Battle of Britain Day

Went over to watch the Flying Heritage Collection’s Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire fly on their “Battle of Britain” day last Saturday. It was just spitting (appropriate weather for the occasion), but I took the Triumph anyway, to make short work of the long summer ferry lines (motorcycles are allowed to bypass the queue). This proved to be a soggy decision when the skies opened in earnest on the ride back. (“Bah, I won’t need rain gear” was my thought before departing the house. Oops.)

I opted to not pay for museum admission this time ’round, as I’ve been in a couple of times recently–I was on the other side of the chainlink with the hoi polloi.

The Daytona–parked here by the fueling shed, which would be a suicidal place to park the BSA–is not running well at low speeds. Best guess is a coil pack on the fritz. The bike runs well above 3,000 RPM but is misfiring on a cylinder below that, intermittently (which, oddly enough, doesn’t trigger the “check engine” light). It makes slow speed riding a chore. Hopefully should have it sorted out soon.

What a great pair of airplanes! The Spitfire is a prettier and more capable aircraft, but I find the Hurricane my favorite, for no reason I can articulate. The Collection doesn’t scratch fly days unless the cloud ceiling is below about 1000 feet–though I suppose if it was tanking down or there were high winds, that would also keep the planes inside the hangar.

They ferried the pilots out to the aircraft in this very nice MG YT, which is probably a ’49. I guess MG was ready to introduce the “Y” series just before the war when Hitler put the kibosh on that, so it’s reasonably appropriate. I think we can all agree the wheels are a sign the owner possesses sublime taste.