Spitfire, Hurricane, Lancaster....

...over the Purbeck hills, taken from Boscombe Cliffs, part of the excellent, free Bournemouth Air Festival, 2013.

Overcame my lurgy, queued for buses, jostled with tens of thousands of spectators, fired off over a thousand basic jpegs + RAWS (29gb), used the Sigma 150-500mm entirely, mostly handheld and mostly at 500mm.

Despite the jets, (Red Arrows don't fly the Sunday) the 'other' aircraft, the Chinook, the Air and Sea Rescue demos, somehow, whatever age you are, whoever you ask and chat to, 9 times out of ten, it is the classic 'Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight' that stirs the blood and the passion. I didn't have any really good close-ups of the trio - either too close, with this lens, planes are either pin-heads or overspilling the frame too close, so chose the rolling hills of Purbeck as a backdrop for them.

I really liked the way the Lancaster has caught the light and to re-enact a flight from the Battle of Britain, I even cloned out the giant radio masts on the hill! How about that for attention to detail! Try a CLOSER look...

No, I haven't looked through 98% of all the pics, the majority will just end up on a giant external hard drive, but for the officially first day of autumn, I got nicely sunburnt, had views from The Needles and Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, Hengistbury Head and over the Swanage and Old Harry Rocks. I'm so glad that I made the effort, the aching muscles I shall have in the morning from bench-pressing my enormous 2.5kg lens for half a day, the hassles with full buses and (but which yielded good conversations about photography, Blip (of course!) and aircraft.

I hope that you feel both nostalgic - and proud - on seeing these old beauties commanding the English countryside!