Jump to content

Duxford American Air Day


B16Enk

Recommended Posts

  • 1. DDz Quorum

Well the weather was excellent, if a little variable on the lighting.

We booked in at 09:30 and armed with our 'Media' badges and the official photographer as escort we started our day.

Major John Haines was the PR officer for the USAAF, he gave us a heads up that the 2 star General (must look up his name) chief dog for the 3rd Air Force was due to sit in a Sabre 'pit, and then take a ride in a two seater spit.

Lucky bastage, those rides cost £2500.

Would we film it please?

Err...ok so they want us to get up close and personal with the oldest flying F86, and a Spitfire pre-flight and start up?

Ok..as they insisted :).

The F86-A Sabre

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=3]

Mr 2* gets in, with a RAF Red Arrows pilot as guide (yes really and he is the guy who gets to fly the Sabre too).

[attachimg=4]

'Jets are for Women, this is what real men play with' - So said 'Rats' Radcliffe the ex-RAF Airbus Pilot who only gets to fly Spitfires every two weeks or so...

(The woman hogging the foreground is the Generals wife).

[attachimg=5]

Now this looks better.

The hangar belongs to 'The Aircraft Restoration Company' who bought all the 'Gate Guardian' Spitfires of the RAF, restored them all and made a little profit in the process...:)

[attachimg=6]

Rear pit view, from ground.

You can do anything from here, except start the engine!

[attachimg=7]

Front pit view from ground.

[attachimg=8]

Looks normal from here :)

[attachimg=9]

Rats takes a call on his cell 'phone, I'm sure that's not authentic BoB.

[attachimg=10]

General gets strapped in, 'it's easier to put the chute on when in the 'pit'.

And the steps were not on account of his age, honest.

[attachimg=11]

Engine running, she sounds beautiful.

[attachimg=12]

Taxiing

[attachimg=13]

[attachimg=14]

Ready to go.

[attachimg=15]

The video footage will be good.

Jon (my brother) walked around during pre-flight with Rats, got the General getting in, the engine start up and taxi.

Then the take off before we had to leg it and get to our next filming appointment.

To be honest the rest of the day was pretty dull.

Filming aircraft coming in from the left,, leaving to the right.

Then coming from the right leaving to the left.

Rinse and repeat.

USAAF no longer permit their pilots to do anything other than level, but low and fast, flight :(

At least we were staioned on the Control Tower :)

The high light had to be when the Brits took up the US vintage aircraft, they at least knew how to throw them around and were willing to do so.

Bloody hell, the model 1/8 scale RC jet demonstration was more thrilling than the USAAF fly bys :(

Miss Velma, the P51 that had flown from the US (initially with Glacier Girl) was due to fly in formation with the Sabre, however she developed a fault on start up :(.

Funniest moment had to be when the Special Operations demo landed their C130, the loadmaster jumped out and waved the Special Ops team out...and nothing happened.

The bloody Humvee wouldn't start!

I won't have any footage to share for a week or two, I have to wait for my brother to review and edit it (we got about 3 hours of tape between our two cameras) and then get permission from Duxford to publish the bits we want - a formality.

Second air show I have seen through a mono chrome view finder, I have to say it's not the best way to see it!

Hope you enjoyed the few stills I had time to take.

2_1844431a2d2bf9f45c9f91319af8e646

2_6ae2d8ff1fa260b1b1cee3728a265678

2_2bb5ee141c9dcca0c3f747d0657f4c9b

2_31c4aa29cf4e8f9c23adbd8cc7633666

2_bdc81a483308ca062ed88cc3db9762b9

2_6a1353087621681472063c21ca9e3ae8

2_f4016dc1f09342925ee02b9f52b34c24

2_4bf1646ae3875013daa9d9303fa8024c

2_e4524d5d506440cd4bef1c6d5087fa49

2_6236af802b441c858f9d85b7c8551c9a

2_41ac35bde48490fc3a68ef68e42216f0

2_4a85911741ad2829f288766bc189e7e4

2_5d9bc8b832c1ccd1619489dcf0179fd9

2_03571e67ab1440fb1d5d0cbc217bb5e8

2_3b848d0f5d1efc853778f5584acb599e

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1. DDz Quorum

Sorry about large image size, I tried resizing them but it wouldn't have done them justice.

Plus I had to post this in 3 chunks as my connection kept spitting it's dummy out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1. DDz Quorum

£2500 gets you about 30 minutes, several barrel rolls and at least one loop :)

I can't wait to see the footage my self, there definitely won't be an issue with my sharing the start up sound track :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1. DDz Quorum

I have just come back from seeing the 'rushes'.

Pretty good even if I say so myself.

The Spit start up is perfect, sound wise, although Jon was not briefed on the start up procedure for warbirds, and failed to keep a 'wide' angle on it.

The take off is awesome with a good bass speaker :).

The remainder of the show looks good, I am guilty as charged of having gone close when I should have been wide, I have learnt an awful lot about video camera work tonight. Especially the multi camera specifics, whereby the 'close' when goofed needs a 'wide' to cut to until the 'close' has again got their shit in order.

We have discussed and pretty much decided that we will present Duxford IWM with a 'new media' show reel, footage showing the AC and a menu system that enables the viewers to read/discover more detail on each AC.

We would love to do a tour of Duxford, and document it's work on restoration.

To include up close footage of the work involved, a 'pilots view' when possible, and appropriate sound tracks.

Plus PC specific content, line drawings, biographies, time lines etc.

I will have something to share next week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...