PITTS SPECIAL

During a particularly ridiculous blokey pub conversation once, I remember saying that two favourite noises of mine were "An outside generator" and "A Bi-plane carrying out aerobatics"...

These were two of the slightly more left field suggestions, I admit, but there is personal reasoning behind them.

Generally, if I hear either of these noises, it means I'm outside, its probably a sunny summers day, and I dare say I'm at an event of sorts, almost certainly with a beer and burger in my hands - now that's heaven to me.

What with the Reading Festival on this weekend, what with the weather being beautiful this morning, and what with the huge park on the Thames next to the office turned into a carpark complete with burger vans etc... the noise of outside generators is in the air outside the office.

Not only that, there is the noise of a plane carrying out some pretty impressive aerobatics high in the sky about a mile away.

I looked for it on a quick walk along the river (I'm at work this morning) and watched a fantastic PITTS SPECIAL Biplane loop-the-loop for a few minutes in the very blue morning sky.

Pitts specials were first designed in 1944 and versions of them are still being built today! It is regarded as the benchmark by which all aerobatic planes (bi-planes in particular) are measured against.

I haven't been to many airshows - just one if I remember correctly, at Duxford in the early 1980's, but I do like to watch bi-planes in aerobatic flights - I know each flight will be choreographed perfectly and taken very seriously I'm sure, but to me, watching far below, an aerobatics flight looks like flying for the sheer joy of it all, and I really appreciate that...


NB.26/08/07.
Yesterday evening brought home to me what I've been missing this summer. A glorious evening, with hot air balloons, sparrowhawks and two helium balloons (very high), drifting across the warm, pale blue sky. Now that's summer!