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Due to Lynne's spinal injury and medication, we
decided it wasn't a good idea for her to drive the Jeep to Croft. The Dodge
was off the road waiting for some new brake shoes to be fitted, and because I
still needed a Jeep for marshalling duties, this meant just taking Jessie. So
for 2017, my display was a little depleted, 'though I did still manage to take
the signal square and small wall tent.
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We had a number of aircraft fly in for the show. The
first, shown below, is the Bucker Bestmann, returning for a third year. There was also a Pietenpol Air Camper on
display which is based at Croft. The de Havilland Chipmunk returned for its second year
at Croft. This aircraft was found in a disassembled state and rebuilt by its
current owner over a 10 year period.
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The military display line was once again along the old
main runway, and had a nice variety of vehicles, but Jeeps, Champs and Land
Rovers made up the largest numbers.
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We had two visiting aero engines, a Rolls Royce Merlin
V12 and a Bristol Hercules radial.
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For many, the star of the show was the BBMF Avro
Lancaster. We've tried for many years to get the Lancaster to appear, and were frequently frustrated by our show falling on the one Summer weekend that the BBMF crews have free of flying! 2017 was finally our year, and it was fantastic to see the Lanc back over the former RAF Croft, a sight that would have been an every day occurrence 73 years ago.
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A few more of the many military vehicles on show.
Choosing pictures so show has been quite difficult, as there were so many
interesting vehicles on show. There was a replica Spitfire MkIX, which looked fairly
good except for the propeller blades, which were attached twisted the wrong
way. With the blades installed like this, it would accelerate backwards when
the throttle was opened! They've all been attached with negative pitch, and it
seems to be a regular occurrence where this Spitfire is displayed. Never mind,
other than that, it looked quite good along with the RAF Hillman staff car and
bomb/aircraft tractor.
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The Twisters aerobatic team were back again,
displaying each day. Just a couple of months ago, we were in doubt whether the Twisters Aerobatic Team would be able to appear at Croft. Back in May, Chris suffered an engine failure and heavy forced landing during a display. Thankfully he made a full recovery, and the team gave us a great display on each day of our show. So many thanks to Chris and Pete for pulling out all the stops for us.
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