Just spent a couple of hours shivering on a clifftop immediately south of Whitehaven harbour, where they are having their bi-annual Maritime Festival. This is the first to suffer from bad weather, but fortunately it cleared enough for the flying to get started as planned, but it was still blowing half a gale and freezing - still, I suppose it is June, and we got the flash flood out of the way on Tuesday... Also thanks to a (sadly fatal) landslip early in the year, the fun fair was relocated from the foot of my cliff to north of the harbour, so no raucous music to drown out (as it did two years ago) the proper soundtrack (Merlin, Centaurus, etc.), but I suspect wind noise will be a problem on my video... Instead, there was a helicopter landing area there, where "Red Ten" dropped in in a Squirrel, and just after he (and we) left one of those pointy-nosed fenestron tail MBB jobs.
In the space of an hour, we got the BBMF Spit and Hurricane, and the RNHF Sea Fury brought along a Skyraider for company - first time I've seen a Skyraider, a big plane to try aerobatics in... The Red Arrows had to put on a limited display because of the weather, but were still most impressive. They're busy for the rest of the weekend and won't be back, but the Sea Fury and Skyraider are due back tomorrow and Sunday, and should be bringing a Catalina, Dakota, and Hunter with them both days, with a Yak display team tomorrow and the Spit back on Sunday. Weather permitting, that is, but it should be improving...
It is a Maritime Festival, so there will be a Sea King exercising with a RNLI lifeboat tomorrow, and the there will be a couple of RN training boats turning up.
There are five "Tall Ships" in the harbour, and while some might argue a brigantine, a topsail schooner and a gaff-rigged ketch (I think that's what they are) aren't that tall, the "Grand Turk" certainly is, she's the one used for the "Hornblower" TV Series a few years back. There's also my personal favourite, the medieval "Matthew".
The Treadheads might get lucky yet, too - the Army are promising some historic military vehicles as well as current stuff, but they don't seem to have turned up yet.
Got to go now, I think there's a Naval Lynx simulator around somewhere, I might get a chance to have a go before the Firework display.
Cheers,
Moramarth