Sunday 28 June 2009

Lancaster Bomber & Friends

Yesterday lunch time I had to take a trip round the M25 with my friend D to collect his “new” car from a place 55 miles away, the journey passed without incident until we came off the motorway to head to the town where the garage was located. We were listening to Spirit on his MP3 player but had the sunroof open and suddenly heard a mighty roar of engines, looked up and saw what D claimed was the only Lancaster aircraft still flying passing low over us.

It was followed by a Spitfire and then a Hurricane both impressive aircraft to see up close and personal; Biggin Hill airfield was around 10 miles West of us so we guessed the the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight must have been putting on a display from there.

Got home and ran a search for some footage to share, unfortunately the best looking one comes with a sound track, all very inspiring but as a self confessed petrol head I would rather have had the noise of the engines as the sound track. This clip claims that there are 2 of these fine aircraft still flying, whatever.



Arrived at the garage not long after and D discovered that he had left his wallet behind when he had changed out of the shorts he had been wearing while gardening and had no means of paying the £6,000 balance on the car. The air in the car on the return journey was turning pretty blue until we spotted another large aircraft flying low above us, it was a Vulcan bomber but that is a tale for another day.

So later on today we have to make the journey again, this time with his wallet – doubt if we will be lucky enough to see so many find old aircraft on our travels.

3 comments:

Sezme said...

Sorry about the long trip. The nice thing is that you got to see the planes. The scenery was really nice, too.

The vulcan really got my cat's attention, though. ;)

I used to drive by an AFB that isn't far from here to watch the fighter jets come in with their engines screaming. It was especially fun at night, because of the engine glow.

I've been fortunate to see the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds. Have you seen the Red Arrows? (Is there another group? Somehow, I feel I've gotten the name wrong.)

Lin said...

Ohhhhh, I would have LOVED to have been there to see the Lancaster (and so would have Brou)! I got the impression that the Lancs were built in my family's namesake town so it would have been even more exciting.

Yes, why can't they just have the raw engine noise instead of the damned music in these vids?!

DBA Dude said...

rt, The vulcan is pretty noisy. not surprised that it disturbed your cats nap time. Have never seen a Red Arrows display (name is right live but have seen them flying overhead en route to the Farnborough Air Show which is about 5 miles from here.

Lin, Hearing and seeing the Lancaster just made the whole day really special for the both of us, especially D who is a major airplane nut.