Old Warden 7th May 2006

[robbo]

The season's well and truly begun.

The show was kicked off in grand style with Keith Dennison smoking the sky in the F86




Then castor oil wafted across the field as the planes from the Great War took to the air:

[robbo]

The Shuttleworth Barnstormers then entertained the crowd with flour bombing, balloon bursting and limboing, although being stationed beyond the entrance on College Road this was a little beyond my range. I did manage to catch this one sequence (heavily cropped) showing the Chippy about to catch a balloon. It looks like the balloon has already passed the arc of the prop but the next frame shows the results:




Just look at that shine!

[robbo]

And finally.... the Edwardians







All the elbow grease that went into shining up the Blackburn really paid off

[Dave Homewood]

Rob, fantastic shots, thanks so much for sharing them with us. It's good to see some shots from overseas airshows now that our season has finished.

I wonder, are there many NZ connections to Old Warden? I can think of only two, one of the Shuttleworth collection engineers in the 1960's or 70's, Malcolm Frazer, moved to NZ and took over Motat's aircraft collection. He'd hoped to get some of their aircraft flying which never occurred.

Also the Sea Hurricane was one that was previously owned by and passed through Sir Tim Wallis's Hawker Restorations I believe. Any more connections?

[robbo]

Dave, as far as I'm aware, the restoration of Z7015 predates HRL. This was an instructional airframe at Cranfield that was donated to the collection and went through several abortive restorations before going to Duxford for a joint Shuttleworth IWM restoration project.

Rob

[robbo]

A few more for your delectation








See PlaneTalk for more photos

[Dave Homewood]

Ah sorry, I must have confused it with the Sea Hurricane that recently flew then.

So, only one Kiwi connection so far then...

Great photos!

[Dave Homewood]

Is that a 'murial' on that shed or a really squishy plane?

[Bruce]

looks like a background flat from the new movie "Fly boys" - a little neuport!

[robbo]

It looked very real when I was sitting in it.

[Dave Homewood]

Crikey, it looks real!

Is that one of your traditional English seaside photo attractions rubbing off on OW Rob? You could make a killing telling punters "Poke your head in here luv!"

[robbo]

Dave, it's amazing that this is entirely flat. The wings look almost as if they're separate items, but it's all flat. It's a testament to the film propmaker's art that it's survived a winter out on the airfield. When presented with the opportunity to get a photo with the Nieuport we just had to do it.

[Dave Homewood]

It's amazing when you look at the colouring and mock lighting under the wings, it has real depth. Fantastic piece of art, I hope that it's not left outside forever and is given a safe home indoors.