RIAT, we're sorry we nicked the sunshine (bumper pictures issue)
It's OK folks, I'm sane again now. A week later and the temper meter has JUST about dropped into the green, ho ho ho!
After much ranting and temper loss, I managed to salvage one of the three lost "must do" shows thanks to a technical issue at work. That duty duly cancelled, so quickly jumped in with a leave request before any bastard could fill my Sunday with more shite, and scuttled off down south in the Mirthmobile GLC to sunny Duxford, where in between overcasts and threatened showers that never materialised, it was what some of my more northerly correspondents call "Cracking the flags". Strange thing to do to coloured ceremonial pieces of cloth if you ask me, but hey, they like whippets up here. Jollification ensued; more of the sort of thing that happened back in May, but this time without jets as it's the annual Flying Legends show, that I've not managed to make it to since Pontious was a pilot. It's organised by the big league petrolheads at Duxford, and therefore big bore fighter stuff is the order of the day, but no flying blowtorches, as a certain Mr Kinsey of Ipswich disparagingly called them. Nope, big petrol engines are the order of the day, here. It's a shame about the enforced absence of recent years, as they always pull out the stops for this one; always something to see. Re-enactors in period pilot dress mooching around the fighters, the "flight line walk", and the unusual crowd line which puts the proper approved safe flying line almost right over your head and very very low indeed if you're sat on the "tank bank", my new favorite photography spot. This year, the talk was about the fact that they'd gotten three B-17's (that's the Flying Fortress bomber to you philistines) together on the airfield at once to fly. That's big cheese in the UK; only one flyer lives here, the well known "Sally-B"; they'd got "Pink Lady" (an actual combat veteran) from France over as well but the big news was, "Liberty Belle" was brought over from the states too. Three at once. Can't remember when that was last done in the UK, maybe not since they were taken out of service. Of course, Sally's had engine problems of late and was always going to be a question mark... I'd no sooner walked towards the guy standing next to her with the question on my lips when I saw that where No.4 engine should be there was nothing but an empty firewall. Ah. That answers that then. No three - ship today. Never mind. Two's special anyway. Not something you see every day. And then there was the massed Spitfire take off to open the show, the Stearmen wing walkers to bore me senseless in the middle of it (oh why didn't somebody shove a pink spinal stiffener down the throat of the purile bimbo they got to commentate that section, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, next year I'm packing wire cutters for the PA if you're going to talk again) and finally the Balbo that finishes the show. The first and the last are Flying Legends trademarks. The middle one, I hope with all due respect shuts the fuck up and doesn't come back. The Balbo.... well, if you've not seen one, you wouldn't know, but the noise is to be experienced. Thirty huge aero engines can sound like music. They really can. Close up, they'll break your ears. In the air, it's a ballet. And some of the stuff here has got pedigree.... see those pictures below? The dark green P-40 with it's wheels coming up with the big white stencilled number you can barely make out? That's the last flyable aircraft in the world that was actually AT Pearl Harbour during the raid. And it lives at Duxford. I counted twenty six in the formation, including two bombers so that's a LOT of metal and a lot of horsepower. Turned out one of the Mustangs had engine probs coming in, rough landing, bent undercarriage leg and grounded propellor. But I didn't see that at my end. So, airshow completed and a perfect drive back with the sunroof and all windows open, fast roads all the way, perfect summer evening. No spectactular sunset like the last time to Fairford, but a day perfectly well spent anyway, best day's worth of annual leave I've taken in yonks.
