The planes! The planes!

Today is Armistice Day. I’ve been to the battlefields of Passchendaele and Gallipoli. Standing there on that ground, you can’t help but get somewhat emotional and even now when I think about it, the same emotions come over me. ANZAC Day has more importance here as our remembrance day, but Armistice Day certainly isn’t overlooked. So to remember this year, a group of us headed to down to Cambridge for the Armistice in Cambridge show as part of our personal remembrance. The theme at the show would be the War in the Pacific and the events were spread over two days.

Before I get into the show, I thought I would post this picture. It has always had a lot of meaning for me. It was taken as the sun set over ANZAC Cove on 24th April 2010, just as I was starting my volunteer work there.

Lest we forget.

 

Now on to the show…. it was a mix of static displays, re-enactments and aerial displays. Of course, we were mainly there for the aircraft :)

The weather had been somewhat dubious during the week, but cleared up for the weekend (so it seemed in Auckland anyway…..). Arriving in Cambridge, we found the weather was somewhat overcast, but it eventually burnt off and the sun certainly started to heat up. The cloud cover made for some interesting photography though.

After standing between Rob and Lee at Classic Fighters and feeling somewhat inadequate was the whole reason why I got my nice new camera – to take pictures of aeroplanes! I’d been looking forward to this :) So…. without further ado, on to the pics from the show!

THE PLANES

 

First up was the Boeing Stearman

     

 

Then came the L-4 Grasshopper…

    

 

Next was the Tiger Moth…. who started of with a very impressive feat of flying. According to the commentary, very few pilots are actually qualified (let alone skilled enough) to do this:

   

 

From here, the pilot put on a great show in a great little aircraft. This included a stunt known as the “Falling Leaf”. The stunt was hard to capture in pictures, but is basically a stall where the plane falls, well, like a leaf. Anyway some more pictures of the Tiger Moth:

    

An airshow wouldn’t be complete without some crazy stunt pilot. This guy is around 70yrs of age… Here’s the Pitts Special doing its thing:

      

Then along came one of the main stars of the show…...the P-40 Kittyhawk! This photo turned out just perfect:


A few more…. the “Roar of the Kittyhawk”

 

 

It’s always impressive to see and Frank Parker flies it well.

But…. the Kittyhawk was followed up by that magnificent sound of a merlin engine as Graeme Bethell roared through fast and low. Bought back some memories of sitting in the back of it for my own flight earlier in the year!

 

Initially, I didn’t like this one, but the more I look at it…. the more I like it, even though I haven’t quite got the positioning right.

Same with this one…. can’t really see much detail on the P-51, but thought it gave a nice silhouette look:

The DC-3 also made a short appearance…

And with an even shorter appearance…. the RNZAF P-3 Orion (good to see Steve has been busy). With only one pass and lots of dark cloud the photos didn’t turn out very well….

The Grumman Avenger was supposed to flying up from Christchurch on the Sunday and this was one of the other aircraft we were keen to see. Bad weather between Christchurch and Cambridge meant this flight had to be cancelled. Disappointing as it also didn’t make it to Classic Fighters. No doubt we will see it at some point though.

THE RE-ENACTMENTS

 

The other big draw card for this event were the various re-enactments with quite a range being organised. Huge round of applause to all the re-enactors who put all this together… not only the battles, but all the equipment and display camps etc. Very impressive to see. I’ll just put a few photos of the battles up as I’m hoping to get some software later in the week to play around with turning some of the photos into black and white.

Romans or Norsemen:

 

NZ Wars – Militia Armed Constabulary:

Boer War – NZ Mounted Rifles come to the rescue of a British supply camp:

WW1 – ANZAC forces land at Gallipoli (Steam Pinnaces were used to tow the boats with the troops into shore for a landing, similar to what was done during the actual Gallipoli landings:

WW2 – Russian Front:

WW2 – Western Front:

WW2 – The Pacific Theatre:

Off course there’s always one…. funny looking “weapon” that US Marine is aiming in the background…..

Lots of great explosions and general pyrotechnics all round :)

 

THE DISPLAYS, THE PEOPLE, THE VEHICLES

 

Just a selection of pics from the various re-enactor camps and of the vehicles around the place. I tried getting a little creative in places… :)

 

THE MODELS ON DISPLAY

 

Basically just works of art…. if only my modeling skills were as good! The photos are a little dark as I hadn’t turned the flash power back up, but really needed a tripod for some decent photos.

 

Overall, it was pretty good weekend and $20 well spent ($10 entry each day) for a full days entertainment. Had thought there would be more vehicles there, but not sure they’re allowed after previous noise complaints? May have that wrong though. Event seemed a little disorganised, but the the weather disrupting the flights seemed to be handled okay. Oh, and what happened to the firing of the 25 pounder!?!?

Would we go back…. well for the cost and the fact its not far away, then most definitely.

Would definitely recommend popping in next year if you’re interested. Enjoy and look out for some more pics later in the week.

