Wishing all our Friends and followers seasons greetings. Click on any image below to view the gallery
A few pictures to help tell our story for the last week.
While our Mk XIV was displaying over Duxford at last weeks airshow (photo credit Pete Collins) …..
….Our hardworking sales team in the tent were taking a few minutes of shut eye…
……And finally, our MK Vb and P-40F safely in the hangar after displaying at Church Fenton yesterday.
We are always amazed by the kind offers and ways our Friends of TFC support us. At Flying Legends this year we were presented with this amazing artwork gift from German artist Peter Steininger which Pete Rushen accepted on behalf of TFC.
The Indian head logo has been ‘painted’ using crushed stonework and presented as a fantastic full colour representation of TFC’s famous Indian head. This will be on show in our sales marquee just opposite from the Control Tower on both days of the September Airshow.
For more information on this technique and other works by Peter, please visit his web site www.peter-steininger.de
Nearly a month since Flying Legends 2015 , this months wallpaper is something unique to Flying Legends 2015 , our Hawk 75 & P-36C tucked in close!
Elsewhere we are getting back to normal, whatever that is! The online shop is back after a break for Flying Legends and stocktaking. A change we have made for Friends of TFC, if you are logged in (you can do this on the FofTFC main page HERE ) your discount is now automatically applied to your purchases. We are still processing memberships for those who joined at Flying Legends, apologies for the delay.
NEW, after much feedback we have now launched a family membership subscription – more details HERE . At the same time subscriptions for single memberships have increased to £15 from August 1st 2015. We will have more news about further FofTFC benefits later in the year.
With all our efforts for the last few months focused on a certain weekend in July (Flying Legends) the morning after is somewhat of an anticlimax and leaves one thinking what on earth do we do now …..?
Well the first thing to do is to thank everybody for their time and contribution (our volunteers not only give up their free time to help us with producing Flying Legends but also the myriad of tasks that all contribute to keeping the aircraft collection in fine ‘fettle’).
Also to the engineers who alongside the volunteers have worked long hours making sure each of the aeroplanes has completed the various calendar, hours based and out of phase checks and inspections;
The second thing is to reflect on our successes and tease out the bits that for us didn’t go quite as planned ! Despite the best efforts of our display pilots the fleet remained servicable to the end with the only the P-40C falling foul of the electric propeller ‘rain demons’ and as some of you may have seen taxied back to the flight line at the start of the Sunday balbo sequence with a propeller that according to pilot Steve Hinton flatly refused to play ball in automatic mode.
Of the visiting display aircraft both Sea Furys developed tech issues one of which necessitated an early landing off the balbo; the second Fury had an electrical snag which we were able to help diagnose and resolve with the operators engineers but the aircraft wasn’t able to complete the scheduled demonstration due to the onset of rain which brought the show to a temporary halt for 25 minutes or so though It flew later on Sunday afternoon in the balbo.
Personal highlights, well, the four Curtiss aircraft Hawk 75, P-36C, P-40C and the P-40F;
loved the Nimrod’s and Fury, (the patina on the Nimrod’s new exhaust pipes looks just right now following the display on Saturday) regrettably the crosswind put paid to a repeat performance on Sunday; and finally of course the Gladiator in the joker slot between balbo passes.
Remember to put Flying Legends 2016 in your diary (dates to be released) and we hope to see our ‘friends’ again very soon…
This would usually be part of the Online Fighter Log update available to Friends of TFC- it answers a lot of “which aircraft was where and when this week end” type questions so here you go:
A busy weekend in May…. The Hawk75 and Gladiator made our first European outing of the 2015 season with Stephen and Patrice at the controls for the trip to La Ferte Alais. The transit necessitated a brief stop-over at Abbeville for fuel before flying on to LFA were TFC engineers Roy and Paul were waiting for their arrival having departed Duxford at 5am Thursday morning via Folkestone. With some quite complicated logistics Nick who was due to fly the Gladiator in the show made the transit to LFA from Geneva on Thursday evening. Operating away from base is always a challenge particularly when your tools and spares provision needs to fit into a modern family saloon!
The VE Anniversary show at Duxford was combined with the departure of three TFC aircraft Spitfire V, P-51D, Corsair) to the Oostwold Airshow , Groningen, Holland. EP120 was able to make the dash across the channel on Friday (beating the weather) at the hands of Alan Wade as it was not required for the Duxford show; regrettably the MkXIV wasn’t able to depart for the show due to an as yet undiagnosed over-fuelling issue with the carburettor. With the weather closing in on us the P-51D and Corsair weren’t able to make their planned slot to leave Duxford on the afternoon of the Sunday show and finally left at 08:20 local time Monday morning (another lay-in missed !).
All aircraft made the recovery back to Duxford on Monday, with the Hawk75 and Gladiator first to arrive in the late afternoon and our Dutch contingent finally returning 18:45 local time. All in all a very successful weekend both here at Duxford and across our European commitments. Many thanks to those of you who visited us in the Friends area and had a close up look at the Bearcat.
And finally…. ‘A little knowledge is dangerous’…..on occasion we have to respond to inaccurate information placed on public forums and disseminated as factual. We were recently made aware of a thread running on one such forum suggesting the Sea Fury FB11 needs a new centre section! You might imagine that as Chief Engineer these are things I would normally know a little about, particularly if one were actually needed (which it isn’t).
To be absolutely clear; the Sea Fury hasn’t fallen off jacks; it isn’t on jacks simply because it doesn’t need to be on jacks. However, there is a small area of damage to the lower spar boom port side were a bolt was incorrectly orientated in the landing gear retraction mechanism and which on retraction test (some years ago) caught the underside of the boom flange. The damage is repairable and a scheme has already been identified in accordance with the aircraft repair manual and our resident design organisation, therefore no one need worry that the aircraft is not being currently progressed for the absence of a replacement centre section. Our priorities are set by the Principals and Chief Engineer dependent upon our developing workloads, Inspection Programs and ultimate goals; suffice to say we have not forgotten about G-BUCM and its time will come….shortly…..
Need something to do over the Easter break? If you are a Friend of the Fighter Collection why not explore the Friends pages, answer the questions below correctly and win a £20 voucher for the online shop (plus Free P&P!). (Does not include DCS products or Flying Legends tickets)
The competition is open until April 11th. As is tradition with all FofTFC competitions, in the event of more than one correct answer we will draw the winning entry out of Stephens Bone Dome. Full competition rules available upon request.
Friends of TFC can now read a new online version of Fighter Log via the members pages. Access as usual through the Friends pages, members can log in HERE:
Here is the Februaryt desktop image in our series – Again the small image is ideal for tablets and notebooks.
We are all in the Christmas mood at Hangar Two at the moment. Here is the first in a series of monthly desktop calendar image for your screen! Just click below to download and set as your screen backdrop. There two sizes to go for, low res should be more than adequate for most laptops and iPads!
