This blog is now inactive, although it won’t be deleted.

Any future aviation related entries will be posted on Flighty’s Plot.

My thanks to everyone who stopped by here, and especially to those of you who commented.

Happy sofa flying…Flighty.

I mentioned in my last entry here that my interest in aviation had waned somewhat.

However I do still have a browse through the images on Airliners.net some days.

I came across this superb shot of a wonderful Dragon Rapide the other evening.

This photo shows the unmistakable backdrop of Lancing College Chapel, which features in many photos taken at Shoreham Airport.

How about this timeless shot showing a Rapide at rest, looking skyward.

Another photo of the same aeroplane is far more atmospheric and is now my new PC desktop background.

that over the past couple of months my interest in aviation has waned somewhat, hence the lack of related entries here.

Earlier in the year I said that I would like to become a greener Flighty, and that I suppose does conflict with many aspects of aviation.

What has pleased me is the fact that I’ve recently acquired an allotment. Regular readers of any of my blogs will know that one of my few present regrets is not having a garden.

Now I have Plot 124 which I shall not only work on but blog about on Flighty’s Plot as a record, hopefully including photos, charting my progress.

It’s likely that entries here will continue to be sparse, and when they do appear may well not be anything to do with aviation.

However rest assured that I shall continue to read all my friends blogs, and comment as I have done previously.

Have a good summer…Flighty.

are due to take place over central London this weekend.

Tomorrow it will be the Queen’s Birthday flypast which will be overhead Buckingham Palace at 12 noon.

Aircraft taking part will include the Red Arrows, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, nine Typhoons, various Tornados, a Nimrod and a VC-10.

The Falklands 25th Anniversary flypast takes place on Sunday at 4.15pm, again overhead Buckingham Palace.

Aircraft will include the Red Arrows and a VC-10, a Nimrod, Dominies, Hercules and 23 various helicopters.

behind you !

The past few days have seen glorious weather here in London and I have enjoyed looking skyward at aircraft trailing white brush strokes across the sky.

I found this poem, a tanka*, which typifies that completely.

Silver aeroplane - John Foster

Silver aeroplane

Speeds across the summer sky

Leaving in its wake

Trails of vapour: white scribblings

On a page of blue paper.

A tanka* is a Japanese poem based on the haiku (see below) but with two extra lines. So the syllable pattern is now 5, 7, 5, 7, 7. The poem tries to capture the essence of a moment, usually mentioning one of the seasons in some way.

A haiku is a Japanese form of poetry, three lines in total with a 5, 7, 5 syllable structure. 17 syllables in all often writing with an illustration and usually about the seasons. The poem tries to capture a word-picture, a verbal snapshot that echos a moment of beauty.

Back in January on my Flighty blog I did an entry The little book the subject of which I have been enjoying browsing since. Last Monday I was delighted to see that the author Fia O Caoimh had stopped by and left a charming comment.

All comments are very welcome but ones like that, which are out of the blue so to speak, are especially gratifying to receive.

Fellow Platform27 blogger cha0tic said sometime back that he’d like to send me a book that he thought I’d be interested in. I gratefully received it a couple of weeks ago and I’m finding it totally fascinating.

It’s a small (6″x9″) hardback titled Britain’s Wonderful Air Force (on the spine only) with the front cover looking like this It appears to be a RAF handbook for circa late 1942 or early 1943 but is undated. This publication was almost certainly a limited. or restricted, book for Air Ministry and/or RAF use. It comprises 320 fully illustrated pages, with detailed drawings and photos, about all aspects of the RAF at that time.

I’ve never seen this publication before, or indeed one like it, and I’m finding it a thoroughly interesting book. My thanks to Cha0tic for thinking of me and generously sending it to me.

I’ve recently started reading Biggles books again!

My interest was revived when I was tidying up the children’s fiction section in the bookshop where I work part-time and came across the first Biggles story Biggles the Camels are Coming, which was first published in 1932.

Before reading it I got a copy of Biggles Learns to Fly which I read first. I found both to be cracking good reads and I’ve got Biggles of the Fighter Squadron to read next.

I tended to read these when I went to bed and found that I went to sleep dreaming of aerial adventures and derring-do!

When my friend Jim, also a lifelong aviation enthusiast, heard what I was reading he firstly asked if he could borrow them when I’d read them and then lent me a copy of A Brief History of The Royal Flying Corps in World War 1 by Ralph Barker. This I’m finding to be an absorbing factual account of the flying war over France and the courageous bird-men.

by Timothy S. Bastian, pilot, aircraft mechanic and flight instructor, who flies aerobatics, seaplanes and tail wheel aircraft. He wrote it in 1997, and it is my favourite aviation poem.

I dance through the sky on shining red wings,

I loop and I roll and do other such things;

And when I’m up here I have not a care,

for here I belong I’m at peace in the air;

The blue and the green of the earth dance before me,

as good friends look up to see me performing;

This dance that I do for people to see,

takes lots of hard work but it’s all fun to me;

So when I come down just ask me to dance,

we’ll waltz through the clouds if you just take the chance.

I like this layout for its clean look and colours. The white curve on the blue header reminds me of an aircraft contrail, which goes with the byline that I often use…Looking skyward.

The links shown under Flight crew are to my other blogs, Sofa flyers are blog friends and High flyers are aviation related.

I may make further changes, and will add more links, in due course but for the moment I’m happy with this new blog…FlightBuff

was my original blog elsewhere which had been dormant for some time and now deleted.

I want to retain the FlightBuff name hence this new blog, although I’m also to be found as Flighty elsewhere.

That original one was mostly about aviation, which has been one of my lifelong interests, and entries here will reflect that, although not exclusively.