Hi Marc
Yes, it was very sad.
The aircraft looked as if it was in an incipient spin from which the
pilot recovered too late. He looked as if he was too low and too slow
to recover from the steep nose-down attitude Everyone went very quiet
and it was a dreadful thing to happen.
Before that, the most stirring thing (and which made the whole day
worthwhile) was the sight of the boys in their Spitfires taking off,
pretty well en masse. All the aircraft were wonderful of course and
some of the formations of dissimilar aircraft (engines, props, power
etc...) were quite fantastic. But the first takeoff of the day was 8
or 9 Spitfires (I did not count ;-)). They started on a hot day and
some had concerns about overheating (air-cooled engines); some took a
while to get the motors going, but overall it must have been so
exciting to have been there in a cockpit waiting your turn to taxi.
They lined up on the grass runway and waited for everyone to be ready
(one looked as if it was about to return to dispersal). Then they
opened the throttles and the thunderous roar of those beautiful engines
really stirred me (and most other people around of course). It is the
effort that both man and machine make to get airborne, at first moving
slowly, but as they approached flying speed the aircraft bounced on the
bumps of the grass runway, returning briefly to earth before remaining
airborne on the next bounce... and zooming skywards. They looked like
playthings then, zipping up in a little tailchase, glinting in turn in
the sun, before winging over and swooping back to thrunge (RAF word)
past at about 50 feet - still roaring, the P51s later would howl past!
And so it went on; wonderful!
The Fairey Firefly was the one that crashed. I took a picture of the
crew in their cockpits as they taxiied past before takeoff, the rear
seater (gunner?) nonchalantly dangling his arm over the open side-hatch
of his cockpit. The pilot waved briefly, then looked forward to
concentrated on taxiing safely with that enormous Griffon in front of
him blocking his view.
OM content: Gary and I snapped away with OM4/Tis, but we just stood
and stared when we realised that the aircraft was not doing the right
thing. I said a prayer for the boys...
Chris
On Sunday, Jul 13, 2003, at 11:10 Europe/London, marc simon wrote:
I've seen some images at the TV news about a crash of a plane in a
meeting
not far from Cambridge...
I've made a search on the BBC site and found some details...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/3061391.stm
too bad it was supposed to be a good day...hope you have nevertheless
spent
a fine moment with Gary which is as you said a jolly nice bloke.
regards
marc
namur
Belgium
<|_:-)_|>
C M I Barker
Cambridgeshire, Great Britain.
+44 (0)7092 251126
ftog at threeshoes.co.uk
http://www.threeshoes.co.uk
http://homepage.mac.com/zuiko
... a nascent photo library.
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