Stow Marie's Fly-In |August 2015|

A little late to the table for my usual weekend blog post, and expect it to be very photo heavy! I have a good excuse for once, and I was having an amazing time! Last weekend was a very much anticipated fly in at WWI Aerodrome, Stow Marie's. It's the first they've had one where the new, resident aircraft have flown.

What's so special about these I hear you ask! Well, they are incredible works of art built by The Vintage Aviator way down in New Zealand and are full scale, completely authentic replicas of three incredible WWI aircraft. World War 1 Aviation Heritage Trust (WAHT) has helped make it all possible.

First up we have the beautiful (if slow!) BE2.

Pilot in the back, gunner up front. A stunning big ol' four bladed prop attached to that beast of an engine pulls her up into the clouds where she admirably evaded our next visitor for all of a few seconds!

There's a bit of a gap in reality between the BE2 and the Albatross, but they still looked great together up in the sky. Unlike my only photo of the two which I apologise for now!

 

 

The Albatross with it's stunning wooden fuselage and painted decals has been a long time favourite of mine since I saw the other at the Shuttleworth Collection a couple of years back  (who's chief engineer was doing much of he flying at Stow this weekend. See, engineers can be pilots too!). Woodwork is something I love at work and the purely varnished ply skins call to me in a very similar way to soft dresses and cats. I just want to stroke them. And if that makes me odd, so be it!

The last of the three is the Snipe, a blunt nosed aeroplane that looks exactly the little vicious flyer part it was designed to play. It's apparently the nicest to fly out of the three, but I expect still a long way off from the comfort and ease of today's aircraft!

It also has an authentic rotary engine, which means not only is the propeller whizzing around at the front there, but the majority of the engine is too, making it interesting when coming in to land as the throttle is not adjustable, you just blip it to cut power temporarily. Multi tasking? I did hear it mentioned that perhaps it's a girls job!

 

 

Another WWI aircraft visiting this weekend was the gorgeously finished Bristol Scout. Built from a Grandfather's memories and painstaking research! It's still in it's last stages of test flying so was a static display, but I bet they can't wait to get behind the controls!

Last, but no means least, I've got some photos of Stow Marie's Aerodrome's long term resident who has so far delighted crowds prior to the New Zealand crowd turning up. She's an SE5a seven eighths replica with a modern engine (and gun and smoke system!) and she's always a delight to see flying around.

Flown around on Sunday by my boss, she looks brilliant in the sky, if a little on the small side once back on the ground!

 

Although as they say, it's not the size, it's what you do with it that counts….

 

Jo :)