Forget Black Friday, Forget Cyber Monday, today is the day. Currently only available to Friends of TFC as a pre-release offer.
To follow on from the earlier release of Flying Legends Volume One we have Volume Two available. Login to the Friends pages and then go to the Members pages for more details.
Stuck for Christmas presents this year? We might just have the answer.
Offer 1: We have arranged the following limited offer. By kind permission of the Chief Engineer we have the following offer.
This is limited to the first 40 orders
Buy a limited edition Flying Legends Volume 1 Book and receive an opportunity to join The Fighter Collection behind the scenes for a personal guided tour. Your tour will be on a Sunday between January and May excluding any IWM event days or airshows.* Click HERE to take advantage of this offer
Offer 2: Buy an original Flying Legends polo shirt and Flying Legends baseball cap and you will receive a years subscription to Friends of the Fighter Collection for just £1.
*Date subject to agreement, availability and all the usual bits like that.
On Thursday we had a visitor to the hangar. John Cronin was a Fleet Air Arm pilot in 1945, completed his flying training on the Cornell and Harvard before going on to the Martlet (Wildcat) He managed eight deck landings on an aircraft carrier with a collapsed oleo “on the wrong side” which made the take-off swing even worse than normal.
He then was posted to Tambaran near Madras (now Chennai) to fly the Hellcat, in preparation for the invasion of Japan. Whilst there, however, the hostilities came to an end and John gratefully returned to the UK and his life as an insurance salesman. Now 89 years young, he is still active, driving himself and brother Tom to Duxford today and although not able to get into the Hellcat this time it was a great pleasure to welcome him again.
You can see our aircraft Legends such as John flew below as the aircraft are nearly as active as John (including the Hellcat). Video as caught at the Duxford September show.
Gloster Gladiator II G-GLAD takes second place in the Freddie March Spirit of Aviation concours d’elegance at Goodwood Revival. Even after a through preparation by the boys and girls at TFC, and a flyaway crew to add show sparkle on arrival at Goodwood, we were narrowly beaten into the runner up spot by a superbly detailed Cessna 195 Business Liner. The competition attracts some of the best pre-1966 aircraft from the UK and Europe. The (other) star attraction was the Hiller UH-12E4 helicopter from the 007 movie ‘Goldfinger’ flown by Bond girl ‘Pussy Galore’ played by Honor Blackman. The trophy was received on behalf of Stephen Grey by TFC Engineer Joe Kennedy who was presented with the award by Lady March.
You can read more about this in the Daily Telegraph feature -here
OK, The DCS guys are in the hangar with P40, P-51, Fw190 demos and more. Friends of TFC are out by hangar 3 in a marquee thingy with merchandise, goodys , membership renewals and people who like to talk about old aeroplanes. The Fighter Collection have a few aeroplanes in the display, you can check out some of the practice the displays from today below:
As usual it is a busy lead up to the September airshow with engine and airtests. The P40F was out today for a run up. That brings us rater neatly on to the weekend and what you can see from the Fighter Collection. We will have more news as the week rolls on.
As well as a number of our aircraft displaying in the air the DCS team will be in the hangar. Where do these guys find the time? We asked them for a sneak preview of what they were going to demo and they said No!
You can see why when you learn they are going to demonstrate for the first time in public the up and coming VEAO P-40F and F8F-2 Bearcat!! How cool is that?
You can also try your hand flying a P-51D Mustang or a Focke Wulf Fw190D-9? So come along and have a chat with some of the pilots from the Virtual Horsemen and VEAO Simulations.
With the release of the VEAO Hawk on the near horizon there will also have this being demonstrated in 3D on the Occulus Rift!
The crew from Virtual Aerobatics will be here all weekend if you want some hints and tips for your DCS technique.
Friends exclusive:
Shoreham Tonight
