Page 34 - World Airshow News Q3 2024

SYWELL SAtISFACtION Report and photography by Brad and Randall Haskin

The U.K.’s Sywell Airshow

Danielle Del Buono, of the 46 Aviation Wing Walking team
from Sion, Switzerland, dangles from the wing of the
Super Stearman flown by husband Emiliano.

b ritish airshows are just, well…different. There is an boasts a century’s worth of British aviation history. Privately-
Set dead center in the middle of England, Sywell Aerodrome
attitude, a feeling, that is vastly foreign to American
owned since 1927, it has hosted numerous flying clubs and com-
audiences. British warbird airshows ratchet that differ-
ence a few notches higher – venues with beautiful grass
Air Force (RAF) training base as well as a modification site for
fields and runways, surrounding topography straight petitions. During World War II, Sywell was utilized as a Royal
out of a 1944 newsreel, a real-world history about them, and just Wellington and Lancaster bombers. In 1968 it was one of the
an otherwise-unexplainable panache. filming sites for the movie Battle of Britain.
Unlike the majority of their North American counterparts, For several decades now, the aerodrome has been under the
these shows take on a slower, more homogeneous pace, with care of M. H. Bletsoe-Brown, on whose grandfather’s farm the
grouped formations of aircraft performances seamlessly over- airfield grounds sit. But more recently, it has served as base for
lapping and transitioning to the next act on the program. With Grace’s warbird and restoration operations. While offering a
but a few exceptions, there is no loud music blaring over the smaller footprint than some of the more traditional UK venues,
speakers…just the dulcet-tones of British-accented narration it also offered a very intimate setting for the show which took
and echoing sounds of old piston-powered warriors cavorting place June 22-23.
about the sky. Though admittedly heavily top-loaded with World War II air-
A noticeable fissure in the British airshow and warbird calen- craft, the Sywell program featured a wing-walking demonstra-
dar has developed with the demise of the long-standing Flying tion by the Swiss 46 Aviation act, aerobatic performances from
Legends airshow at Duxford. For multiple reasons, the show that Steve Jones and Melanie Astles, a USAF F-35A Heritage Flight
laid the blueprint for such warbird extravaganzas now appears from nearby RAF Lakenheath, a daily fly-by of the Oil Spill Re-
to be confined to the annals of airshow history. Into that void, sponse dispersal-equipped Boeing 727, and a jaw-droppingly fun
however, has ventured Richard Grace, owner/operator of Sywell- demonstration of replica German fighters from The Great War,
based Ultimate Warbird Flights and Air Leasing, Ltd, and the courtesy of Mikael Carlson out of Sweden. Saturday’s schedule
son of pioneering British warbird enthusiasts, the late Nick and included late-afternoon (not quite dusk) showcases of the P-51D,
Carolyn Grace. Tiger Moth, and Mk. V Spitfire.
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www.airshowmag.com 34 Quarter 3, 2024