I mentioned in another thread that I had entered 3 photos into this challenge a year or two ago, the reward merely being that entries judged to be the best would be published somewhere obscure where nobody ever looks on the BBC website. None of the 3 made the grade. I was rather scathing about some of those entries that did make it, although in fairness there are some lovely flight pictures (here). Others are predictable (the posed reenactor shots taken at sold events are inevitably repetitive, however 'good'), and some downright awful. It reinforced my prejudice against submitting my often rather 'quiet' photographs for competitive judgement.
A DC3 'Dakota' at Carpiquet aerodrome in Normandy against stormy skies in 2019 during the 75 anniversary commemorations of D-Day. There was a record parachute drop involving well over 20 of these stalwarts over the D-Day drop zones during the commemorations, the last at which significant numbers of veterans were present.
Squadron Leader William Pearce (Rtd) in the cockpit of a BBMF Spitfire at North Weald in 2010. William flew the type, as well as the Hurricane and the American Republic P47 Thunderbolt on active service in North Africa and Burma, his P47 once taking a devastating hit from an explosive Japanese 20mm cannon shell on the fuselage underside; he successfully nursed the heavily damaged machine home. He contracted polio whilst in the Far East and was invalided home, where he had a lung removed. He once confided to me that his enduring fear was stroke, and sadly he was to suffer from exactly that, a debilitating stroke that left him incapacitated in a nursing home in his final years. He was a kind and modest man.
The course of a long-lifted runway at the former wartime airfield RAF Matching Green in Essex, the sun breaking through the mist on a bitterly cold January day long after the last aeroplanes had departed, and their young crews grown old.
A DC3 'Dakota' at Carpiquet aerodrome in Normandy against stormy skies in 2019 during the 75 anniversary commemorations of D-Day. There was a record parachute drop involving well over 20 of these stalwarts over the D-Day drop zones during the commemorations, the last at which significant numbers of veterans were present.
Squadron Leader William Pearce (Rtd) in the cockpit of a BBMF Spitfire at North Weald in 2010. William flew the type, as well as the Hurricane and the American Republic P47 Thunderbolt on active service in North Africa and Burma, his P47 once taking a devastating hit from an explosive Japanese 20mm cannon shell on the fuselage underside; he successfully nursed the heavily damaged machine home. He contracted polio whilst in the Far East and was invalided home, where he had a lung removed. He once confided to me that his enduring fear was stroke, and sadly he was to suffer from exactly that, a debilitating stroke that left him incapacitated in a nursing home in his final years. He was a kind and modest man.
The course of a long-lifted runway at the former wartime airfield RAF Matching Green in Essex, the sun breaking through the mist on a bitterly cold January day long after the last aeroplanes had departed, and their young crews grown old.
