The Vintage Aviator Limited—WW1 Anzac Weekend Display
June 9th, 2010
By Allan Udy
It was a case of “third time lucky” for The Vintage Aviator Ltd (TVAL) on Saturday 24th April when Masterton put on great weather for the final flying display of the season—finally allowing the company to debut three World War One aircraft. The assembled crowd of just under 2,000 people witnessed the inaugural public flights of a Sopwith Triplane replica and newly built reproductions of a Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2c and Albatros D.Va.
Previous attempts at debuting these aircraft were not so successful. In November, the first show of the season was adversely affected by strong winds that restricted all of the relatively lightweight and fragile aircraft on the flight line to ground handling displays only. On that occasion, visitors to the show were offered refunds or free passes to a subsequent show to make up for the lack of a flying display—a gesture that highlighted TVAL’s commitment to do right by the crowd. The second display of the season, which was scheduled for mid-January, was cancelled due to bad weather so it was with some trepidation that the show’s organisers kept a close watch on the weather forecast in the days leading up to the 24th.
They need not have worried. Despite gusty conditions in the afternoons of the previous two days, the wind on Saturday stayed at a level that enabled all the airworthy WW1 aircraft based at Hood Aerodrome to be flown during the two and a half hour show. The Sopwith Triplane, which had been seen on the ground at a number of previous events at Hood, finally made it into the air alongside its Sopwith stablemate, the Camel—a pairing which must be almost unique in the past 90 years. Later in the show, the Triplane flew again as part of a formation with the Bristol Fighter F.2b and three Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5as—another sight that is unlikely to have been seen anywhere in the world since 1917.
Earlier in the show, the two resident examples of the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 introduced to the crowd what was the “state of the art” in aviation in 1914. The restored original green B.E.2f aircraft, which has been seen previously at Hood, was joined by the plain linen-coloured B.E.2c model. The new reproduction aircraft wears the colour scheme of one of the first Royal Flying Corps aircraft to arrive in France after the outbreak of war in August 1914 and, as such, it features large Union Jacks on the wings rather than the now familiar blue, white and red roundels, which were only introduced in late 1914. The aircraft, which features an original 70-hp Renault engine, floated gracefully and quietly back and forth along the crowd line. Its sedate progress illustrated why the B.E.2 series later became infamously known by its British crews as “Fokker Fodder” when early German fighter aircraft started to shoot the type out of the sky in considerable numbers.
The final debut aircraft to display was the German Albatros D.Va—a type that entered frontline service in 1917. This newly built reproduction aircraft features an original Mercedes D.III inline engine and, like the B.E.2c, wears a very photogenic colour scheme—in this case, that of Josef Mai, a German ace who scored a number of victories in a D.Va. The throaty rumble of the Mercedes engine made it clear that this is a purebred fighter aircraft. Its spirited display performance wowed the appreciative crowd, which, previously, had had to make do with displays of replica German aircraft featuring more modern engines.
Other First World War aircraft displayed during the afternoon included the restored Avro 504K, which features an original rotary engine; the only airworthy reproduction F.E.2b pusher; the Pfalz D.III and Fokker D.VII replicas that were built to star in the 1966 movie The Blue Max; and the diminutive rotary engined Nieuport 11 replica. Finally, three Fokker Dr.1 Triplanes took to the sky to battle it out with the three R.A.F. S.E.5as in a massed aerial dogfight, while, on the ground below, a British Mark IV tank attacked a German field gun position—this latter engagement complete with much machine gun fire and some serious percussive effects as the field gun fired off a number of explosive rounds.
As at previous shows, a number of other aerial displays enthralled the crowd, including a display by the RNZAF’s Historic Flight Harvard, a flour-bombing mission carried out by a brace of Tiger Moths and the resident Stampe, and an aerobatic ribbon-cutting sequence also performed by the Stampe. On the ground, the younger generation was initially kept enthralled by the fleet of vintage vehicles and double-decker buses that provided free rides about the aerodrome before the flying display.
Yet again, TVAL showed that—given the right weather conditions—an afternoon flying display is a great way to showcase its ever-increasing fleet of World War One aircraft, and, that Hood Aerodrome is a great place to do it. The company’s next display day is scheduled for the 13th of November 2010, and there is every possibility that it will include more than 17 full-size WW1 aircraft. It will be an event not to be missed, so readers should mark their calendars now and make plans to be at Hood Aerodrome in Masterton for another great show.
TVAL is a New Zealand Civil Aviation-approved (NZ CAA part 148) aircraft restoration and manufacturing company with facilities in Wellington and at Hood Aerodrome in Masterton. It is capable of every aspect of aircraft and engine construction, and is actively producing WW1-era aircraft in a factory setting—undoubtedly, the first time this has been done since WW1. The company combines the skills of a number of tradesmen—highly qualified in the (almost) lost arts of wood and fabric construction—with modern CNC and CAD technology, resulting in aircraft that are better and more consistently built than the originals. The company has established working relationships with other restoration facilities and museums in Europe, Australia, Canada and in the USA that assist it to source information as well as technical data and original parts for duplication and reproduction.
