Windlesham House School staged ‘Elements’ in 2007, the most advanced show ever staged by a school in the UK. They went one better this year with a weekend festival spectacular branded ‘Odyssey 2010’  on July 3rd. The creative genius behind the Odyssey Journey is the School’s music director, Anthony Hutchings (Hutch) who involved not only the entire school, but also many of his former students and high flyers from the worlds of performing arts, multi-media entertainment and aviation to make it a show to remember!

The concerts featured TV celebrities, astronauts sending messages from the International Space Station, firework displays, spectacular laser light shows, air displays and hundreds of children, rock bands and the Bootleg Beatles headlining Sunday’s grand finale.

Our Saturday glider display was a new venture; with wingtip sparklers replacing the usual orange smoke and choreographed to illuminate the evening horizon behind the giant rock stage. The flight was planned to finish at the end of civil twilight, the latest time permitted for a glider to land in UK, at Sunset + 30mins.

Other highlights of the daytime airshows were Al Kay in the OFMC Mustang, the new Redhawk Duo pairing of Bob Grimstead and Matt Hill’s RF4s. Last but not least the Vulcan also displayed.

Thanks must go first to Southdown Gliding Club and its members for sanctioning an aerotow long after their normal evening curfew and to Flying Display Director Phill O’Dell who was only just overshadowed by Hutch for is raw enthusiasm and infectious energy. Finally to Jim Pearce for use of his airstrip.

All proceeds for the weekend go to the children’s medical research charity, Sparks.

Luxemburg is not a big country, in fact we could have flown around it several times in the time it took to aerotow the Swift from Halton to Bitburg in Germany, the venue for their biannual airshow.

The line up was truly international, with many types and teams that rarely cross the Channel to UK, like the only flying PZL-106 Kruk ‘Raven’ Ag-plane in Europe, a Junkers Ju52 and Noratlas Nord2501 transport types.

Due to the tragic Frecce Tricolori accident at Ramstein in 1988, German airshow restrictions are now unduly restrictive, with formation aerobatics limited to 500ft. The display lines are also more distant than those permitted in UK, so that small aircraft have a limited “stage presence” and formation teams dominated the lineup at Bitburg including the Belgian Siai Marchetti team “Hardship Red”, The French Armee De L’Air Socata TB30 Epsilons and a Swiss team of Pilatus P3s. Although the quality of formation flying was generally good, the lack of smoke and frequent long gaps between passes made us realise just how lucky we are to have the likes of the Blades, the Aerostars and Yakoslevs in UK.

Saturday’s Evening entertainment started by watching the Event Organiser Frank Weyrich take a wingwalking flight with the Breitling Team, and ended with the local Bitburg beer, ‘currywurst’ and chips.

Crowd numbers were down on Sunday, perhaps due to the scorching weather forecast but more likely the German-English football match of the World cup?

The flight back to UK was uneventful, with a refuelling stop at Lille Marcq and fantastic visibility under blue skies around London, so we could enjoy the Red Bull Matadores displaying at Biggin Hill 30 miles to the south of our route.

Thanks have to go to the tugpilots for the weekend Paul Moslin and Ian Gallacher, and Mike Newman who represented the team at Biggin Hill flying a Pilatus B4.

The 48^th Biggin Hill International Air Fair took place in scorching weather over the last weekend in June. With half the team displaying at Bitburg in Germany, Mike Newman displayed a Pilatus B4 glider at Biggin ably assisted by Dennis Maddocks in RAFGSA Cosford’s Super Chipmunk.

The organisers at Biggin Hill had put together a superb line up to the celebrated the 70^th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain with no less five Hawker Hurricanes, five Spitfire, a Buchon and a Me108 all flying together recreating an 1940’s airfield attack and dogfight. Other highlights of the 7 hour flying display included a French Air Force Alpha Jet and a colourful Belgian F-16.

