The Shuttleworth Collection Spring Air Display ~ 1st May 2011

The first air show of the season didn’t quite go to plan. Although there was beautiful wall to wall blue sky and sunshine with crystal clear atmospheric conditions there was also a 25 to 30 knot wind, gusting at times, blowing across the runway and into the crowd. This severely curtailed the flying display in the afternoon. It may have been the forecast of sunshine and blue sky that attracted the crowds as I had to queue for about 30 minutes to get in which is something I don’t often do when arriving early at Old Warden. The star attraction of the Russian themed air display was the Polikarpov Po.2, which was making its first public air show appearance for which the Soviet Air Attaché from London had been invited to watch. Before the show, the Po.2 had been on view to the public in the car park with a Hucks Starter attached to the propeller and was drawing quite a crowd which made people free photography a bit of a problem. After the motor vehicle cavalcade the flying display started on time with a barnstorming routine. Although on display outside, many of the aircraft stayed firmly staked down to the ground as the blustery wind was gusting beyond their safe limits for flying. Only the SE.5a of the First World War aircraft ventured into the air but we later learnt from the pilot that there was a radiator problem as soon as he took off. The engine was quickly overheating and he literally did one circuit just to position the aircraft to land it as soon as possible. The one aircraft that appeared to revel in the windy conditions was the Antonov An-2. For a large aeroplane, it was literally turning tightly within the airfield boundaries and its nose up, climb to height, point into wind, throttle back the engine and hover over the airfield was impressive. Those Shuttleworth aircraft that did venture into the air extended their displays a bit to fill in the extra time there was due to the cancellations. The flying finished about an hour early and a big thanks should go to those pilots who displayed their aircraft in the less than favourable windy conditions to provide an afternoon of flying that entertained what must have been a near capacity crowd at Old Warden.