I can only second the congratulations, she looks magnificent.

Also many thanks to the chroniclers who have kept us updated over the last months.

John, I was about to ask who that was!

Thanks David!

The RNZAF retired its around 2003, replaced by 757s. Unfortunately I don’t remember ever seeing them…except for one hulk sitting outside at RNZAF Woodbourne.

For my part I’ve never considered an Orenburg Yak a restored WW2 warbird. Even as a child I knew they were built in the same factories but 50yr later and thus not original.

I’m very pleased to see another Il-2 fly, especially one to be based in its homeland. Wonderful news, and big thanks to John Terrell for the information shared about this project.

That’s right hampden98, in fact the report for Sir Ken Hayr’s Vampire accident mentions the Venom incident. It was the day before so the formation was only a two-ship during the show proper. I remember seeing the Vampire on the TV news, and reading about all four incidents in a subsequent issue of Classic Wings Downunder.

I’ve never seen an accident at an airshow. The worst was a tailskid failure on a WW1 type, or returning to the field 15min after a nasty groundloop by a WW2 fighter. I do have eerie feelings when seeing aircraft types I know had accidents performing at the same location though – a Chipmunk at Wanaka, a Hughes 500 at Masterton (no fatalities or serious injuries in this link). Sometimes I have moments that I feel are close calls but, without practical experience and no real basis to speculate, have no idea if what I saw was normal/safe.

I think I’m doing something wrong: TonyT’s second link doesn’t work for me, and the AAIB doesn’t appear to have anything for this incident.

I don’t know if the original poster’s friend is still, after almost nine years, doing their research but this thread makes for interesting reading. I’ve been going through NZ and UK reports over the past few days and have learned a lot about incidents I remember seeing on the news, as well as a few that never made it to the TV screen or magazine pages.

Someone earlier mentioned the horror weekend at Biggin Hill where the P-63 and Vampire crashed. That was the same weekend Martin Sergeant died in PL983 in France.

Way back in post #69 my countryman Dave Homewood mentioned the death of Ian Reynolds in his Chipmunk at Warbirds Over Wanaka, to date the most recent airshow fatality in New Zealand. The report can be found here: http://www.taic.org.nz/ReportsandSafetyRecs/AviationReports/tabid/78/ctl/Detail/mid/482/InvNumber/1994-011/Page/13/language/en-US/Default.aspx?

For fellow spotters, DPP is a Proctor I restored to Vega Gull configuration. And a lovely machine it is too!
https://youtu.be/UtuuBONr_cA