The USAF were kind enough to contribute a flyby of a KC135, which made two passes which is one more than you usually get with RAF heavies.
Obviously most of the static was made up of the planes that flew in on Friday and I do not intend, in general, to repeat them unless there is something of interest.
The rear end of the Swedish Historical Flight’s Saab 37 Viggen
Although the site at Scampton was used during the 1st world war nothing remains from that period. In 1936 a state of the art bomber airfield was constructed which included the four Type C hangars which are now Grade 2 listed buildings. The listing description, which is well worth reading is here: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1391594
Hangar 2 was used by 617 squadron when they were operating from Scampton.
Hanger 2 was open in which was housed the fragile aircraft of the BAE collection together with various other artefacts and display boards relating to the squadrons which operated from Scampton. Squadron Leader (retired) P.J.Goodall was there to sign his book, he had been Commanding Officer of 27 Squadron based at Scampton which had been the first squadron to be equipped with the Vulcan B2. He showed us a part of the display which had a photograph of him in 1968 when the squadron adopted a “small” live elephant as a mascot, an elephant forming the squadron badge. This was derived from when the squadron was formed in 1915 at Hounslow Heath and they were flying the Martinsyde G.100 “Elephant”, so called because of it’s size and lack of manoeuvrability! Despite this, or maybe because of this, the squadron motto is “With all speed to the Stars”.
Any ideas what this may be?
It looks like it may be gimbol mounted and it is near a Blue Steel bomb/missile I am guessing part of the guidance system connecting to those front fins.
The last act up to close the show was the RAF Typhoon display. Rather disappointingly this turned out to be another of those modern fast jets which I am pretty sure are not rare and have two afterburners as standard! You can check here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurofighter_Typhoon
Golly gosh, shock horror, look away now if you do not want to see a fast jet!
That closed what I considered to be an excellent flying display with something of interest for everybody.
We did attend Sunday to do justice to the static display, in particular that of HHA who are resident at Scampton, and to catch the aircraft that did not display on Saturday either by design or serviceability. Sadly the BBMF were not able to display on Sunday because of unsuitable wind conditions.
At this point the Red Arrows were queuing up on a taxiway waiting for their slot, just eight ships as one pilot’s wife had had a baby that day, congratulations and hope all is well.
Once the Cat had cleared the runway the Reds taxied down to the end of the runway and then, pause, the announcement came that one plane had a serviceability issue and was having to retire and as seven is not a workable number routine wise three further planes also retired sadly leaving just four planes for the Reds first public display at their home base. You have to feel for them.
While the Reds were away forming up the Bronco came out to play.
While an Alpha Jet was up doing what fast jets do……….
The Norwegians were kind enough to bring along some iconic British jet aviation. which has now otherwise become a bit thin on the ground, in the form of two Vampires an FB.52 fighter and the dual seat T.55 trainer.
More about the Norwegian Air Force Historical Squadron here: http://www.historicalsquadron.no/article.php?Id=1379
Clearly showing the difference in tailplane
Next up were the American airframes with the Redtail P51 followed by Sally B and Miss Pick Up.
At Scampton 551 aircrew and 266 aircraft, 96 Lancasters, 155 Hampdens and 15 Manchester were lost during the war with 57 Sqn alone loosing 284 aircrew killed.
We shall remember them.
The BBMF had been billed with the Lanc and 4 Spitfires but as we know this was probably not going to happen. BBMF pulled out all the stops to be able to appear at Scampton concentrating on the Lanc. On the day they did appear with the Lanc, a Hurricane and a Griffon Spit. Sadly, after all that effort, they were not able to appear on Sunday because of the wind conditions.
The display followed the normal pattern arriving and a couple of circuits in formation then splitting up for individual displays before forming up again to depart.
We had not seen the Pembroke arrive but on the Saturday morning she could be seen parked on the far side of the airfield. As the Alpha jet was displaying the Pembroke started up and taxied to the holding point at the threshold of runway 04. With the Alpha jet down and clear of the runway the Pembroke started it’s journey to the other end of the runway for take-off on 22. As it passed us it became apparent that there may be a problem with the starboard engine. This was the case and she ended up stranded and out of sight at the threshold of 22 unable to make the left turn onto the only available taxiway. This blocked the runway for some considerable time as a tug had to be sent down the full length of the runway to make the recovery. A Global Stars 4 ship team had been fired up and waiting on a taxi-way in front of us and in the end decided to cancel their display as by then they had insufficient fuel to complete the display and divert, if the runway was still blocked, to Waddington. Whilst waiting for the runway to be cleared the autogyro came out and the Breitling Wingwalkers made a short take off on runway 22 away from the Pembroke.
A problem with the starboard engine started to become apparent.
And can be seen here, the starboard engine is still turning but at a much lower RPM.
The Stars waiting for the runway to clear.
And the autogiro also came out to play.
Eventually the RAF Tug Display team took to the runway with an impressively slow and low pass along the runway…………
Whilst the Wingwalkers were up the Pembroke could be seen being pulled along the northern taxiway hopefully to be fixed in time for Sunday’s display.
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