I was at Cosford in February when the Liberator was temporarily outside while they moved the Dakota to the restoration centre. I did post some pictures in another thread but don’t know how to attach the link.
Anyway, it was my understanding from talking to the guys at Cosford that the Liberator was indeed going to Hendon in ‘exchange’ for the Valiant.
My phraseing of “he asked to continue” was in hindsight wrong. I do remember the phrase “happy to continue”.
I agree with Mark that the consequences of an accident wouldn’t have helped the current cause with regard to airshow insuranc, charging, public perception etc….but in this case the ‘system’ worked.
There was a problem, which because of the safety height the display was authorised at, he was able to recover from……just. If in the work up to diplay the RAF had cleared the pilot to a lower safety height then maybe that wouldn’t have been the case.
I was listening to the tower and after the ‘mishap’ he asked if he could continue his display. The tower stated that the flying control committee were dicussing it, then came back with a ‘stop stop stop’ message instructing him to terminate his display and land.
From your Typhoon photo I can see he was between the display line and the runway, in my mind he was between the runway and the crowd line. But at least I estimated the height correctly. 😉
I was watching the display through the viewfinder, when I realised I was arching my back and looking almost straight up, that’s when I got the ‘sinking’ feeling. He did seem to be along way out of position at that point?
Definately a heartstopping few moments, I was sure he was going in. Great photo Steve.
I estimated it was about 20-30ft clear of the ground.
Plenty of crackpot stories in the crowd (why do I always end up next to some know it all moron!). I heard it was 5-6ft clear, that he actually grazed the ground, and that the pilot would be at a Court Marshal this evening! 🙂
Takes all sorts (just wish they weren’t next to me!) 😀
Well I’ve never been to Legends…never been to Duxford actually….or Old Warden come to that. I’ll get there though…..eventually.
I do try and avoid the surprise/speculation type threads (its easy really I just don’t read them), but I do really look forward to the photo threads that follow afterwards.
So have a great time this weekend and post plenty of pictures next week.
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