Warbird Information Exchange

We had a great weekend for an airshow. The weather cooperated and we had a fleet of warbirds and the crowd came out -- even without a military jet team or modern jet fighter demo.

Photos here http://gusair.com/htdocs/html/gatineau.html from Gus Corujo.

This was great to see -- sublimely ridiculous!



And we had 2 (count 'em, two!) Lysanders flying a daisy-chain together. Talk about rare...

Another set of photos here http://forums.airshows.co.uk/viewtopic. ... 8&p=547921

As for me, I hoped to be able to post video from the P-40 in this group,



, because I'd just bought a "looxie" video camera and mounted it on my helmet, but most of what I got was a 6-inch close up of Curtiss window-framing.

I'll see if I can extract some stills.

Anyway, a great show -- wonderful flying, a good crowd, and no accidents/incidents.

Dave

Frustrating. I've spent the last hour going over the one video I got from the 2 flights we did with the Lanc, frame by frame, and mostly I got to admire the fine job of rivetting done on the upper left canopy frame of our Mk IV Kittyhawk.

But here are a few stills grabbed from the film. They're lousy I know, but taken from the rare times I moved my head to scan the engine gauges and the like, when the frame moved out of the way.

Here we are formed up in finger-right to join up with the Lancaster.



Here we are, in figher pairs on the Lanc, maneuvering for show passes.





Breaking away to re-join as fighters...



Formed up in echelon, maneuvering for the overhead break,



And after landing, getting buzzed by the Spit as I back-taxied, looking up from the canopy.

That spitfire shot is nice!

_________________
" I am a nobody in aviation, but somebody to my family."

Did you have to go for your formation training?

_________________
" I am a nobody in aviation, but somebody to my family."

Yes, our formation training is quite formal. We run a Camp every spring, plus plan sessions throughout the season. Each mission is planned, briefed, walked-through if possible, flown as per the plan, and then debriefed.

For someone like me with a civil background, it has been interesting. There's nothing like reversing 25 years of trying to stay AWAY from other airplanes. But I'm a long-time pilot volunteer at VWoC, and thus it's been a gradual process, step by step since about 2007.

Dave

Looks like a good time Dave.
The solution to photography is simple. Next time I'll be in the back seat so you don't have to worry about taking pictures

Seriously, glad it was such a success.
Two days after our Tiger made its' first flight, I got an E-mail from one of the organizers, asking if I was planning on bringing her to Gatineau.
I thought that was a little premature. We've been shaking her down and she's running great. Is there useable grass at Gatineau?

Andy Scott

Andy, yes, we use the grass at Gatineau. The Fox as you know has almost no practical brakes, plus the Tiger isn't great either, so we ask them to roll the grass. And the Finch likes it as well.

There is about 200 ft width on either side of the pavement. It is crowned, which works out very well, since in a crosswind the upwind wing is thus automatically lowered during rollout.

On the north side, it's quite long -- about 3000 ft. And there is a very sweet spot in a NW wind (common for there) adjacent to the taxiway. Land there, not up at the east end of the runway -- there's a horrendous rotor there caused by the NW wind rolling over the trees on the north side.

On the south side use the portion west of the taxiway. No local effects on that side at all.

Dave

And you're right of course, a back-seater makes all the difference for photography.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q32dfigYV3k

But in an airshow that's verboten.

Dave

Perhaps you can ask to trade the P-40 for the Spitfire or Mustang next time...not so much in the way of canopy framewrok there!

Thanks for the photos. I have to go and check that show out some time.

It was nice to see the VWoC P-40 in the air again...love those solo displays. An excellent show.

Andrew