Over 100,000 spectators attended over the weekend with around 60,000 on the Saturday alone. Sunday’s crowd numbers were slightly lower, perhaps due to the intense heat and the England-Germany World Cup Football Match. Mike was also kept busy driving a powerful Mercedes Benz ML350 for Brendan O’Brien’s Flying Circus trailer top landing stunt which was successfully completed on both days despite slight crosswinds and turbulence.

We must thank display organiser Colin Hitchins for the invite to display at this prestigious event and both Colin Short and Dick Happs for the loan of the glider. 

19/20th June gave both the Twister Duo and Swift Glider teams the biggest challenge yet, planning the logistics of 8 displays across the Fathers Day weekend.

Saturday started cool with a strong northerly wind, that extended the first positioning leg to Weston Park and the first of Mike Newman’s 5 hours on aerotow behind Ian Gallacher in the Pawnee.

Wrekin’s model show, now in its 20th year surpassed even last year’s show with some awesome models and more than 8000 spectators over the weekend. The highlight of the show was yet again Ali Mashinchy who flew several displays, including a vectored thrust Typhoon, a 175mph “Opus”
jet capable of pulling 40’g’ square corners and an enormous half scale model of our very own MDM-1 fox, complete with scale colour scheme.

The ‘Demolition Derby’ of a dozen warbirds models screaming around Weston Park’s mighty oaks was improved this year by pyrotechnics, bombs and triple ‘A’. It was a dual to the last one standing as in the 10 minute slot most of the fighters were lost to the pyros, trees, the ground or mid-air collisions.

After our first combined display with Twister Duo and Swift Team at Weston we took the transit down the Severn River to Kemble, and from the Cotswold Airshow, the wisters continued south to the Charity Sea Picnic on the Babbacombe Bay cliffs at Torquay whilst the Swift displayed at Sywell for the Blades.

Sunday by comparison was a relaxing schedule with only 2 venues. We started Fathers day with separate displays at Weston and enjoyed perfect airshow weather, with deep blue skies and light breezes. Kemble was just the same, with Guy taking over flying of the S1 Swift for the displays.

Huge thanks must to go to Mike Newman, who stepped up at the last moment to display and ferry the Swift, freeing up Guy to fly with the Twister Duo. Also to Steve Bishop at Weston Park, Glen Moreman at Kemble and Mark Cutmore at Sywell.

The Heart of Scotland Airshow held at Perth commemorated the 100 yrs anniversary of the first Scottish International Flight Meeting. The Red Arrows cancelled their participation after a training accident earlier in the year, and whilst Punchestown in Ireland cancelled their centenary celebrations, Gill Howie and her team soldiered on to organise a varied flying program with a good mix of RAF aircraft, vintage, home grown and display acts imported from across the boarder including the Brietling Wing Walkers and the Vacher Hurricane.

Paul Moslin was the tug driver for the weekend, Peter Wells and Guy Westgate ferried the Twister Duo north, leaving Mike Newman and Paul Johnson to drive the glider through the hours of jams and delays on the M6.

The flying started early at 11:00 with a 90 min lunch gap to allow pleasure flying from the airfield. Saturday’s display enjoyed almost perfect flying conditions – sunshine and bubbly cumulous giving the photographers some great backdrops.

An occluded weather front stubbornly hung along the spine of the Country on Sunday, delaying the start of flying with very low cloud and frequent showers. The Twister Duo kicked off proceedings with a flat display leaving Mike to complete the Swift display as cloudbase rose to the dizzy heights of 800ft. The front delayed many of the participants journeys home.

Thanks have to go to Gill Howie for the invitations. Fingers crossed for another show next year!

One of the highlights of a our 2009 season was the “Volkel in de Wolken” festival in the Netherlands, and we were delighted to be invited back this year. 

Volkel is a town festival which also includes one of the Netherlands’ longest running and biggest civilian run airshows. Mike Newman, Sally Cooper and Paul Johnson drove out to Volkel the day before the event to position and rig the Swift for the show. This year, we were hosted by the Volkel Gliding Club who use the last second world war Luftwaffe hanger standing in Europe.

