20200308-MMPI0065 - Clifton Fly-in
Sunday 8th March 2020 I made the trip with a couple of fellow aviation buddies to Clifton Aerodrome, about 2.5 hours south-west of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. The event was the annual Lone Eagle Flying School fly-in, where local pilots fly in for breakfast, to catch up with their friends in the flying fraternity and of course talk all things aviation. Clifton provides a lovely rural backdrop to the grass strip with croplands on the rich volcanic black soil of the region. Some nice vintage arrivals included a pair of Cessna 190/195A Businessliners, my first sighting of these lovely 1940/1950s era radial-engined classics. Other vintage attendees included a Cessna 170A, Cessna 140, a pair of de Havilland DH.60M Metal Moths, a de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk and while it isn't actually a vintage aircraft, a beautifully-presented 1920s-styled homebuilt Great Lakes Aircraft Company 2T-1A biplane. A pair of Robinson R44 helicopters and an ex-Swiss Air Force Agusta-Bell 206 Jetranger were nice to see amongst the fixed-wing aircraft. Flightscope Aviation brought their Extra EA-300 aerobatic aircraft along, performing a fast missed approach and hard pull-up after takeoff. Also on hand was a beautiful Supamarine Spitfire Type 300 3/4 scale replica, painted in the same "cerulean blue" scheme as the original prototype and wearing the registration 19-5054 (the prototype was K5054). This very slick little aircraft is owned by a local commercial aviation captain, has been fitted with some actual original Spitfire instruments, switches and pitot tube head and looks fabulous. This was an excellent day out with a couple of like-minded mates, a beautiful scenic location with nice light and weather and some wonderful aircraft on hand. It's really nice at these smaller events to get up close to the aircraft, it certainly presents great photo opportunites.
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