Hairyplane fun

This week was pilot training week at the Shuttleworth Collection, where the display pilots get to renew their display licences and the ground crews brush up on their plane pushing skills.


Last year's training week was a week of perfect airshow days - glorious sunshine, light winds and lovely and warm, where the biggest concern was what factor sunblock would be enough. This year's was limited by strong, gusty winds, cold, and rain - not much falling on us, but so much waterlogging the airfield that there was no chance to fly 'heavies' like the Gladiator and the Sea Hurricane.



This year, Adam is going to be IC barnstorming ground crew, so he spent a lot of the week playing with ribbons and very long metal poles for the ribbon pick-up and limbo. My job in barnstorming is the balloons - quite a challenge in the strong winds!

The pilots are all flying gods, and their skills are both seen and appreciated by many. One of the most stunning displays of aircraft handling is rarely seen by the public though - if you ever visit one of the shows, try to hang about to see one of the full-time engineers manoeuvring the aircraft around in the hangars, it's one of my favourite things to watch


I've been seriously neglecting my workshop duties - I haven't made time to go in all year and the SE5a has been finished in my absence. It looks very fab, and I'd hoped to see it fly this week, but sadly she wouldn't start. It is a lovely feeling to look at the finished you've done though

We finished a day early because of the weather, and now my feet have almost stopped hurting, so I'm all ready for the first show on 4th May