Sally B

Sally B also seemed to be doing some flight testing last week whilst I was at Duxford. after running up the engines for a while she took to the air and returned to do a run across the airfield with gear down before landing, taxiing past and taking to the air once more, this time raisin her landing and departing.

Wildcat mishap

This very recently restored Grumman Wildcat which was tucked away in a Duxford hangar last Friday unfortunately had a landing mishap at Heveningham Hall in Suffolk yesterday afternoon. It seems the plane flipped on landing and ended up upside-down. The pilot is reported to have suffered serious injury and I hope he pulls through OK.

Stearman

This Stearman has been based at Duxford for a couple of years in connection with filiming work and took to the air whilst I was about last Fiday.

Fighter Collection Gladiator

The TFC Gloster Gladiator was airbourne when I arrived at Duxford last Friday but fortunately I was loittering on the flight line when it cam back in.

Hurricane air test

At Duxford last Friday

Duxford 30.6.23

With the usual excuse of a little spare time I popped in to Duxford on Friday as I was passing by just to see what was happening. Not too much had changed in the hangars since I was there in March. The newest airworthy Wildcat had been moved but was tucked away even more than previously. The CR42 is still showing no signs of progress although the Catalina had been reunited with its props. I was lucky to catch a little live action with one Hurricane running up, another air testing, the Gladiator returning from and air test and more flight action from a Stearman, Rapide, Harvard, B17 Sally B and a practice display from the P40C. So a pretty enjoyable couple of hours or so. Here are some general shots to start and there will be a couple of specific posts to follow

Almost there

As part of an off season maintenance programme the propellors of airworthy Catalina 'Miss Pick Up' were sent away for refurb as I saw at Duxford back in March. The work has taken longer than expected but within the last few days the props have been put back where they belong. Engine tests are expected this week with flight testing shortly after

Martin Baltimore

This is a 1/72 scale Novo kit which was a re-release of an old Frog kit that originally dates back to the early 1960s. This kit itself was probably 40 or so years old was missing instructions, had loads of flash, plenty of ejector marks and poor transparencies. The interior detail was a short section of floor and a couple of grotty seats so I fabricated something a little better and cleaned up the perspex sections. It needed a bit of filler here and there and some sanding down but didn't come out too bad. The decals were mainly from the spares box although I salvaged the squadron markings.