Little Gransden to Duxford

[Bomber_12th]

I set up a little formation flight from the airfield at Little Gransden, with a short hop to Duxford that turned into almost an hour of flying. : )

I hope you enjoy the screenshots!

"Blasting off" as leader of the two-ship. The runway is rather short at Little Gransden, but Mustangs do operate from it on an annual basis, with an air show that takes place at the airfield every summer. I decided to use a little bit of flap to provide an extra ounce of lift, and with the Merlin producing 55-inches MP it was no problem at all, with plenty of runway to spare.

Circling the field and forming up. The following screenshots were taken while conducting various orbits around the English countryside, just outside the city of Cambridge.

 

[Bomber_12th]

Finally calling an end to the flight, the two-ship passes over Duxford, with the following shot taken just before the formation break-to-landing.

Turning final...

...and over the threshold (I over-shot by a bit, but the length of Duxford's main runway makes it a non-issue).

Taxiing in.

 

[Bomber_12th]

Also at Duxford, you never know what you might find hiding behind the next corner, always making that next trip worth it. ; )

 

[TuFun]

Once more John, beautiful Mustangs... your Mustangs are truly a masterpiece!!!

 

[Bomber_12th]

Thank you Ted!

And I don't really mean to post these screenshots as any kind of advertisement/promotion, I just thought perhaps the flight/screenshots turned out rather nicely. Hopefully it provides some inspiration for others to go out and do some similar flying - it doesn't matter the aircraft-choice!

 

[TuFun]

Please continue to post John... these are really spectacular pics! By the way, like the bigger posts I've seen elsewhere.

 

[Bomber_12th]

Thank you, Ted, and I agree that it would be nice (probably for most folks) if the image size restriction on the SOH forums was increased a bit - not to absurd dimensions, but perhaps a width restriction at 1400 pixels, rather than the 800 that it is now. At least I think the vast majority of member's screen resolutions, today, can view that size just fine. It is quite a difference in being able to 'see' the screenshots for what they can really show/provide, when at full, or at least larger, resolution. Although I have probably mentioned enough times as is, I always encourage anyone to open my screenshots, and other's, into separate web pages/tabs, in order to see them as they were meant to be seen.

In other interesting flight news, last night I took a trip from Duxford in "Hurry Home Honey", and flew due east, until I arrived at and over-flew the remains of the former airfield at Leiston, where the 357th FG was based during the war, which lies quite close to the eastern coast of England. Unfortunately I didn't take any screenshots, but it was an awesome experience, especially as I use the VFR Generation-X photo scenery, and I had yet to fly-to/over-fly Leiston before.

Here are a few more shots of "Miss Helen", if anyone is interested. "Miss Helen" has been another of my long-time favorite historical schemes, and I used as many photos as I could find of the original, to try and reproduce the original aircraft as it was (Of course this actual aircraft flies today, in the same markings it wore during WWII, but there are various details in the paint currently applied to the aircraft, which is not quite correct - and it has a silver-painted finish today, rather than its original bare-metal finish. I couldn't find any good period photos of the name artwork on the nose, so that is the only element copied from the aircraft today.)

 

[Greenhouse357]

Great shots and paints John! FS Recorder?

 

[c87]

Great shots John. In reference to Greenhouse357's question, what do you use for formation flying?

 

[Bomber_12th]

As Bob suggested, I use FS Recorder. Although time-consuming to setup, as you have to record each aircraft individually, I do enjoy the individual challenges of making sure to keep a steady/smooth lead with the first recording, and then flying as the right or left wing, to try and keep a good hold on the lead aircraft (recording) at all times. It really gets interesting when mixing 3 or more aircraft into the bunch! The over-all end goal for me, however, is to try and shoot some interesting screenshots of some scenarios, that don't typically happen/are rare to see in FS, because they aren't the easiest to make happen, nor take good screenshots of, but are scenarios that are played out time and time again in real-world warbird operations.

The screenshots themselves were taken, in large part, not through using spot view, but utilizing, and adjusting from, the various external camera definition point pre-sets, which allow for far more interesting angles/views, as the cameras can be moved up, down, left and right, as well as rotated, all independently, basically turning into a camera that could be positioned in another aircraft, or on the ground, rather than fixated on/to the aircraft itself, and the aircraft no longer has to be dead-center in the shot all the time.