And speaking of Fairford. Ah, they didn't go quite so well. I was never going to get to this one, there was no way to weasel out of Saturday's shift as luck generously provided for Sunday. And as we all know by now, the weather caused the whole airshow to be scrubbed; all those planes and effort for nothing. But I went down for the Friday session anyway in an attempt to make some use of my days off and catch some aircraft; I actually aimed for the Thursday as well but was spectacularly useless in the preparation and didn't leave til late; instead I dropped in on my friend Ellie and her fella Neil in parts south, then moved on to a nice pub in Chipping Norton for a pint of glorious Hook Norton (one of my fav southern breweries) before finding a nice safe spot to ensconce myself for the night. Moved up to the airfield early doors, parked the mirthmobile at the top of one of their off-site parking fields and made my way in, just in time to miss the decent photography angles for the Dutch F-16 display which annoyed a bit, as they seem to have repainted the display bird and it's a bit lovely. Sixteen quid to get into the "pay and view" compound was a bit steep, but it's Fairford and that's the nature of the beast. It costs a bomb, but there's a ton of things to see and do. At least there is when it's not rained off. But none the less, a productive morning, at least for a while. The skies threatened, and eventually delivered but the planes were good and the skies were busy. Highlight? Well, the F-22's of course. The yank's newest and shiniest method of killing foreign people; thrust vectoring, stealth capable zoom buggy, never seen before in the UK. Three of 'em parked in the Stealth Bomber hangars at the back of the airfields, of which the septics had left the doors open, it turned out later because they knew folks were coming miles to see them and wanted to show them off at all times. That's decent of the top yank. And speaking of septics.... I follow my doctor's instruction on what I can and can't eat these days pretty much at all times. This was one of those days where he can, with all possible respect, go and jump in the lake. The Americans from the base were in the spotter compound with oil drum barbies doing proper Air Fete burgers. If you never went to Mildenhall Air Fete, you'll never know. But oh, the food. You didn't take a packup. You didn't need one. The Brit's can't do burgers half like this, they were legend and the Fairford yanks were having a go at it themselves. And with prices at about a quid a throw, the concession stands didn't even bother setting up in the spotter compound. They weren't missed. I had several; might not have done much for my health, but did my spirituality a ton of good. So ! Fairford means rain, and sooner or later I was going to seriously regret bringing my old rainproof that's not quite good or long enough, and was especially going to regret not bringing my waterproof trousers. Army surplus drill trousers aren't the best thing in the world for repelling water. In fact they retain it pretty damned well. My boots are still damp five days later. Folks, it was stair-rods. Torrential monsoon time. Seriously unpleasant weather. If I hadn't have packed a dry pair of skiddies, socks and shorts in the motor, I'd have been a seriously unhappy camper. If I'd have been camping. You know what I mean. Dried out through body heat once, but as I saw the weather turning for a second go, I decided that enough was enough and headed for home. Leaving the field, controlling the motor was patchy at best; I could see folks being towed out already and the show proper hadn't even started; I could predict big problems. As it turned out, by the time I was home, the show was toast. Cancelled. And as it turned out, both days too. They must have been kicking themselves when Sunday turned out to be so warm and dry, but frankly the parking fields were beyond hope; folks were already calling it Glaston-Ford and putting 100,000 people in those swamps would have been a disaster. And on the selfish side, I did managed to get a lot of the grounded planes, a lot of the arrivals, a practise display or two even if I did get drenched and the swines stopped flying for two hours while HM Queen watched a bunch of prancing mannequins in uniform do their stomping about; and got a couple of formal flypasts for the bargain.
Eeeeh. Turned out wet again.
After much ranting and temper loss, I managed to salvage one of the three lost "must do" shows thanks to a technical issue at work. That duty duly cancelled, so quickly jumped in with a leave request before any bastard could fill my Sunday with more shite, and scuttled off down south in the Mirthmobile GLC to sunny Duxford, where in between overcasts and threatened showers that never materialised, it was what some of my more northerly correspondents call "Cracking the flags". Strange thing to do to coloured ceremonial pieces of cloth if you ask me, but hey, they like whippets up here. Jollification ensued; more of the sort of thing that happened back in May, but this time without jets as it's the annual Flying Legends show, that I've not managed to make it to since Pontious was a pilot. It's organised by the big league petrolheads at Duxford, and therefore big bore fighter stuff is the order of the day, but no flying blowtorches, as a certain Mr Kinsey of Ipswich disparagingly called them. Nope, big petrol engines are the order of the day, here. It's a shame about the enforced absence of recent years, as they always pull out the stops for this one; always something to see. Re-enactors in period pilot dress mooching around the fighters, the "flight line walk", and the unusual crowd line which puts the proper approved safe flying line almost right over your head and very very low indeed if you're sat on the "tank bank", my new favorite photography spot. This year, the talk was about the fact that they'd gotten three B-17's (that's the Flying Fortress bomber to you philistines) together on the airfield at once to fly. That's big cheese in the UK; only one flyer lives here, the well known "Sally-B"; they'd got "Pink Lady" (an actual combat veteran) from France over as well but the big news was, "Liberty Belle" was brought over from the states too. Three at once. Can't remember when that was last done in the UK, maybe not since they were taken out of service. Of course, Sally's had engine problems of late and was always going to be a question mark... I'd no sooner walked towards the guy standing next to her with the question on my lips when I saw that where No.4 engine should be there was nothing but an empty firewall. Ah. That answers that then. No three - ship today. Never mind. Two's special anyway. Not something you see every day. And then there was the massed Spitfire take off to open the show, the Stearmen wing walkers to bore me senseless in the middle of it (oh why didn't somebody shove a pink spinal stiffener down the throat of the purile bimbo they got to commentate that section, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, next year I'm packing wire cutters for the PA if you're going to talk again) and finally the Balbo that finishes the show. The first and the last are Flying Legends trademarks. The middle one, I hope with all due respect shuts the fuck up and doesn't come back. The Balbo.... well, if you've not seen one, you wouldn't know, but the noise is to be experienced. Thirty huge aero engines can sound like music. They really can. Close up, they'll break your ears. In the air, it's a ballet. And some of the stuff here has got pedigree.... see those pictures below? The dark green P-40 with it's wheels coming up with the big white stencilled number you can barely make out? That's the last flyable aircraft in the world that was actually AT Pearl Harbour during the raid. And it lives at Duxford. I counted twenty six in the formation, including two bombers so that's a LOT of metal and a lot of horsepower. Turned out one of the Mustangs had engine probs coming in, rough landing, bent undercarriage leg and grounded propellor. But I didn't see that at my end. So, airshow completed and a perfect drive back with the sunroof and all windows open, fast roads all the way, perfect summer evening. No spectactular sunset like the last time to Fairford, but a day perfectly well spent anyway, best day's worth of annual leave I've taken in yonks.
