Duxford 2005

Report by Chris Bland

What a treat this year’s event at the Imperial War Museum was. It was a brilliant summer weekend. We had the most fabulous weather. It was really too hot at 35C with not a cloud in the sky. This brought out the LMA members for the Sunday flying show and the public too.

Of course, such weather also attracts the full-size pilot. We were treated to some fine flying by several aircraft. Here are some pictures taken on the Saturday (when the LMA has a static display), Sunday lunchtime (when we stop flying to allow full-size movements), or after the show.

mustang2

A good old mustang. Always popular with the crowd and us modellers too.

spitfire3

Two seat Spitfires are rare. We are so used to seeing Caroline Grace in hers, but it was a rare treat to see this one.

sabre1

This Sabre flew a few times over the weekend. It was great to see it fly with its characteristic black exhaust trail as it went vertical into the sky.

catalina

At the end of our show the Catalina returned from a weekend away.

So that was the full-size displays during the weekend. Now for the Sunday model display.


crowd3

Lets begin with the fantastic public support this year. The sunshine brought out one of the largest crowds we have had at Duxford. The unique thing about this event is that is that the public are allowed to spend the day in the pitts area and hence spend some time inspecting the models and talking to their builders. Thanks to Colin Hammond for letting me climb on to the top of his van for this photograph.

look

The addition of a pilot always makes a model. Here is one of the younger members of the public having a good look over my 33% Super Cub.

colin

Commentary was by Colin ‘Aviator’ Hammond. Two years in the LMA and he is now a regular feature at nearly all of our events. It is his relaxed style that makes him a favourite with the pilots and public alike. He uses this radio microphone to move around and you never know where he will pop up next; it could be talking to pilots during their flight, to someone in the crowd asking them what they are particularly enjoying, or with a trader asking them about their goods.

bleriot

Now well known is Dave Johnson’s Bleriot. It seems to fly in any weather without problem. Dave says that you do have it fly it though to guide it where you want it to go. There was a quite a strong cross-wind and the thermal activity sometimes made it quite bumpy. It didn’t seem to affect this model which flew superbly and was seen hovering and going backwards.

dac

This lovely Dakota has recently joined the airforce of the USAAF team.

dacota

Here it is on its way to a flight. I have this model eyed-up to be added to the site as a featured model sometime.

harvard2

Ted Allison was here with his Harvard, another well known model.

heli3

John Greenfield flew this Huey Cobra, over 20kg helicopter. A different large model, more of this later.

herc

On static display was Colin Hammond’s Hercules. This model has a great finish with an unusual colour scheme.

jets

LMA shows now always have a Jet or two on show.

lanc

Tony Nijhuis brought along this popular electric powered model Lancaster.

warthog

Another electric model was Ivan Goodchild’s A10.

liberator

A nice photograph, by R. Neville, of this well flown Liberator. Unfortunately, we won’t be seeing much more of this model in the UK as John is soon moving to the US and taking the model with him.

me262

John Greenfield, and the Ghost squadron were here all weekend and worked extremely hard on the entrance gate and acting as our trade-stand. They also helped fix a strut on my Cub which broke as I was assembling it. Thanks lads. The local band of people keeping the show going also included Dave and Shelia doing their usual excellent job on transmitter control and Ken Bones with Tony Hooper sharing the control of the flight-line. Indispensable roles that involve unselfish actions.

racrers

Something to look forward to is the flying of these two Curtis racers.

trophy

At the end of the show the ‘Duxford Trophy’ is presented. This is awarded to the owner of a model of an aircraft that has been hangared sometime since the beginning of the year. As always it is a hard decision with many factors being taken into account. This year it was awarded to John Greenfield for his helicopter. The man in charge of making the decision, and presenting the plaque to John was Roy Salter (shown on the left).

heli

Here is John again with the helicopter. The model is 25% scale and was built using commercially available parts. It weighs 22kg being powered by a Zenoah 62cc engine.

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