Last week saw the UK Airshow season hit fever pitch, with two of the country’s biggest events taking place over the same weekend. This unfortunate clash only occurs every few years, but it forces the enthusiast to have to choose which show to attend, when they would usually try to get to both, so it is usually the choice between pistons, or jets for most people. The masses attending the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford will have been disappointed not to have seen the UK display debut of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, which was still grounded in the US following further problems with the aircraft’s highly advanced engines. In their distinct favour, I think that the weather in Gloucestershire was much more favourable over the weekend and everyone that I know who attended the Fairford show said that they really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, due to this date clash, my annual pilgrimage to the Warbird extravaganza known as Duxford’s Flying Legends would mean that I would have to forgo a trip to RIAT this year, but I had no regrets in choosing this show, as piston power will always come out on top for me.
This year’s Flying Legends show was somewhat affected by poor weather, particularly in continental Europe. A number of aircraft scheduled to attend the show were unable to make the trip to Cambridgeshire as the weather was simply too bad and aircraft numbers were certainly lower than the organising team had been hoping for – indeed on both days of the show, we were forced to endure dark grey skies and frequent showers, although luckily everything had cleared up by show time. This allowed most of the aircraft scheduled to display to take to the skies and Legends fans were treated to an excellent display on both Saturday and Sunday, with the Saturday show just edging it, in my opinion. I certainly have no regrets about my choice of show.
As enthusiasts gathered for their annual Warbird fix, there were a couple of aircraft that most people were eager to clap eyes on. For the first time outside the US, a Boeing P-26 Peashooter monoplane fighter was making its UK display debut, as was a beautifully polished early Curtiss P-40C Warhawk and whilst it was certainly fantastic to see these beautiful and extremely rare aeroplanes, I have to say that I was captivated by another, much larger aircraft over the Flying Legends weekend – the magnificent Breitling Lockheed Super Constellation. The handsome Connie is not really the sort of aircraft that you associate with a Flying Legends airshow, but I have to say that she made for a stunning addition to the flying programme and for me, she stole the show!
The Lockheed Constellation had been on the drawing board since 1937, as Lockheed aimed to produce a four engined, fully pressurized airliner, primarily for the home market. It’s design borrows many characteristics from their famous P-38 Lightning fighter, with many commentators describing it as a ‘Big Lightning’, but it will always be remembered for its beautiful and highly complex fuselage shape – ‘The Flying Dolphin’. It had a distinctive triple tail design, which was designed to keep the stability that the aircraft required, whilst allowing it to fit into the existing aircraft hangars found on US airfields and was to yield one of the many classic features of this beautiful aeroplane – at a time when design and style were important to certain influential people in America, the Connie possessed style by the bucket-load. It also had advanced features like hydraulically boosted controls and a de-icing system on the wings and tail leading edges. It’s four, eighteen cylinder Wright R-335 radial engines could power the Constellation to speeds in excess of 375 mph, which was faster than the Japanese Mitsubishi Zero fighter, which was important, as its first employment would be as a high-speed, long-distance troop transport for the US Army Air Force, under the designation C-69. A total of 22 C-69’s were completed by the end of the war, but not all of these aircraft were to enter military service. Indeed, the beautiful Lockheed Constellation will always be inexorably linked with its military service, even though it is possibly the most attractive civilian airliner ever to take to the skies and continues to enthral onlookers to this day.
The magnificent aircraft that starred at this year’s Flying Legends Airshow is Lockheed Super Constellation N73544 and she carries the markings of her major sponsor, the Swiss watch manufacturer Breitling. The group behind her were actually in the process of restoring a different Constellation in the US, when it became apparent that their aircraft would find it difficult to obtain a permit to fly with passengers on board – it had always been their intention to fly their supporters to and from Airshows in Europe, so they needed to find an alternative aircraft and work on their machine was halted. They became aware of N73544, the ‘Camarillo Connie’ soon after, as the aircraft possessed a standard certificate of airworthiness and would be able to fly their members around Europe – a deal was struck to purchase the aircraft on 17th December, 2003. Fittingly, this date was the centenary anniversary of the first powered flight – a most fitting date indeed.
On Saturday 8th May 2004, the Breitling Super Constellation landed safely at her new home Basel-Mulhouse Airport in Switzerland and instantly became one of the most interesting and photogenic aircraft in Europe. She continues to captivate enthusiasts wherever she appears and I defy anyone who claps eyes on this magnificent aircraft to not instantly fall in love with what is quite possibly the most iconic piston airliner profile the world has ever seen. I will certainly remember Flying Legends 2014 as the ‘Year of the Super Connie’.
Thankfully for the aviation enthusiast, the beautiful lines of the Lockheed Super Constellation have been immortalised in die-cast for us all to enjoy. Without doubt, the definitive models produced are in the 1/200th scale Hobbymaster range and they have been extremely popular sellers since they were introduced into the range. Not only have they brought us the beautiful lines of the civilian operated Super Constellations, but they have also produced the stunning constellations that served with both the US Air Force and the US Navy, in the electronic warfare roll. HL9012 is a US Air Force EC-121D Warning Star which was employed in detecting enemy aircraft activity during the Vietnam War, the first such use of this type of aircraft in a combat environment. The other military example is HL9013, the US Navy equivalent aircraft, which is designated WV-2/EC-121 Warning Star – this aircraft served on the Navy’s Pacific missile range and operated from NAS Point Mugu, in California. Both of these aircraft are soon to be joined by a polished metal example ‘Columbine III’, which was a US Presidential transport aircraft.
