The sky’s the limit for the Festival of Flight.

With dazzling displays of airborne aerobatics and breathtaking pyrotechnics, it’s all eyes skywards at London Biggin Hill Airport this weekend.

This year, the Red Arrows will top the bill, while history will be recreated in the air as the Avro Lancaster bomber, supported by the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire, take to the skies.

In all, some 20 historic to state-of-the-art craft will be wowing the crowds, expected to be in the thousands.

The Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team – the Red Arrows – will be flying overhead at top speeds, bringing their colourful display back to Kent, in the afternoon.

The world famous Breitling Wingwalking team will be entertaining spectators.

Emily Guilding, 30, and Florence Rolleston-Smith, 22, will experience G-forces of plus 4 and minus 2 as they perform their 20-minute sequence from the top wing of a 1940s Boeing Stearman biplane.

They’ll be in safe hands as at the controls will be director of flying Martyn Carrington. David Barrell, now in his eighth year as a team pilot, will be flying the lead aircraft.

The wingwalkers are secured to the wing with a sophisticated rig that employs a military-style 5-point harness. This allows them full freedom to safely perform handstands by swivelling in the rig and climbing around the aircraft against considerable wind pressure, at the same time waving to their audience. Marvel as they loop the loop at speeds of 150mph.

The festival has a tradition of impressive pyrotechnics and this year specialist company Event Horizon, who provide special effects for blockbuster films, including the James Bond series, will be making sparks fly.

The Army Air Corp’s Apache attack helicopter role demo will be one of the two displays lighting up the sky, staging a realistic simulated attack using a 30mm gun, rocket strikes and a Hellfire missile launch.

Organiser Colin Hitchins said: “We want the display to be as exciting and photogenic as possible as it will be fully in context with what the Apache can achieve in its operational military role.

“It is a hawkish-looking machine, the best description is that it is a well-armed flying tank.”
But the second craft using pyrotechnics is being kept under wraps until the day.

DETAILS

The Festival of Flight is on Saturday, June 11, at Biggin Hill Airport, Biggin Hill, TN16 3BH.
Gates open at 9.30am. Tickets are £19.50 for ages 16 and over. Under-16s are free when accompanied by a paying adult (up to a maximum of two). Tickets will not be available on the day.

The Red Arrows will perform in the afternoon and tribute bands will play into the early evening. To book and for more details visit bhfof.com or call 01689 300005.

THE HERITAGE HANGAR

Young pilots diced with death in them and, 70 years on, their impact on both our country and our county’s history is no less awesome. We took a trip to Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar to see the past in the present.

The roar of a Spitfire overhead is still something to stop us in our tracks.

So to see several gleaming examples looking as good as new together in one place, as they would have been in the Second World War, is a breathtaking sight.

It’s something that draws people of all ages to the Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar every day.

Not since the 1950s has the hangar, on the site of a wartime airfield that is now an airport, housed a full squadron of aircraft. But don’t think it’s a dusty museum – some planes are in full working order and head out into the Kentish skies regularly, while others are in the process of restoration.

The hangar is home to seven flying Spitfires; they sit alongside a Hurricane and a German Messerschmitt.

However, pride of place is the Spirit of Kent, a Mark 9 that is a regular at events such as the Kent County Show. It is one of only 29 flying Spitfires and four Hurricanes left in the UK.

The doors of the plane have been signed by war veterans, bringing home to visitors to Biggin Hill the fact that the young pilots who took to the skies in the Spirit of Kent and similar aircraft were names and not numbers.

Nippy in the air alongside its less manoeuvrable mate the Hurricane, the Spitfire helped win the Battle of Britain and was a regular feature over the skies of Kent for many years.

Today the hangar provides enthusiasts the chance to fly in a Spitfire at heights of 3,500ft, something that those who try it can only describe as awesome.

Visitors can also see the planes in situ and watch them being worked on as the hangar is also home to the country’s foremost plane restoration company, the Spitfire Company.

Engineer Dick Sanders said: “It can take three years for us to complete a project. Most of us have picked it up through working with other experienced people, it’s the way to learn. Although all the manuals are still here, too. Everything is in pristine order.”

Project manager Paul Ager added: “You do have to be a bit of an enthusiast to some extent to do this, we all are. Everyone is really impressed when you tell them what you do.”

To book a visit, tour or a flight, visit bigginhillheritagehangar.co.uk or flyaspitfire.co.uk or call 01959 576767.

THE HISTORY

Biggin Hill became a defensive airfield during the First World War as it was well sited for the defence of the capital.

In December 1917 a detachment from No.39 Squadron arrived, joined later by No.141 Squadron.

In 1932 it became a fighter station equipped to combat the threat of another German war.
In 1939 the Hurricanes were stationed there, but it wasn’t until 1940 that No.610 (County of Chester) Auxiliary Squadron brought the first Spitfires to the airfield. With the Battle of Britain raging, summer 1940 saw several heavy enemy attacks that left the airfield almost unserviceable.

When the Battle of Britain ended a few months later, it was the Biggin Hill squadrons that carried the war back to Europe.

Now a civil airport, Biggin Hill’s wartime memories remain in the form of St George’s Chapel, which is flanked by a Hurricane and a Spitfire.