25th-26th July 2009 – The Swift Team’s biggest weekend encomppased displays at Sunderland, East Fortune and Windermere.

Our weekend of technical hitches started on Saturday morning with a Pawnee engine problem. Peter Wells departed Fishburn for a solo display along the Whitburn sands for Sunderland’s 21st Airshow, but Paul Moslin solved the problem (magneto earth) and the Pawnee and Swift raced after the solo Twister to complete a couple of passes at the end of the allotted display slot in bright sunshine.

The North got its first sight of Vulcan XH558 at Sunderland, the vintage Avro bomber going on to display at both East Fortune and Windermere. The other crowd pleasers were the Red Arrows and the Dutch F16 and Sunderland Council predicted one of the best days in the show’s history with over 300,000 spectators.

From Sunderland we transited along the coast towards Scotland for a magical flight in perfect summer weather. We gave a flypast for the Airday at RAF Boulmer, UK’s air surveillance defence hub and further North, the low tide had exposed Lindisfarne’s tidal causeway and miles of golden sand complete with pods of grey seals basking in the sun.

Last stop on the coast was the lighthouse and ancient fog horn of St Abb’s Head before we climbed to pass East Fortune and drop into Archerfield for tea and cake with Angus, the 15th Duke of Hamilton.

Over 10,500 visitors flocked to the National Museum of Flight at East Fortune for their annual show, the numbers again boosted by the top billing Vulcan and the fine weather.

East Fortune was the only full glider display of the weekend, the Swift landing on a stub of the disused runway.

The weather forecast was wet for the next day and we chose to overnight at Newcastle Airport to have access to the best weather forecasts and facilities. Sunday’s rain started early and we took a miserable 90 minutes with the Airport firecrew to move the glider 300m from our remote parking position for departure. The rain did stop as we reached the Seafront just in time for our display, but to a reduced crowd of around 150,000.

From Sunderland we headed inland, following the Tyne River valley to Carlisle. A quick refuel later and we were heading for the highest mountains in England in a 30kt southerly gale. Past Penrith and Keswick the cloudbase rose above the peaks and we crossed Thirlmere to enter Lake Windermere from the North. The air was predictably choppy low down over the lake, but record crowds had gathered on the Glebe in Bowness for the second day of the 9th Windermere Airshow.

The next weather system was pushing up from the southwest and the haze soon gave way to lower cloud and eventually more rain as we flew home via fuel stops at Blackpool, RAF Cosford and Bicester.

Thanks must go to the RAFGSA at Cranwell, Beryl Morgan at Fishburn and both the Firecrews and Samson Aviation Services at Newcastle Airport. Last but not least thanks to Flt Lt Charlotte Fenn of the Red Arrows for lending Pete the tools and the Blackpool Airport staff who helped jump start the Pawnee.