Dambusters’ 70th Anniversary Flypast

Here at GLR towers we love aircraft! When the chance to see the BBMF Spitfire & Lancaster at Derwent reservoir presented itself, we couldn’t resist! The occasion was the 70th anniversary of ‘Operation Chastise‘.

As usual we spent quite a while planning (dithering) on how we would mount our campaign. An early start was in order so we decided such a hardship should be rewarded by a cooked breakfast! Anyhow we left Chez Modchop around 06:15 and arrived at the Upper Derwent Visitor Centre  around 08:15. We managed to get to the car park just as the last space was taken. The kind parking marshal directed us to the road and parked us there. Time for breakfast so we set up our ‘camp’ and got breakfast on the go…

It wasn’t long before we’d cooked breakfast and swilled down several cups of tea. Now it was time to head for the dam…

We plonked ourselves down facing the dam wall. We figured this would be a good dramatic spot to watch the mighty Lancaster to fly over. I hindsight I think we would have been better either high up on the hill or downstream of the dam in the valley.

The flypast consisted of 3 runs by the Lancaster and Spitfire and 2 runs by the 617 Sqn Tornados. The photos below aren’t taken by me they belong to the eagle eye of Mr Modchop

For some more amazing photos of the flypast, take a look at Clare Scott’s Photography page After it was all over, we went back to the car and it took us the best part of an hour to drive from the dam back down to the main road. We then went to Hathersage where I managed to lose the Freelander key fob. I eventually found it bizarrely and by total fluke down a drain!

After the stress of losing and searching for the keys there was only one thing to do! As with all GLR adventures we had to finish the day with a brew before the journey home.

Our next plane adventure has to be to go and see the Vulcan XH558 methinks!