Ursel - Meeting and Arrival

Friday 17th.

Lynne and myself left our French camp site around 10am, and set off for Ursel. 

 

Ken, Doug, Michael and families were kicked off the ferry early on Friday morning, and as there was no entry to Ursel until 12:00 noon, they had some time to kill. After arriving in the area of Ursel, they went to a local military museum in the area. 
We arrived not long before noon and found a local sports ground car park to wait in. About an hour later, the Humber, Bedford and Jeep trundled down the road and into the car park, but not before we waved to several other passing military vehicles thinking they were our party!!
Soon after meeting up at the Sports Ground, we drove the short distance back to the airfield and turned into the airfield entrance where we received our passes. We then sat in the queue waiting to be let onto the runway and directed to our parking/camping places.
Once we had our pitches allocated, the job of unpacking and setting up tents began. A heavy rainstorm passing through delayed things somewhat, but after it passed, the sky cleared and the sun came out.

Unlike most of the entries, we arranged our vehicles at an angle to the runway edge as it gave a better view of each one.


MVT Line Up

Steve's M201 Jeep

Michael's Ford GPW


Ken's Humber Wireless Truck

Malcolms GMC & Doug's Bedford 
Not long after the sun came out, a Belgian Airforce C-130 Hercules made a couple of very low passes over the airfield. So low, that it even filled my camera viewfinder with the short 55mm lens attached. This was the first of many aircraft low passes during the weekend that would have had the UK's CAA ready to 'ground' everything in sight including the birds had it been a UK show!!
Once again, Malcolm saw fit to exercise his pyrotechnic urges with the BBQ! Ken also started up his towed trailer/generator to provide power for the water boiler, but judging by the noise it made, I'm guessing he also uses it for jump starting NASA's Space Shuttles.
At around 9:00pm, a tribute band took the stage to provide the evening entertainment, and luckily, many of the songs they performed were in English. The female singer was both good looking and a good performer, but her male counterpart while a good singer, was a little OTT in the dramatics department. I think it was around midnight went we retired to our tents for the night. Unfortunately, the disco which followed the band, continued until around 3:00am, and while it was about half a mile from where we were camping, the ground could still be felt shaking through the airbed!!! Perhaps a midnight or 1:00am cut off would have been fairer for those who were tired after travelling a long way to be at the show?

Ursel Show Pictures

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