Range anxiety

I have been lucky enough to do many things at the Goodwood Motor Circuit. It was where I first drove on a track, and where I drove a proper racing car for the first time. I’ve done track days there, track tests, stills shoots and videos; I’ve raced there many times, spun a few and, just once, crashed. I’ve even taken off in a Spitfire there.

But while I have flown an aircraft at Goodwood, what I had not done until last week was drive through an aircraft there. Or, I must confess, anywhere else for that matter.

It’s quite a strange experience, not least because as you approach the fuselage lying on the circuit, it’s not hard to imagine that this was an aircraft that had arrived there not through months of careful planning, but a few seconds of unplanned catastrophe. Aircraft shorn of their wings that have come to rest on the perimeter of an airfield rarely have happy stories to tell.