These delightful 1/200th scale Connies are available from stock now, but most of our remaining models are only available in very small numbers. To add a Lockheed Super Constellation to your collection, simply click on this FLYING DOLPHIN link and snap up one of our last remaining models – the military versions have proved to be particularly popular and we are down to the last few examples of each.
You may recall that we recently added a new model section to our web-store presenting models produced by Air Force One Models. The first batch of releases were utilising some of the tooling bank rescued from the former Franklin Mint business, but as many of these tools were destroyed, they knew that they would soon be forced to invest in significant new tooling – the first new models are just beginning to appear. The above picture is their New Tooling release of the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and having inspected it closely, I have to say that it is very impressive indeed. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to bring this pre-production example back to my office and thoroughly inspect it, before photographing it for your delectation. I have to stress that the model is a pre-production example and the actual production models should be improved upon – if that is the case, collectors will be absolutely overjoyed with this new model. With a high metal content and excellent levels of details, this model features the ability to move the entire wing structure back to display the aircraft in the stowed configuration, as it would be on board a US attack vessel, or aircraft carrier. It also features two complete sets of rotors, again to allow the aircraft to be displayed stowed, as the propeller blades also fold back on themselves when stowed – the other set are obviously in the more conventional flight configuration. This is an excellent model and will definitely win this new manufacturer a significant following amongst die-cast aviation collectors, particularly if they continue to bring us exciting and well produced models of aircraft currently not produced by existing manufacturers. Their new Osprey will be available in the next few weeks and is expected to sell out on release.
NEW AVIATION MODELS FOR PRE-ORDER
A busy week of activity on the Flying Tigers website has seen a large number of new models added to our FUTURE RELEASES section. Taking centre stage are two models from the new 1/72nd scale range from Air Force One Models, including the first release in their impressive Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey series, which are already attracting significant ordering activity. The first release is aircraft No.168025 YW-00 ‘Lady Ace’, from Marine Medium Tilt Rotor Squadron 165 ‘White Knights’, based at MCAS Miramar in San Diego. This aircraft features a rather colourful tail, which was on display at the 2012 Miramar Open House event and I can see this magnificent model really making it’s mark in our hobby. The UK allocation is quite small and collectors will find this quite a difficult model to get hold of – the only way to guarantee that you can add one of the new Osprey’s to your collection is by pre-ordering one over the coming weekend. We have received information that these first models will be arriving with us in the next ten days, or so and it is expected to be a sell out model on release – please click on this MV-22B Osprey link to reserve your example.
We have some spectacular news for the WWII aviation collector this week, with confirmation that Air Force One Models will also be releasing the awesome Northrop P-61 Black Widow nightfighter in the near future – this is quite a big deal for our hobby, as the distinctive P-61 is a big omission from our collections and is always being suggested as a potential release by collectors. Designed from the outset as a dedicated Nightfighter, the Black Widow was a devastatingly effective aircraft and although it only saw service during the latter stages of WWII, it earned a fearsome reputation amongst Axis pilots unlucky enough to come into contact with the Widow. The first model to be released presents us with a 548th Night Fighter Squadron aircraft called ‘Lady in the Dark’, which was operated from Le Shima Island, in the East China Sea, in August 1945. This aircraft was responsible for the last aerial victory of WWII, which is a very interesting story indeed and one for a future Newsletter. This will be a very popular model indeed and we have already started taking significant orders for this stunning New Tooling announcement, which is due to be with us in late October/early November. Please reserve your example by clicking on this Black Widow link and ensure that you don’t miss out.
Other significant models added to our FUTURE RELEASES section are a new Grumman F-14 Tomcat and Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird from Century Wings, but we will look at these more closely in next weeks Newsletter – the Blackbird will be particularly popular, as it is the machine which is on display in the American Air Museum at Duxford and is the one that most UK collectors have been waiting for. We also have no fewer than FOUR new Aviation 72 announcements, including a beautiful Folland Gnat in the distinctive colours of the RAF Aerobatic Display Team the ‘Yellowjacks’, which were formed at 4FTS at RAF Valley and were the forerunners of our much loved Red Arrows. There is also the second release from their spectacular Saab Viggen tooling, along with a new Hawker Sea Hawk in Suez Crisis colours and a very famous Chipmunk from the Royal Navy Historic Flight. All these models are on the Flying Tigers website for the first time this weekend and are available for pre-order in our FUTURE RELEASES section.
Well, that is definitely enough for this week. You will obviously notice the new format for the Newsletter this week, which is why it has taken me much longer to produce it and caused me more than a few headaches. My web designer tells me that this is the future and that I am a bit of a dinosaur for not moving with the times – I am afraid that I am guilty as charged. After producing 362 Newsletters in the same manner, over the past seven and a half years, it has been a real wrench and a steep learning curve to change the way that I do things, but the fact that you are reading this means that I must have safely navigated the new system. My man tells me that this new format will be much easier and more enjoyable for our readers to access and has the potential to reach many more thousands of readers than it currently does – these things are extremely important to us, so this dinosaur has just changed his spots, or teeth, or scales … whatever dinosaurs change! I hope that you find the new format acceptable, but you can be assured that we will be fine-tuning and perfecting this new format in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I am going for a lie down to rest my weary brain cells – all this new technology is making my head hurt. Now, how do I get this on the website?