The show’s name "Volkel in the clouds" was rather apt and show day was marred by a cold front with low cloud, gusty winds and rain showers typical of the ‘European Monsoon’ which often occurs during late May, but that didn’t stop 20,000 spectators descending on Volkel. Both Paul Moslin and Pete Wells managed to find their way around the weather with the Pawnee and Twister transiting from the UK and Pribram in the Czech Republic. The weather forced many acts to cancel or perform restricted routines but despite some very turbulent conditions, the team were able to perform a full show with Paul and Mike finding a rare gap in the clouds to release at 4000ft! Amongst the highlights of the flying displays were the Cap Tens from France, Frank Versteegh’s antics in his Extra 300L and the F-16 finale.

We must thank display director Hans van de Werf for his superb organisation and hospitality and Volkel Gliding Club for all their help over the weekend.

      

We were flattered to be invited back to Rendcomb this year for Vic Norman’s private H4H charity airshow. His Breitling Stearmans were away in the Netherlands for the weekend, so Pilot Steve Hicks towed the Swift glider behind N54922, the only one of Aerosuperbatics’ Stearmans fitted with a tow hook.

The practice flights last week gave Mike and Guy an insight into the tug pilots view from the biplane, as we took turns to sit in the front seat for a couple of quick flips around Rendcomb (regrettably without a wingwalker). Having got used to the Pawnee, the trail of smoke behind the Stearman was astonishing!

The show was a slightly smaller event from the H4H extravaganza of 2008, but the quality of the acts was maintained – with the very best of each of piston aeroplane invited.

The event was blessed with the best day of the year so far, 28C and not a cloud to be seen all day.

        

Display of the day was undoubtedly Steve Jones, who flew his latest toy, an S-2S Pitts. He really looked like he was enjoying the day.

       

After the glider display, Guy and Pete went on to fly the Twister Duo display. The blue skies and calm winds made the smoke almost too good! – You will not hear that again for a while!

Thanks must go to Vic and Anne for organising a very special airshow, and to Paul, Richard, Mike and Sally who came along to help out.

A weather front slipped down the country as The Swift Team made its first long transit of the year. The early rains gave way to a bright and breezy afternoon with cloud-bases over East Anglia upto 3,000ft – The start of Summer!

Henham Park was one of the highlghts of our season last year, so we were honoured to be invited back to Suffolk by John Hill. The venue is set in the landscaped parkland of the former Henham Hall that plays host to pop concerts, festivals, a steam fair and the Halesworth Lions’ Wings and Wheels.

Team members Guy Westgate, Peter Wells, Paul Moslin and Paul Johnson took the trip, together with 50 other aircraft who made the fly-in, the early bad weather causing many to cancel.

With a gate prices of only £5, this must represent one of the best value days out in East Anglia, with hundreds of classic cars, motor cycles, tractors and engines and a 40 minute flying display with the newly branded “Breitling” Wingwalkers, Nigel Willson in his Yak52 our ‘Twister Aerobatic’ Team.

The May Bank Holiday was quite a weekend of firsts. It was the team’s opening display of the season at Abingdon and both Mike’s first roll-on-tow display and Guy’s debut with a microphone at Old Warden

For a weather forecast of constant rain, we were lucky the front cleared by mid morning leaving only occasional showers, but a very strong wind with moderate turbulence.

Ian Gallacher lead the team from Bicester to Abingdon with Guy in the Swift and Pete in the twister. Abingdon had been denied use of the runways by Defence Estates, so we flew what has become know as our ’seaside profile’ – a display that showcases our unique roll-on-tow display, but the glider does not release the tow rope. The glider’s partial smoke failure at Abingdon was traced to a wiring fault that was rectified before Mike Newman’s display at Old Warden.

Mike’s flying has come on leaps and bounds over the last few months, and his training paid off as he coped with the gusty conditions to put on a very polished performance for the Shuttleworth collection.

Crowd numbers were very poor at both venues, lets hope its not an omen for the rest of the season.