Our Travel Air Arrives at Shoreham Field

On October 12th, Team Alaska's and Team Barnstormer's Travel Airs arrived by truck at Shoreham Field from Southampton  where they arrived at port from Florida a few days before.  What a relief to see our "babies" again safe and sound.  The next few days were taken up with reattaching their wings and tail "feathers".  With Keith's watchful and professional guidance and the cooperation from Colin and Nick, our planes started looking like planes again and not Soap Box Derby cars.  The rally organizer had made previous arrangements for us to use a large hangar in which to get that work done.

I managed to stay out of the way for most of this process by hanging out at the lovely Shoreham Field Terminal's Hummingbird Restaurant where I had a great view of not only planes landing and taking off, but also a Netflix production filming crew at work.  I hadn't realized it before arriving here that this art deco terminal building, that also houses a control tower, was built between 1934 and 1936.  It has classic lines and has been used as the backdrop in several films and TV shows.  In one of the Hercule Poirot features titled something like, "Death/Murder(?) In the Sky", the terminal is used to portray Le Bourget Airport in Paris of the late 1930s.  The recent movie, Woman in Gold starring Helen Mirren has a scene of the Vienna Airport during the annexation of Austria by the Nazis in 1938.  The Shoreham terminal filled in for that too.

The Netflix production is called The Crown about the royal career of Queen Elizabeth II from her marriage to Prince Phillip up to the present.  What I got to see were some scenes involving the arrival of the Queen at an airport aboard a BOAC commercial carrier.  About 80 extras dressed in early 1950s attire were milling around as they prepared for their scenes as Ladies in Waiting, journalists, ambassadors, ministers of Parliament etc.  The BOAC "airplane" was really a mock-up of just the main passenger entrance with green screens stretching out on either side of the entrance for use later in CGI editing.  An old BOAC stairs on wheels was

pushed up to the entrance.  1940s and 1950s cars also were important background fixtures.



The Smuggler getting her first glimpse of the United
Kingdom looking every bit like a race horse eager to get out of the horse trailer.

           Smuggler emerging from her
           cage.

On solid ground.  Wings resting in the back
ground.

Wings....going.............

                      on!!

(The Cessna Grand Caravan in the background above is one of the support aircraft accompanying us during the rally.)

Shoreham Field terminal building back in the day.  This is a photo mural on a wall in the restaurant dining room.

 BOAC mock-up getting ready for lights and sound system set-up.

Some film extras taking a tea break in the terminal.  I love the hats and woolen suits. The two ladies with backs to us are wearing hair nets to protect their dos before next scene.

Vintage Air Rally's First Crete2Cape Event

Nick, Colin and I arrived in the UK Monday October 10. We rented a car and drove south to the quaint Sussex village of Alfriston where we are staying in a private residence through Home Exchange until we depart for Crete on the 25th.  Being an Anglophile, I'm so happy to be back in colorful, historic England.  Our lovely home away from home, Martlets, belongs to hospitable and fun Rosalind who is an amazing gardener.

From here, London is only an hour and forty-five minutes away, and Shoreham By Sea where  re-assembling of aircraft is going on, is 35 minutes away.  Alfriston has numerous tea rooms and the best book store I have ever been in.  If you visit Alfriston and you're a bibliophile AND enjoy British history and literary culture, you must visit Much Ado Books.

We gathered in London the afternoon of the 11th at the Horse Guard Parade Grounds to watch the changing of  HRM's Horse Guards which coincided with the first public exhibition event of Vintage Air Rally/Crete2Cape.  As none of the real Vintage  aircraft could land or be transported there, a mock-up of a 1920's biplane was in place with an informational poster about the rally.  Participants who happened to be in London were present - most in 1920s flying garb.  Some journalists and many airplane/travel enthusiasts showed up too.



We had the pleasure of meeting Martin Barraclough who wrote The Race for the Cape -- a history of an early race to Capetown via the route we will be taking.  The photographs are amazing.

 Martin Barrraclough

We had a great time at the parade grounds and had many curious people come up to us and ask what this rally adventure is all about. It was nice to field questions from so many interested and interesting people.

Setting up display aircraft.

HRM's Horse Guards.

This changing of the Guard, like all Guard movements in London, is extremely well choreographed.  However, on this day, the white horse made it very clear that he was not amused by the trumpet behind him that announced the next step in this process.  The other horses turned and looked at him as if to say, "Get a grip, Mate! You won't get your pension if you keep that up."

Nick with scarf and goggles really enjoyed sharing flying stories with enthusiasts who had plenty of amazing flying stories of their own from bygone decades.

After the parade grounds, Team Alaska, Team Barnstormers (Keith - in hat - and Colin), Team Lotmead Tiger (John -- with beard---and Janice Baxter), and Team SoCal Travel Air (Pedro -- in black next to Janice) enjoyed a pint at one of Whitehall's neighborhood pubs.

That evening, we changed from flying attire to vintage evening attire for an amazing reception and dinner at London's Draper's Hall with a hundred rally participants, event sponsors, journalists, and guests.  The Draper's Guild goes back to the 14th Century when manufacturing guilds were gaining prominence. The guild bought this building from Henry VIII who 'took it over' from his Chief Minister Thomas Cromwell who got on the king's bad side and was subsequently executed. The building burned in the great London fire of 1666 and was quickly rebuilt.

Team Alaska with Team Frog and Kiwi (Cedric and Alexandra from Belgium)

In the dining room of Draper's Hall

The walls here are lined with seven foot tall portraits of monarchs from William and Mary to Queen Victoria.  My friends who know that I sometimes suffer from insomnia and eventually fall asleep NOT counting sheep but naming off the monarchs from Richard III to Q.E II will appreciate my enjoyment of looking up from our table at these giants of British royal history and being grateful for the roles they played in helping me fall asleep.

We had wonderful dinner guests at our table who had lots of experiences to share with us.  I always knew that one of the benefits of being part of the Vintage Air Rally would be meeting interesting people.

Containerizing Planes for Shipment to the U.K.

Here's our bird, N6263, in a hangar at Albert Whitted Airport in St. Petersburg, FL getting ready to be 'dismembered' for shipment to the UK.  It was a time-consuming process to make sure all parts being removed were properly labeled, sorted, and bound up for travel.

 Keith Kossuth, the pilot for Team Barnstormers --which includes our son Colin-- and owner of the second of three Travel Airs from North America going on this adventure, is a certified aircraft mechanic and inspector and took charge of the process of getting his aircraft "Magic" (red and yellow) and our "Smuggler" (blue and silver) ready for a trip at sea.

Wings and tail feathers had to come off with the help of a forklift and lots of padding.  Getting the fuselage into the container was a very slow process requiring patient baby steps to insure our plane got properly settled into her "cradle" for the drive to Savannah, Georgia and then the trip across the Atlantic.

It was a tight squeeze into the container, and there were plenty of  people to all talk at once on just how to do it!

 

 Each aircraft was loaded like this into its own container.  The containers were delivered to Savannah, Georgia where they were put on a cargo ship bound for Southampton, England. It was a little unsettling to watch these "birds" of ours disappear in containers and on to the Interstate for a long journey to a distant continent.  So the adventure truly began.