Clive chats to the pilot and crew
Flying to Cherbourg on a C-47 Dakota, Normandy, France - 1st June 2026
It's long been something of a pipe dream to do one of the flights on a C-47 Skytrain, a.k.a Dakota, that Clive has been doing for several years until, out of the blue, word comes along that there's somehow actually a spare seat available this year for the D-Day week. It takes all of three seconds to decide to sign up, and around a week later - after an emergency trip to Peterborough to get a new passport - Nosher and Clive are actually there at North Weald aerodrome about to take off on a true aviation legend, in this case called Pegasus. From there it's pretty much ear-to-ear grins as we fly at around 1,500 to 2,000 feet all the way to Cherbourg in Normandy. Once we get there and go through a vague sort of passport control, it's back out onto the airfield to watch one of many parachute runs, as fellow Dakota "Drag Em Oot" - a reference in a Canadian accent to its former role as a glider-snatch C-47 for the Royal Canadian Air Force - loads up for a drop. Finally, we get a lift into the nearby town to find our hotel, after discovering that our hire-car doesn't actually exist and that Enterprise doesn't actually have any more, before heading out with Clive who's meeting up with one of his mates for dinner.
previous album: A Postcard From Peterborough, Cambridgeshire - 29th May 2026
Our plane - Pegasus - waits at North Weald
An RAF roundel and D-Day invasion stripes
There's a Provost trainer in a hangar
Clive grins
Pegasus the Dakota gets a fuel top-up
Podge watches the refueling
Clive looks at something on a phone
The luggage 'hold'
Pegasus's flight deck
Clive checks his phone out
Pegasus is nearly ready to fly
Within a few minutes we're nearly over London
London City Airport from about 1500 feet
A view of the flight deck
West Sussex and the wing of a C-47 Dakota
We buzz the Goodwood racetrack
Chichester from the air
The rivers and estuaries of Chichester
The shadow of a Dakota in its own rainbow roundel
Wiring for the navigation light
Calm blue ocean under the plane
The first sight of Normandy
Three of the USAF's C-130 Hercules on the stands
Peter Kuypers the pilot
The Dakota's structural fuselage frames
We're on the ground at Cherbourg Airport
Robert hauls his case away
The other Dakota - Drag Em Oot - is already there
We amble over to immigration and customs
Pegasus at Cherbourg
At Cherbourg Airport
A group of parachutists gets some practice
A first sight of Cherbourg proper
We walk back to Pegasus
All the seats have been removed for parachute drops
The seats are on a trailer next to the plane
Clive hauls his luggage away
A Hercules from Montana is also unloading
A line of paratroopers waits to board
The paratroopers line up
Drag Em Oot starts engines
We hang around on the grass near the aircraft
A parachutist looks out from Pegasus's door
The two aircraft head off down the runway
Drag Em Oot flies off
A new line of paratroopers walks past the C-130
The next batch of paratroopers hangs around
Thumbs up from a parachutist
The parachutists march to Drag Em Oot
Another loading operation commences
Clives counts the parachutists onto the plane
The previous session's static lines are hauled off
The last few parachutists are loaded on
We push Pegasus's seats into a nearby hangar
Clives gets a coffee from the airport café
Cherbourg's terminal is empty for once
The brutalist 1960s concrete of the control tower
Clive outside Bodrum Kebab
A heavily-postered closed-down restaurant
We're on a mission to find a restaurant
The fontaine Mouchel
Clive's on his phone by the Bassin du Commerce
We have dinner on the Quai de Caligny
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Clive chats to the pilot and crew
Clive chats to the pilot and crew
Our plane - Pegasus - waits at North Weald
An RAF roundel and D-Day invasion stripes
There's a Provost trainer in a hangar
Clive grins
Pegasus the Dakota gets a fuel top-up
Podge watches the refueling
Clive looks at something on a phone
The luggage 'hold'
Pegasus's flight deck
Clive checks his phone out
Pegasus is nearly ready to fly
Within a few minutes we're nearly over London
London City Airport from about 1500 feet
A view of the flight deck
West Sussex and the wing of a C-47 Dakota
We buzz the Goodwood racetrack
Chichester from the air
The rivers and estuaries of Chichester
The shadow of a Dakota in its own rainbow roundel
Wiring for the navigation light
Calm blue ocean under the plane
The first sight of Normandy
Three of the USAF's C-130 Hercules on the stands
Peter Kuypers the pilot
The Dakota's structural fuselage frames
We're on the ground at Cherbourg Airport
Robert hauls his case away
The other Dakota - Drag Em Oot - is already there
We amble over to immigration and customs
Pegasus at Cherbourg
At Cherbourg Airport
A group of parachutists gets some practice
A first sight of Cherbourg proper
We walk back to Pegasus
All the seats have been removed for parachute drops
The seats are on a trailer next to the plane
Clive hauls his luggage away
A Hercules from Montana is also unloading
A line of paratroopers waits to board
The paratroopers line up
Drag Em Oot starts engines
We hang around on the grass near the aircraft
A parachutist looks out from Pegasus's door
The two aircraft head off down the runway
Drag Em Oot flies off
A new line of paratroopers walks past the C-130
The next batch of paratroopers hangs around
Thumbs up from a parachutist
The parachutists march to Drag Em Oot
Another loading operation commences
Clives counts the parachutists onto the plane
The previous session's static lines are hauled off
The last few parachutists are loaded on
We push Pegasus's seats into a nearby hangar
Clives gets a coffee from the airport café
Cherbourg's terminal is empty for once
The brutalist 1960s concrete of the control tower
Clive outside Bodrum Kebab
A heavily-postered closed-down restaurant
We're on a mission to find a restaurant
The fontaine Mouchel
Clive's on his phone by the Bassin du Commerce
We have dinner on the Quai de Caligny