A Grand Day Out – Grommet !

July 12th, 2010 |

Author: baldy

Ever since I was a child, I have been totally ‘entranced’ by the whole concept of flight although as a ‘city boy’, this was confined to aircraft. It was only when I moved down to the Somerset Levels and on my daily ‘photographic bike rides’ that I realised bird flight was just as fascinating particularly when watching Herons landing and taking off or those masters of flight, Seagulls in action.

Over the years and as the opportunity arose, I liked to go to Air Shows and every year down here is the Yeovilton Air Day held at the Royal Naval Air Station and I last visited it in 2006 but not since due to looking after my Parents both of whom have subsequently died. A neighbour of mine persuaded me to come with him and some months ago, we booked for both this show and the one at Fairford in Gloucestershire next weekend.

The Day

It was a nice day out, Sun and wind, I returned home a horrible boiled Lobster colour and being on my feet all day in the fresh air was tiring. I took around 1,250 pictures and when I got home around 8 in the evening, I unloaded the cards from my cameras, did a quick run through to remove the duplicates and any not in sharp focus, then backed the lot up to an external hard drive, it was after midnight before I got to bed, tired but reasonably happy.

The Vulcan

I still have around 1,000 pictures which I need to go through carefully again cataloguing, tagging and probably still deleting some more. For me, seeing the Vulcan flying was amazing what an incredible looking machine it is, the last time I saw one flying was 30 years ago at Fairford and seeing it reminded me of a visit to the Coventry Air Museum where they have one on static display but with all the engines removed. I went with a mate and his son and because we looked interested, they unlocked it and gave us a tour of the cockpit and crew areas which was quite a treat.

The story behind this Vulcan flying today is worth checking out, it is a tribute to the people involved : http://www.vulcantothesky.org/

Other Stuff

There was a privately owned Hawker Hurricane which did a flying display. Although and especially in this 70^th Memorial Year of the Battle of Britain, we think of the iconic Spitfire, in reality, there were more Hurricanes in service and they probably accounted for 60% of the ‘kills’. Although the Hurricane shared the same Rolls Royce Merlin engine as the Spitfire, its design and build was from an earlier era to the Spitfire but it was a rock solid gun platform.

For amusement, the Wing Walking Girls are being flown in (on), pre-War American Bi-Planes that were normally used for training or crop dusting ! A fun display to watch, the planes are Boeing Stearmans a rather more rugged equivalent of the Tiger Moth. For more information on them: http://www.aerosuperbatics.com/

The Pictures