Kirkbride Airfield in Cumbria opened its doors to the public for the first-time post Covid and we saw the return of the popular Open Day & Fly In. Though I’m sure many casual readers may have never heard of Kirkbride Airfield, but it is a popular stopping off point in the General Aviation world as the last stop before heading out to the western isles of Scotland which is a remarkably popular destination in the light aviation sector.
The driving force behind the Kirkbride Open Day over at least the last 30+ years has been John Plaskett, however before the event he let it be known to us that he was retiring and this would be his final event, so the pressure was on the small team to try and pull out all the stops to make this one a bit special.
Over the years we have managed to build up quite a good relationship with owners of some notable aircraft, one of those notable airshow names is Bob Davy who loves coming up north from his base at White Waltham, usually twice a year Bob and a gaggle of his friends from the West London Aero Club come north on an expedition to the western isles of Scotland and use Kirkbride as a handy stop off. On hearing of our Open Day, he was happy to add this to his diary and bring up his Ukrainian marked YAK-3 - a great start to what would be a bumper fly-in event.
A notable first for us came soon after, we received a phone call from none other than Mark Hooten who was very keen to bring his Staverton based de Havilland Vampire T.11 up for a weekend away. We needed to provide a few specific things for the jet to appear, but we were determined to make this work. It’s also worth noting that this Vampire was originally restored by the nearby Solway Aviation Museum at Carlisle Airport during the seventies and eighty’s and was the first classic jet to be placed on the UK register.
Another member of Kirkbride's small team is our resident Autogyro instructor, aswell as our supplier of Jet A1 fuel; Chris Jones. Now, over a number of years Chris has got to know our friends at ‘Huey 509’ - operators of the venerable, Vietnam veteran Bell UH-1 Huey, and after a few phone calls back-and-forth we had this iconic and acoustically distinctive helicopter in the world heading to Kirkbride. Not seen that often on the airshow circuit these days, it was a treat to have this airframe participate in the fly-in.
So, with a few star items heading to Kirkbride it was time to add some meat to the bones, over several months I must have been in contact with many owners, asking, begging, pleading to try and get a decent turn out for the day. It has to be said that the GA community are a really kind, and very decent bunch who, even if they were unable to come this time, wished us luck, would spread the word, and hoped that they would be able to attend in future years.
Over the subsequent few months of planning we were able to add a few more Yak’s to the ‘we’ll come’ list, along with other notables including an Xtremair XA-41, Extra NG, Pitts Specials, an unusual W.A.R half-scale FW-190 replica, Titan T-51 Mustang replica, a couple of Christen Eagle aerobatic aircraft, SIAI Marchetti SF260 courtesy of Paul Freeland, de Havilland Chipmunks, Scottish Aviation Bulldogs and Taylorcraft Auster- the list was incredible for a little event in Cumbria. The scene was set, all we needed was a nice sunny day or as we call it in Cumbria, a miracle!
So, as it turns out miracles do occasionally happen (even in Cumbria). Sunday May 28th dawned bright and sunny with fantastic weather not just in the north but across most of the UK. With the great weather both the aforementioned star item Vampire and Yak-3 had decided to come up on the Saturday and make a weekend of it. Also turning up on the Saturday was Paul Freeland with his immaculate SIAI Marchetti SF260 – the Ferrari of the skies, as it is often referred. After a slow start to the day, the arrivals started in earnest, and there was a constant stream for around 3 hours with very little time for rest bite. Obviously, there was a good turn out of the usual suspects Cessnas, Pipers, Vans RV’s and a wide range of various microlights such as Eurostars, Eurofox and C42 Ikarus – the types many of the more exotic type owners would have flown before their current mounts.
As the day went on, it was amazing to see the months of hard work by our small team paying off as aircraft of all shapes and sizes from as far away as Aberdeen and Sandown making the trip to our corner of Cumbria. We had a great turn out from Blackpool with many different types making the trip north, in particular there was great support from High G flight training who flew up with their Scottish Aviation Bulldog, Pitts Special, Robin, Slingsby T67 and a Cessna for the day, a fantastic effort! We also had a big turnout from Prestwick, and a mention must go to Beverley too, leading the pack was Alex Wordsworth with that cool Titan T-51 Mustang, once again many thanks to all at Beverley who came to support the 2023 event.
Of course, you never really know exactly what might just decide to quickly visit on the day and we were all surprised to see a DH-87b Hornet Moth G-AHBM join the circuit. This example made in 1935 was great to see in it’s silver finish and looked stunning in the Cumbrian sunshine. Another classic that looked at home on our grass was the DHC-1 Chipmunk owned by Ken Large, this was the third example to enter the UK from Canada and is the oldest flying Chipmunk in the world, it came over from Fishburn and spent a few hours sunbathing at Kirkbride.
At 2pm we had arranged a little surprise for our retiring airfield coordinator, with thanks to Bob Stinger of Skybanner we had a banner reading “JP Loved by all, you will be missed” looking round the airfield there were a few suffering with bad hayfever at that moment!
Following this there was of course the start of departures, if you’ve never been to a large fly in it’s quite a sight to have a large number of aircraft leave in couple of hours, credit must go to our new lady on the radio Klare Hodgson who managed to get everyone in and out safely on the day. With the final departures being Bob Davy in the Yak-3 and Paul and Mark with the SF260 and Vampire respectively, that concluded this years event, with blistering sunshine and a record turn out both in the air (at least 103 arrivals) and on the ground the feedback has been fantastic so this may have been John Plasketts final Fly In but will it be Kirkbrides? We’ll have to wait and see!
*As this is an in-house review, it would be bias to rate the event as with other reviews.
Words and Photos by Chris Gurney
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