Oh what a gaffe. The P38 was Duxford, the Mossie Barton I believe? Shame both nice planes great Airfix kit models.
By the way, did I even mention I wrote a book about my love of aviation? ;-) (True!)
I was at Cresswell Pond one day last summer trying to catch up with a hobby that had been frequenting the area for a few days. I'd seen it several times but I was wanting better views and maybe some photos. I'd seen it the day before at East Chevington and I was to see it on the following day just behind me at Druridge feeding on newly emerged dragonflies in the tree-tops in heavy rain.
I got partly lucky that day at Cresswell when the hobby flew low and close along the dunes towards me as I stood in the car park with a friend, but it turned off just before I could get the camera up. Hobbies are a rare occurrence around our parts
A strange experience had occurred a few minutes earlier - something I'd never seen in real life before. It was an apparition that I got my eye onto approaching from the north. At first I couldn't make out whether it was a group of large birds or a machine. It seemed insubstantial, but its constant speed and heading made me think of machine. Not a sea king from Boulmer, another helicopter maybe? An aircraft? It just looked strange.
It's a good job I was standing next to my car and the boot was open, because as it got closer in the few seconds when I realised what I was looking at I had time to pick my camera from the boot and fire off three or four shots before the apparition disappeared to the south.
When I looked at what I'd photographed the reason for its insubstantial appearance became clear. It was so highly polished in a gloss chrome finish that it consisted purely of reflections of the sky, the sea, the beach and even the dunes and the fields behind us.
Incredible.
It's a pity the light was so poor that day, with a heavy overcast. What would it have looked like in good sun and a blue sky? I did some googling and found out that it was on its way from a display at Sumburgh to another one down south.
Hobby shot in the rain (attacking young dragons resting in the alders - the white spots are raindrops) and 'apparition' below.