My dream at the end of this journey/project was to have the aircraft photographed in the air by Ed Hicks.
Ed is a professional photographer and I have always admired his aviation work and I have usually been able to look at a photo and say "that is an Ed Hicks photo". I contacted Ed some months before and asked to commission him to capture the end of my journey. When it came to the price Ed said "you've helped me with your website [Ed is building an 8] so if you can collect and deliver me I'll do it for free" - an offer I could not refuse!
Wind forward to today and I flew down to Garston Farm near junction 18 of the M4 and find a friendly smooth strip and even better a local tea shop that had the mother of all Rocky Road cakes! Suitably refuelled Ed climbed in with his cameras and we rendevouzed with Barry Gwynnett, an RV-8 pilot from Swansea. I had flown some formation practice sorties the previous week and so we joined up and Ed took some lovely photos of Barry's 8.
We had planned to do a sunset shoot but a squall beat us so we retired to the bar in our house and entertained the photo shoot crew for the evening...........
