Number One

Keith

Correct. The reigning air race champion each year uses the Race Number 1. People can choose their own numbers. The Bulldog I fly is Race 44.

Canopy became detached and hit the fin – hence the forced landing. This aircraft was the British Air Racing Champion last year and had just been repainted.

A pic from when it first came over from the US.

Dora, Emil, Friedrich and Gustav are the German phonetic letters for D, E, F and G – like Delta, Echo, Foxtrot and Golf nowadays. In this case they refer to different marks of aircraft, so a Bf 109E was known as the Emil.

Having spent a couple of days at the World Aerobatic Championships at Silverstone, it was apparent that there is very little to choose from between the various aircraft types which were all represented at that level of competition. It was very definitely down to the skills of the pilot.

What did surprise me was that the French team were using Extra 330SCs rather than CAP232s. As they won everything, the Extra must be regarded as the top dog at the moment.

Yes, I was flying the Pup 150 when we had an engine failure downwind at Lydd. The airfield is surrounded by lakes, drainage channels and banks, interspersed with small fields, so I had to try and choose a spot to give me the best chance of not ending up in one, which meant a curving approach right down to about 10 feet above the ground.

For obvious reasons I’m not going in to any more detail. Everyone will have to wait for the accident report. It’s been a traumatic couple of days and I still feel pretty low. At least while plummeting earthwards I heroically turned away from the nearby nuclear power station!

Spitfire burst a tailwheel tyre taxying out at Lydd.

The view of the air race finish line overhead the Coastguard Station from over the Channel. Designated finish height 800 feet.

The temporary strip at the school

Race height over France was 500 feet, so quite exciting poling along from Abbeville…

The irony is that Standard Oil supplied IG Farben with the tetraethyl lead technology in 1936 when the RLM ordered an expansion of synthetic aircraft fuel production in Germany. In return, Standard got IG Farben’s synthetic rubber technology under their patent swap agreement.

The missing turning point was at Brentwood. It was put up again later in the morning. We don’t leave vulnerable ones up overnight any more. I put the Chelmsford one back up on my way to North Weald first thing.

At Leicester last year one was trashed and the dayglo bits stolen – I had a spare in the boot of my car and got it put up about two minutes before the first aircraft arrived. The Brentwood team were threatened with physical violence on Saturday. Fortunately the individual involved was restrained by his mate. I was lucky on mine and had people who stopped for a chat because they were interested in what was going on.

Glad you got the RV sorted. Seemed to be taking the turns nicely from where I was standing.