Too Much Excitement for One Day

Living, as I do, quite close to a civil aerodrome belonging to a 'major player' in the 'defence industry' and just a very few miles from [what is only just] an international airport, I've had to overcome my inner schoolboy and no longer dash outside every time an aircraft flies overhead (at my age): almost always the source of excitement is a Typhoon or a budget airline Boeing and one can only see so many before complacency sets in. This afternoon, therefore, I ignored the roar of a low flying piston engined aeroplane until I realised, as it disappeared into the distance that it was powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin. Happily it has made several passes overhead since the early afternoon and I've had an opportunity to see a Hawker Hurricane, a sight I've seen only once, or at most twice, before. High above the Hurricane were the vapour trails of jet airliners criss-crossing the sky, a reminder that the eight gun fighter was originally conceived and developed as the only effective means of intercepting and destroying the heavy bombers of the day, according to John Terraine, in his book The Right of The Line.

There's never a dull moment in Lytham.