There's an Air Show in my town this week and today at work I was outside throwing some stuff out. I work just near the airfield where the air show is being performed and was going there this weekend. Anyway, Today was the first day of the air show, and as I'm walking back inside I hear this drone in the distance, and it's getting louder. And just as I turn around to look, it's like something out of a movie, a BEAUTIFUL P-51D Mustang in Tuskegee Red paint flying just above the trees and to the left of me. I wanted to cheer and crap my pants at the same time it was just amazing. I could see the kill markings and the nose art on it and could make out the pilot wearing modern day radio headgear it was that close!!! Had I been thinking I would have taken out my phone to get a picture or two but it happened so fast. And so then it zoomed past me and turned up and away back towards the airfield. Man was that a site!
Amazing when that happens isn't it? I was out in the Peak District (national park near where I live) and my friend said there was an aircraft coming our way. My jaw dropped as the BBMF Lancastar roared overhead clipping the treetops. It was incredible.
I had the pleasure of seeing a B-17 with it's engines going taxiing on the runway but thats about it. I think I enjoyed it more when I got to go inside it about ten minutes later.
I was treated to a Spitfire flying over me at rooftop height a couple of times. That was impressive... he flew right down our road. Canopy open and everything... You could almost touch the pilot. I felt like a kid in the Battle of Britain! Also got to see a Vulcan bomber do a low pass overhead many years ago... You could feel the heat off its engines when it lit them up!
Those V bombers were really works of art ! I got to see a Vulcan and later a Victor at an airshow in the 1980's. One of the crewmen was in the door and I handed up my camera and asked for some pictures of the cockpit and he took some great ones. Almost all the surfaces on the Victor were curved and flowing. A stark contrast to the B-52.
Vulcans are gorgeous, manoeuverable too. We should have kept the Vulcans and the Lightening simply for aesthetic reasons.
