Firefly flies!

 Good to hear that the Canadian Warplane Heritage Fairey Firefly flew again today after an eight year hiatus. I last saw it back in 2012 and here are a couple of shots from then. 

Duxford mishap

This Dragon Rapide had a bit of a mishap at Duxford yesterday. Apparently caught by a gust of wind on landing it ended tipped up on its nose. It was carrying passengers at the time but there are no reports of injuries and I suspect that the tales of horror and the like in the media are more dramatic than the incident itself. 

Fly Navy additions

Good to see a few additions to the line up for the Fly Navy show next month.

Now added we have:

Bristol Scout
Boeing Stearman

Catalina

Supermarine Seafire

Harvard

Stinson Reliant

Westland Wasp x 4

Wessex

Gazelle x 4

747

 Passing over on high today.

Midlands - The Rest

Some final snaps form the Air Festival last Friday. 

Shuttleworth Fly Navy 2022

 Still 3 weeks or so to go but next up show wise is the Fly Navy event at Shuttleworth and this is the current quoted line up.

  Hawker Sea Hurricane

  Supermarine Spitfire

  Southern Martlet

  Sopwith Pup

  Sopwith Triplane

  Sopwith Camel

  de Havilland Tiger Moth

  de Havilland Chipmunk

  Miles Magister

  Avro Tutor

  Bristol F2b Fighter

  Avro 504K

  Avro Anson

  T6 Texan

  Westland Lysander

  Gloster Gladiator

  Grumman Wildcat FM-2

  Grumman F8F-2P Bearcat

  Goodyear Corsair FG-1D

  Hawker Nimrod Mk.I

  Bristol Boxkite

  Avro Triplane

  Blackburn Type D Monoplane

  Bleriot XI

  Deperdussin

  English Electric Wren

Catalina Miss Pick Up

 I saw the Catalina only three weeks ago at Duxford but it always puts on a good display so here are a few more pictures.

Sally B

 A few shots of a favourite

Patriotic Bronco!

 One of the aircraft able to take off and land at Ragley Hall was the OV10 Bronco of the Bronco display team. It was sporting platinum jubilee markings on the tail fins and, as was revealed once in the air, on the roof as well.

Beechcraft AT-11 Kansan

 This was a training aircraft in WWII fitted with a Norden bombsight and prepared crews for bombing missions in bigger aircraft such as the B17 and B24.

This is a fairly basic kit and although it has recessed panel lines some detail is not great and in my kit the decals were pretty awful but maybe they were older than I realised. Still, the end result bears a good resemblance to the real thing.

Red Arrows

Another popular attraction at the Midlands Air Festival was the the Red Arrows Team. For displays, as pilots are apparently needed elsewhere, the Reds are flying a 7 ship formation this year so we weren't sure what to expect. Cloud cover was also on the low side and even Red 10, the commentator who flew in by helicopter, was unsure what level of display would take place. In the event Red Leader called a full display and, apart from the initial loop that was briefly lost in the cloud, the display was as good, tight and professional as we have come to expect over the years.

The Red Arrows are now the only RAF operator of the T1 version of the Hawk but back up aircraft are still being prepared and converted for display so hopefully they will be about for a while yet.

Battle of Britain Memorial Flight

Always good to see the BBMF and Friday was no exception. It was also a pleasant surprise as the pre-show schedule only ever referred to the Lanc so to have the Hurricane and MkII Spitfire along as well was great.