Hang ‘Em High!

Sunday again today. That means it’s gaming day! :)

 

After a long week (even though it was a short week) and still only really feeling somewhat more alive after being ill earlier in the week, it was nice to just have a pretty relaxing day.

 

So it was back to normal with a good solid Sunday morning in the free weights room at the gym followed by packing the car up to head out for some quiet & relaxing games.

 

When I arrived, Mark and Rob were still playing a game of Malifaux. It’s game I’ve been curious about, but have never played. So… it was interesting to watch, although I had no idea what was going on. I think Rob shot Mark’s force to pieces though :) Here’s some pics:

 

I’d brought my Legends of the Old West models along as I’ve been keen to photograph them amongst Mark’s western buildings. So after the game of Malifaux, Rob and I had a game of Old West. To make the game more interesting, we decided to play a scenario and picked “Hang Em High”. As my gang are Lawmen, I had to be the defender and ensure that the dirty ol’ Mexican we pinched from Mark’s posse was gonna swing for his crimes!
 

My Lawman gang consists off:

 

Sheriff w\ Six-gun & Repeating Rifle

2 Deputies w\ Repeating Rifles

2 Vigilantes w\ Six-guns

Vigilante w\ Shotgun

2 Citizens w\ Six-guns

The intent of the force is to maximise the Lawmen’s shooting ability and try to avoid close combat. So far, I think the repeating rifle is better that a normal rifle due to being able to shoot every turn even if the range is shorter. In a campaign I’d be looking for scopes early on!
 

So the game was set-up, Seems some local Apache were on hand with some of the Mexican posse to see the bad man hang (we had to find 12 models to act as local townsfolk!). The Lawmen set-up around the buildings behind the gallows.

 

But… soon a rival posse arrived at the train station, hell bent on stopping the hanging! Cowgirls to save the day…

The Lawmen move up to take a defensive position while local townsfolk move up to the gallows to get a much better view. The Cowgirls make a beeline straight down the road using the buildings for cover. All whilst some Soiled Dove wanders right down the middle of the road!?!

 

As the Cowgirls move closer, they start to exchange fire with the Lawmen, but shooting is pretty useless from both sides (if they actually even managed to hit!). Even at point blank range! But…. shooting from the roof of a building sees off the shotgun Vigilante while one of the Cowgirls also bites the dust.

The Soiled Dove wanders right up to the gallows. Then Rob found out her Saturday night special wasn’t going to be able to cut the rope….. so she shot one of my Citizens instead.

Just as another Vigilante gets somewhat “distracted” by another Cowgirl in an outfit all too revealing for the Old West… the hesitation sees him fall to a fusillade of bullets (the Cowgirl fanned her six-gun).

But time is running out. Execution time draws near (turn 8 of 10)…. so the Cowgirls have little choice. One of the girls with a rifle carefully lines up the rope around the Mexican’s neck….

….. and fires! Hitting the Mexican squarely in the head cheating the hangman. But also failing to save the Mexican! (A 6 was required to cut the rope… a roll of 1 would hit the person being hung. Guess what Rob rolled…. :) ). So, in a way, the Lawmen win.

After that we decided to leave the table set-up and give Malifaux another go. This time with all 3 of us playing so I could see what it was like. Don’t ask me what the forces were. I have no idea. Maybe Rob or Mark will comment (hint… hint…). All I know is that I had the same force that Rob had fielded earlier in the day.

Rob had some tiny little things in his force. They didn’t look so tough, so I headed towards his force to try taking them on first. I left my dynamite wielding loco behind to hold off Marks force.

 

Mark moved his basic troops up close together. Perfect for a stick of dynamite :)

It didn’t kill them, but oh well. A tiny tot thing moved up to engage one of my other dudes, whilst Mark’s master dealt with my dynamite dude.

My master popped out to have a crack at Rob’s master whilst Mark’s master tried sneaking up behind my master (follow all that? :) ) Here’s a picture:

I certainly put some hurt on Rob’s master, but Mark’s moved up and nearly dealt to mine. Next turn I returned the favour…

With all 3 of our masters hurting… it was going to be close. Some crazy spell shenanigans allowed Rob to deal with one of my other dudes. This gave a tiny tot a clear run to Mark’s master….

But then… my master shoots Mark’s master in the face killing her. Rob’s master then kills my master. One of my remaining dudes kills Rob’s master :) I have no idea who won after all that. Or what was happening for most of the game too be honest. Still…. it was interesting and the use of cards rather than dice creates an interesting dynamic. Good fun.

Since it was late by the end of that…. it was time to go. Ardmore Airport just happens to be on the way home….. I popped in there to see what was flying and get some practice for next weekend :). Had we been able to finish our game 30mins or so earlier then I would have seen this take off:

Just too far away for photographs by the time I got the camera out. I did get a slightly better photo once it had landed:

But I did get a couple of cool photos of some other aircraft taking off (directly overhead in one case):

    

Until next time. Ciao for now.