Plane sailing!

Thanks to my dad finding a snippet in the local paper, we found ourselves in the camper heading for White Waltham airfield on a sunny Sunday morning, the reason. The largest aircraft to land for 40 years on the grass strip that was the former HQ of the Air Transport Auxiliary (think of it as a massive aircraft delivery yard)was due in at just after 11am. With a wingspan for over 100ft the Catalina flying boat is more at home on the water, but it does have a set of land undercarriage and as part of a Historic Fly in at the airfield it was coming in from Duxford for the day. Nabbing the last parking space on site we headed over to the gathering crowds by the flight line and waited...and waited...and waited. My parents arrived and still there was no sign. There was plenty of flying machinery to admire though.







A few minutes later than scheduled there was much pointing at the skies and lenses swung round, a white dot was getting ever larger and soon the 1943 amphibious aircraft painted in USAF colours circled the airfield.





Coming in on final approach it was easy to see the amazing crafts two part life, at home as much in the air as in the water with the sharply angled hull/fuselage.



Down on the ground it taxied to the end of the field and round the parked aircraft. Visitors could pay £5 each to get in to the West London Flying Clubs area for a close up and a very quick walk around, so it was much irony that the dazzling white plane slowly trundled round the back of the lines and right past us, stood the other side of the fence, the wings could only have passed a few metres away from us and we got a fantastic close up view.











The twin 1200hp engines, just after I took this photo the pilot climbed up on the roof of the craft and turned the props by hand until the lined up perfectly, like rotating the wheels of a car so the manufactures logo is the right way up!



And with the rain starting to fall and needing lunch we made our way back to the camper, the paying visitors were still lined up in the downpour waiting for their couple of minutes closeup as we left. Best £5 I've not had to spend in a long time!.

There are a few more photos here

Steve.

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