And speaking of Fairford. Ah, they didn't go quite so well. I was never going to get to this one, there was no way to weasel out of Saturday's shift as luck generously provided for Sunday. And as we all know by now, the weather caused the whole airshow to be scrubbed; all those planes and effort for nothing. But I went down for the Friday session anyway in an attempt to make some use of my days off and catch some aircraft; I actually aimed for the Thursday as well but was spectacularly useless in the preparation and didn't leave til late; instead I dropped in on my friend Ellie and her fella Neil in parts south, then moved on to a nice pub in Chipping Norton for a pint of glorious Hook Norton (one of my fav southern breweries) before finding a nice safe spot to ensconce myself for the night. Moved up to the airfield early doors, parked the mirthmobile at the top of one of their off-site parking fields and made my way in, just in time to miss the decent photography angles for the Dutch F-16 display which annoyed a bit, as they seem to have repainted the display bird and it's a bit lovely. Sixteen quid to get into the "pay and view" compound was a bit steep, but it's Fairford and that's the nature of the beast. It costs a bomb, but there's a ton of things to see and do. At least there is when it's not rained off. But none the less, a productive morning, at least for a while. The skies threatened, and eventually delivered but the planes were good and the skies were busy. Highlight? Well, the F-22's of course. The yank's newest and shiniest method of killing foreign people; thrust vectoring, stealth capable zoom buggy, never seen before in the UK. Three of 'em parked in the Stealth Bomber hangars at the back of the airfields, of which the septics had left the doors open, it turned out later because they knew folks were coming miles to see them and wanted to show them off at all times. That's decent of the top yank. And speaking of septics.... I follow my doctor's instruction on what I can and can't eat these days pretty much at all times. This was one of those days where he can, with all possible respect, go and jump in the lake. The Americans from the base were in the spotter compound with oil drum barbies doing proper Air Fete burgers. If you never went to Mildenhall Air Fete, you'll never know. But oh, the food. You didn't take a packup. You didn't need one. The Brit's can't do burgers half like this, they were legend and the Fairford yanks were having a go at it themselves. And with prices at about a quid a throw, the concession stands didn't even bother setting up in the spotter compound. They weren't missed. I had several; might not have done much for my health, but did my spirituality a ton of good. So ! Fairford means rain, and sooner or later I was going to seriously regret bringing my old rainproof that's not quite good or long enough, and was especially going to regret not bringing my waterproof trousers. Army surplus drill trousers aren't the best thing in the world for repelling water. In fact they retain it pretty damned well. My boots are still damp five days later. Folks, it was stair-rods. Torrential monsoon time. Seriously unpleasant weather. If I hadn't have packed a dry pair of skiddies, socks and shorts in the motor, I'd have been a seriously unhappy camper. If I'd have been camping. You know what I mean. Dried out through body heat once, but as I saw the weather turning for a second go, I decided that enough was enough and headed for home. Leaving the field, controlling the motor was patchy at best; I could see folks being towed out already and the show proper hadn't even started; I could predict big problems. As it turned out, by the time I was home, the show was toast. Cancelled. And as it turned out, both days too. They must have been kicking themselves when Sunday turned out to be so warm and dry, but frankly the parking fields were beyond hope; folks were already calling it Glaston-Ford and putting 100,000 people in those swamps would have been a disaster. And on the selfish side, I did managed to get a lot of the grounded planes, a lot of the arrivals, a practise display or two even if I did get drenched and the swines stopped flying for two hours while HM Queen watched a bunch of prancing mannequins in uniform do their stomping about; and got a couple of formal flypasts for the bargain.Eeeeh. Turned out wet again.
(photo's by me!)
posted by Fred the Singing Bandit at 10:56 pm
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