Eyes to the Sky

By Michael Flaherty

MORE than 6,000 people attended Warbirds Over Scone on Sunday with what proved to be trying windy conditions for some of the aircraft.

On display were military, civil, aerobatic and fire fighting aircraft with four hours of flying displays in the sky above Scone.

Paul Bennett of Paul Bennett Air Shows from Newcastle was pleased with the event despite some of the aircraft being grounded by wind.

The flying display ended with three war birds flying the man missing formation as a tribute to Col Pay, an Australian aviation icon who passed in 2007 in a plane crash and was instrumental in establishing war birds in Scone, a role his son Ross has now taken on.

“It went pretty good, not absolutely perfect with the weather conditions or the wind, but pretty damn good I think, the people would be pretty happy with what they saw,” Paul Bennett said.

“A couple of the star attractions didn’t fly but sometimes you just can’t take chances with million dollar machines, they are very skilled pilots but sometimes the most professional thing to say is no,” he said.

“I organised the show in conjunction with the Scone Council and Pay’s, Ross and I are good mates, this is our passion and it’s a pretty good place to have it so we organised things for Scone, he has his collection here and I have my collection and we use some other peoples planes.

“It’s a tribute to Col, Col was a legend and I wish I had the opportunity to spend more time, I only really met him a few times but since then I get on well with Ross, he was a legend for this area and was a legend for Australian war birds and I don’t think you can ever appreciate someone like that enough, it was a good little tribute to him and hopefully he is looking down thinking we are doing a good job.

“I think it is great that Bengalla got behind the War birds in Scone idea and they are a great sponsor we obviously appreciate, there are a number of sponsors, Pay’s is a sponsor as well and Aero Refuellers have been fantastic,” said Paul Bennett.