Centenary of Flight -2003 - Duxford, Cambridgeshire, UK
The Centenary airshow at Duxford was a special one for me. I was the only South African photo-journalist at the airshow respresenting South Africa and SAA. The star of the show was undoubtedly the SAA Boeing 747-400 that gave a most amazing display. It has to be the first airshow that I have attended in the UK that the crowd actually applauded after the display - on both Saturday and Sunday. Amazing! They had never seen anything quite like it and most wondered - aloud - why their own airlines could not do the same thing!! What made it even better was the commentary. Present were Brian Emmenis and Scully Levin to fill in the details for the crowd - they did a fine job. The September airshow is a very different airshow compared to Flying Legends in that the variety of aircraft is from old aircraft to modern jets and usually has the Red Arrows somewhere in the mix. For me, the Sabre was great (after the SAA 747) as I grew up in that era - I remember sitting at Swartkops and later at Waterkloof air bases and watching the SAAF Sabre's displaying. Photgraphically, this was very difficult again as it rained and I HAD to get the shot as SAA had sponsored my flights and were expecting results! When I look back on these photos, I can only marvel how much I have learnt over the years. These pics taken with my first Canon - a 10D with Canon 28 - 300mm lens. The lens was kindly loaned to me by Canon SA
