Excellent Doug. Lovely shots. That's the second time that JP's been to Old Warden this year isn't it.

[edit] no programme up for next weekend yet...

Beautiful photos Doug, but I have to ask why is the Chippie in RCAF colours when it isn't a bubble canopy model?

Brilliant shots Doug, looks like it was a wonderful day.

More "exotics"...!! 
Very interesting "smokestack" on that Desoutter... I hope the slipstream carries the exhaust up over the wing... 
The gloomy setting of some of those doesn't detract, IMHO- as you pointed out, they must've flown in far worse than that. In fact, I remember reading that they'd often take off for morning scouting missions in what's now considered IMC... near-zero in fog, etc.
Uh... my point: the gloom suggests the other side of military flying: the very real danger, and the dark nature of the whole thing.

Nice shots, like the Chipmunk one.

Quote:


I imagine its repaint (if planned) into RAF colours is well down the list of "things to do" for the collection. The scheme it's in is the one used by the previous owner before it was bought for/donated to the collection by the Shuttleworth Veteran Aeroplane Society (of which Doug and I are members* )


*apologies for blatant plug

Hi Doug:

Doug wrote:
That's true of course & gives just a little idea of what they had to put up with. I still can't imagine what it was like to fly those frail machines into battle

Hope you don't mind me sticking my two cents in Doug but I asked that same question many many times as a young man when I first started flying.
I asked it to both my grandfathers and great uncles who several not only flew in the First World War but also in the Second World War.

I can remember my one grandfathers answer.

He asked me how old my dad's rocking chair was.  My father would rock in it all the time, I said it must be at least fifty years old.  Does it still rock he asked?  Yes I said.  They built things out of wood to last back then, and that is the way the aircraft were built.

The aeroplanes of 1917 to 1918 were much improved over those at the start of the war.  That not only applied to allied aircraft but axis as well.
He test flew them all including the axis aircraft at the end of the war.
He said most pilots were confident and positive in the equipment they flew most of the time.

The average person has no idea the leaps and bounds that were accomplished by industry and science/technology during the First World War.
Take the SE5a or Camel just for example, they both fly faster and are more maneuverable than most of the general aviation aircraft (short of high performance ones) that we see on aerodromes today.

When I took someone up in the old Fleet Canuck or  the Piper Cub the look on their face after they saw the aircraft was....no way...no bloody way are you getting me up in that LMAO.

They would look all over the aircraft for holes in the fabric or touch the airframe to see if it was loose and going to come apart .

Eventually they would get in but they thought the thing should have been built like a tank to stay in one piece and fly.

Sorry to ramble on Doug.

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug