A Feast of de Havillands

The Edwardians closed the display.

The Usual Suspects - but no Hurricane

The fourth Shuttleworth display of the season took place on a glorious summer evening, with everything looking set for a classic Shuttleworth evening display. I arrived with friends midway through the afternoon and - after the positive experience of the previous evening display in July 17 - we ajourned to the new cafeteria. Unfortunately the quality of the food had deteriorated badly and the whole experience was disappointing to say the least. OK, so the quality of the food is not the most important part of the Shuttleworth experience, but it is one thing that people tend to remember. Back to sandwiches in the future for me!

One of the collection's newest acquisitions, the Bucker Jungmann, was due to display this evening, but unfortunately still had not received the necessary CAA authorisation. Happily the Shuttleworth engineers had scheduled it for a test flight and we were able to see it in the air for about half an hour or so. This habit of scheduling test flights for show days seems to be a determined effort by the Shuttleworth staff to give visitors an extra chance to see collection aircraft in flight. Long may this continue! This particular Jungmann is finished in the colours of a Bucker Bu131B "captured" by two French pilots and flown to RAF Christchurch in April 1941. That particular aircraft did not survive the war but it is nice to see the event commemorated in this manner.

Quite a number of visiting aircraft were of the historic variety and as such, they were added to the flight line rather than being parked on the far side of the runway. The de Havilland Rally at Woburn was taking place this weekend and it looked like a number of participants had flown in for the evening. There were more moths than you could shake a stick at as well as a couple of well maintained Chipmunks. Foremost among these visitors was G-ACEJ, a beautifully restored example of the DH.83 Fox Moth type. This was to take part in the display, so more on that later.

The display started with a trio of aircraft from the Shuttleworth Collection, Don Cashmore's lovely replica Hawker Cygnet, the collection's DH.53 Humming Bird, which is becoming quite a regular airshow performer, and the Collection's Cirrus Moth. The English Electric Wren was supposed to be making hops at the same time but problems kept this grounded. This sedate opening was continued when a new pairing for this season, the Southern Martlet and Tipsy Trainer, took to the air. The Martlet, of course, is part of the Collection and the Tipsy - owned by Nick Parkhouse - has become a regular attender at Shuttleworth events. The view of both aircraft flying together in very close formation with their distinctive colour schemes was a sight well worth seeing.

Next up we had a big change of pace - and a warm welcome back to Shuttleworth for Will Curtis in his Sukhoi SU26. This was Will's second display at Shuttleworth this season, having already performed at The Spring Air Display on May 2nd and, in addition to some well rehearsed commentary, we were able to hear from Will himself as he went through his routine. The combination of outrageous puns and equally outrageous product placement on behalf of his sponsors added a new and welcome dimension to what was already an eye catching display.

Two outstanding visitors, the de Havilland DH.83 Fox Moth

and the newly restored Miles M.2W Hawk Trainer

The next pairing took us back to the "golden age" of civil aviation, and two de Havilland types - The collection's Hornet Moth and the DH.83 Fox Moth to which I referred earlier. The Hornet Moth is apparently up for sale - a great pity as it is a very popular performer at shows. On this occasion however, it played second fiddle to the Fox Moth, a superb example of the de Havilland art, which looked absolutely wonderful in the evening sunlight. This particular aircraft has a long connection with Old Warden and was in fact virtually destroyed in a collision with a Beech Musketeer here in 1982. It took many years of dedicated work by the late Ben Cooper to restore it to the immaculate condition seen today.

The Miles Aircraft Company produced a number of clean designs in the 1930s and a highlight of the previous evening display at Shuttleworth - 17th July - was a formation flypast of no less than four aircraft flying in tribute to this company. Tonight they went one better for, in addition to the two Magisters, Falcon and Gemini based at Old Warden, we had the chance to see one more type in the air - the M2.W Hawk Trainer. This aircraft is the only surviving example of its type and spent some time in Canada before being bought by Richarl Earl and re-imported to the UK in 2000. Extensive restoration work has been carried out by Jan Cooper and the Newbury Aeroplane Company. This is, I believe, its first appearance at a Shuttleworth display and was very much the centre of attention! It was unfortunately impossible to have all five Miles aircraft flying in formation so we had a solo display from the Hawk Trainer, followed by some very close formation flying from the the Miles "Quartet".

The rest of the evening belonged exclusively to Shuttleworth residents, starting with a low key pairing of World War One aircraft - the Brisfit and SE5a, followed by examples of 1930s military might - the silver finished Gladiator and Hind. By this time the light was starting to fade and the pairing of two different trainer types - the de Havilland Tiger Moth and Peter Holloway's Ryan Recruit took place in the early dusk. The Lysander followed - as always looking very atmospheric in the gloomy conditions - and we were then treated to a lively display of aerobatics from the collection's Spitfire V. Finally, it was the turn of a trio of Edwardians, the replica Bristol Boxkite and Avro Triplane followed - as darkness really started to fall, by the Blackburn Monoplane, which once again had the honour of closing a Shuttleworth Display.

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