Colonial Flying Corps New Garden, PA June 14, 2009

Photography and Brief by Rich Kolasa

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  Each of the last 37 years, the Colonial Flying Corps Museum has put on a one-day airshow in mid-June at a classic American small airfield just north of Wilmington, DE. Nestled in the beautiful farmland about 45 minutes west of Philadelphia just off Route 1 in Toughkenamon, PA, New Garden Airport is home to well-known airshow performer Matt Chapman, former “flying farmer” Roger Lehnert, and the DuPont family (who recently sold their long-owned FM-2 Wildcat to Jerry Yagen in Virginia).

 

  This year’s weather was changeable early, but the skies opened up to bright blue skies and puffy white clouds by late morning. The airshow itself blends a nice range of performances, from large-scale RC models to the roar of the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum’s B-25 “Briefing Time”, which is a staple at this event. Joining the Mitchell this year was the rare Commemorative Air Force’s Dixie Wing’s SBD Dauntless, which also did some rides after the show.
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  After the morning featuring a pancake breakfast, car show, fly-ins and helicopter rides had completed, the field closed and the RC modelers strutted their stuff, including some eye-opening ¼ scale aerobatics complete with smoke systems and two rather pricey jet aircraft doing passes at over 100 mph.

 

  The flying at New Garden was top flight too, with Kevin Russo in his SNJ, local jumpers showing the crowd some precision skydiving, and local “L-bird” and trainer warbirds doing their usual impressive passes. Matt Chapman then performed after returning from his Ocean City, MD performance earlier that day!
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  Also at New Garden 2009 was NJANG F-16 pilot Josh Wilson making his airshow debut flying a YAK and Kendal Simpson flying his Pitts, which is dedicated to his late wife Erica Simpson, (she was lost in an accident at the Reno Air Races last year).

 

  Unfortunately this year’s show had a slightly smaller aircraft list, as Terry Rush’s serious accident earlier this year resulted in the loss of the TBM Avenger that usually attended this show, as well as forcing the cancellation of the Corsair “Marine’s Dream” also from collector Tom Duffy’s fleet. Performer Ron “Dr. Smoke” Saglimbene too had to cancel his appearance, as his SF.260 had a mechanical issue back in NJ.

 

  The grand finale of the show was the “big iron” flight, with Russ Strine and Jim Buckley (in the B-25 and SBD respectively) really showing the crowd some impressive flying. The tight turns of the Mitchell over the trees and the descending passes of the Dauntless were fantastic photo opportunities.

 

  After the show, I was privileged to do some air-to-air with local warbird restoration expert Mark Denest, who was flying Bob Craig’s spectacular PT-26 (one of many Denest restorations that have flown at this event). John Seidts graciously offered to fly his L-5 as the photo-ship, so after a long briefing we went up and found some holes in the increasing clouds for some nice images of the brightly-painted PT-26.