It’s been about 45 years or so since I last visited the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden Airfield, so a trip there was well overdue!!
The location and layout of the crowd line, with the sun predominantly behind you and a bend in the middle, lends itself to some great opportunities for ‘topside’ shots plus they also normally organise an evening show, during the ‘golden hour’, which provides for some great lighting.
The particpants are all older, slower moving aircraft which nonetheless has it’s challenges – I hate seeing frozen propellors!! So slower shutter speeds are the order of the day but still with longer telephotos lenses.
There are often visitors from other airfields and collections, which are parked along the crowd line, as well as some aircraft from the Shuttleworth Collection itself.
There are also about 5 hangars to walk through containing many of the aircraft and these can be quite densely positioned, making clear images difficult to obtain.
The very oldest of the aircraft include replicas built for the 1965 film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. These aircraft needs pretty much still conditions and therefore normally fly in the evening programme, although it’s not guaranteed – even a slight breeze can be enough to ground them.
I was fortunate to be there when it was still enough for the Avro Triplane to take to the air – but not quite enough for the Bristol Boxkite, which needs almost windless conditions.
It’s a lovely relaxed aatmosphere, watching older aircraft fly slowly through the summer air – definitley recommended.
