write a book or article about him?

Hi Brenden,

Car Parking: The event is ticket only, so there is no particular car park for ticket holders. You’ll either have to present your ticket at a booth as you drive in or once you’re on foot, depending on what car park you’re directed to. The overflow car parking isn’t that far from the airfield, although can be a bit rough. If you have anybody with mobility problems it’s well worth requesting a parking slot in the main museum car park which is held back for visitors who need it.

Opening: The opening times are strictly adhered to, I’ve not heard of anyone getting in before the stated opening time.

Traffic: It’s pretty busy all day and I have heard that early is no quieter. The traffic management arrangements seem to have been tuned to a fine art and I haven’t had traffic trouble at a Dux show for years. There is sometimes a few minutes wait arriving/leaving, but nothing major.

Where to put yourself: It really depends what you want to see and what the conditions are like. The flying is easily seen from most spots but you will probably want to put yourself at one or other end of the crowdline for a lot of taxiing, run-up, etc type ground action. Keep an eye on the wind for the day so as to have an idea of which runway direction will be in use. The crowdline is South-facing so unfortunately you’ll be facing the sun for most of the day, protect your eyes, wear a hat etc.

Other tips: You will probably want to bring your own grub as the museum cafes get swamped pretty quick and the prices from the burger vans etc is always a tad high and again busy. Bringing your own saves money and valuable rivet counting time, I speak from experience.

Main advice is to take it all in and enjoy it.

Very sad to read this, having enjoyed so many of his displays over the years and then later his very professional and entertaining airshow commentaries. It would be very fitting if something like a trophy or scholarship were named after him, certainly a great name and example to follow.

RIP

What we have to remember here is that this was NOT an airshow, it was an unusual event that doesn’t really fit into a tried and tested public event model. It was basically a bunch of aircraft gathered together at a public venue over a couple of specific weekdays, with a certain amount of demonstration flying thrown in. I’ve not been involved in the event in any way (although I attended both days), but putting myself in the organisers shoes I can understand the limited program. How many people were going to turn up on a weekday? What about the weather? As it turned out, the crowds were huge and I’m sure if the organisers could have been assured of such numbers there would have been more flying arranged.

It was an unusual event and I’m glad I attended, even if there were disappointments such as the lack of parachute drops due to weather. The attendance levels on a weekday are proof of the strength of interest in such events and perhaps it could pioneer the staging of other similar events in future?

It’s worth remembering that the whole Typhoon/Tornado, Tempest and SeaFury family have a history of different power plants. If anything the fitting of a US engine is proof positive of the “Power Egg” concept the type was designed with and it’s “just another engine type” IMHO.

I wonder if anyone will get around to fitting a contra-prop Griffon on a Fury again…

Keep up the good work, it must be very dispiriting to see joblists getting longer instead of shorter! The effort is appreciated, please keep at it.

It does beg the question, why is there so much steel in a Meteor?? On the face of it, it seems a very bad idea.

Congratulations to everyone involved with the DH.9, brilliant news!

For me it’s definitely a dual-control DH9A, the clinchers are the position of the control cables on the fuselage side and the rake angle of the cabane struts. On the DC Siskin, the external bell-crank and control cables are at the bottom of the fuselage side, rather than the higher position seen in the above photo. The Siskin also had splayed cabane struts, with the rear struts splaying rearward. In the pic above the struts are raked forward.

There was a 1920’s order placed for DH9A’s in several variants, including a number of dual-control examples.