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A grass airfield in the Spring light in the heart of Britain. A timeless, unspoilt background. A Merlin catches, stumbles, then settles into that familiar, hard-edged idle somewhere ahead of you. You walk out onto the airfield and it doesn’t feel like an “event”. It's like you’ve arrived in the 1940s at a working dispersal during the Battle of Britain, with a job to do and light to chase.
This is a full-day Heritage Wings living history shoot built around two Battle of Britain icons - a Hawker Hurricane MkI and a Spitfire LF Mk5c. But the real magic is everything that surrounds them. A team of age-appropriate, highly accurate re-enactors who move like they belong there, because they understand the significance what they’re portraying. Period vehicles adding to the scene. Tools, kit and uniforms that hold period accuracy, even in close-up detail. These are scenes with a cinematic detail in every corner of the scene, designed for photographers (and video too!) who want to create operational images that portray ‘The Few’.
You’re not behind barriers, picking off the obvious angle with a long lens. You’re working inside the atmosphere in carefully choreographed scenes as a coherent team. Think crews in conversation. A pilot’s last checks. A vehicle rolling into position. The aircraft sitting there with purpose and not just for display. There’ll be set phases staged throughout the day to portray the airfield scene developing, as well as periods where we work with the crews up close - all in natural scenes - before we then also transition into posed portraiture.
On top of the live airfield portrayal, we expect to have engine runs on both aircraft. One will be during the day, complete with re-enactors in the scene (a super rare and highly effective phase of the shoot!) and then the second WW2 fighter will run up at night, purely for photography and atmosphere that you can only get from a nightshoot.
Those photographers that attended last year’s USAAF shoot will know the score here. You are going to come away with an unforgettable set of emotive images!
The day is built to carry the shoot from daylight ops, through golden hour, into sunset, through blue hour, and into darkness. The storyboard evolves as the light changes, with operational documentary images early on, then portraiture and silhouettes, moody lighting, and controlled highlights as the evening draws in.
If you want heritage images that feel like total time travel, then this is that day!
This workshop will be a fantastic optional upgrade to the shoot, with a chance to learn how to set up your images for printing, and leaving with actual prints of your work from the previous day’s Battle of Britain shoot. What a way to enjoy the weekend!
You will learn the best settings and workflow for printing, followed by hands-on printing sessions of the images they took the previous day. We can guarantee that there is nothing like seeing your work in print (and this subject lends itself perfectly) - so it will be a superb addition to the weekend!
The VIP Print Workshop tickets are £50 and strictly limited to just 20 photographers as a separate event. These can be booked HERE.
Heritage Wings shoots just hit different - they are all about making scenes that look and feel credible and this will be one of the best of the year. This shoot, named “The Few…” will not just be “warbirds on the ground”, but a working 1940s environment with an authenticity that will bring depth to your images and an unforgettable experience. The aircraft are the heart and soul of it, but the supporting detail is what makes the results work… Age-appropriate re-enactors, accurate uniforms, props/vehicles, choreographed phases of the shoot, and scenes that feel like you’re living it!
Across the day you’ll get the chance to shoot:
Sywell suits this kind of day perfectly. It has space, classic airfield character, unspoilt backgrounds, grass apron areas, room to work without feeling hemmed in (and a great cafe/bar or two!). We’ll build scenes with photographers in mind and stage phases of the day in carefully managed groups to allow multiple styles of shooting and different focal lengths. Expect clean angles when you want simplicity and shape, and busier scene when you want to tell the story. Importantly, you’ll get time to refine an idea and get all the angles you’ll need, rather than sprinting from one setup to the next.
A big part of the magic is the way the light changes throughout a shoot of this length, and how we choreograph the scenes accordingly. Early on, you can shoot crisp, documentary images of an airfield at work, with added detail of faces, markings and texture. As the sun drops, the whole feel shifts. Golden light across rivets and camouflage, warm edges on metal, longer shadows, then silhouettes at sunset. Blue hour gives you that deep, rich tone you simply can’t fake, and after dark we move into controlled lighting, carefully placed to bring drama and cinematic weight.
It’s rare to be able to shoot a coherent “story” across so many lighting conditions without changing location, and it’s often where the strongest work comes from.
All this... And being able to get your hands on the latest gear and advice through Clifton Cameras & Canon supporting the COAP team is just magic.
G-ROBT is a special Hurricane. It’s P2902, a frontline Mk.I, with a story that runs straight through the most intense early months of the war. Flying by late 1939, it was in service by the spring of 1940 with No. 245 Squadron at Drem, working the kind of hard, unsung tasks that defined that period: patrols, interceptions, and protecting the coast as the situation in Europe deteriorated. On 31 May 1940, during the Dunkirk evacuation, P2902 was hit while flying cover and was forced down onto the beach at Dunkirk. It stayed there for decades - a real relic of the time - until it was recovered in 1988 and, after an extraordinary rebuild, returned to the air. When you’re photographing it on the ground with crews, vehicles and period detail around it, you’re not making something up. You’re looking at a machine that genuinely lived the story we’re recreating.
The Spitfire G-IBSY is EE602 - a Mk.Vc built in 1942 and delivered into the RAF in the way wartime aircraft were: through the Maintenance Units and straight into squadron service. By early 1943 it was flying from Ibsley with No. 66 Squadron (only the second Spit squadron to come into existence) and fought in the Battle of Britain. It then moved on to No. 129 Squadron, operating in the heart of the fighter effort as the war evolved. EE602 completed over 100 Missions including escorting the Flying Fortress ‘Memphis Belle’ back to the English coast. EE602 has a particularly evocative thread in its history too: it was a wartime “presentation” Spitfire, carrying the name Central Railways Uruguayan Staff - a reminder that aircraft like this were often funded by public donations and carried identities that linked home-front effort to frontline reality. It later served with 453 Squadron (RAAF), building up an operational tally before being damaged and taken out of service. Decades on, it was restored back to flying condition, and today it carries that same mixture of elegance and purpose that makes the Spitfire so photogenic - especially as the light drops and the day turns from clean daylight detail into something darker, moodier, and more cinematic.
Heritage Wings days are planned to give you time in the right moments. We use clever, solid crowd control, without any of the chaos that kills good shooting. We manage the flow of the scenes and photographer rotations so you’re not fighting for angles, and we make clear calls ahead of key moments like engine runs and set-piece scenes so you can be ready rather than reacting late.
The aim is simple... A day that feels immersive and well-paced, where you spend your energy making images, not working around avoidable friction, and come away with stunning results.
(Exact timings and joining instructions will be issued to ticket holders closer to the day, based on light and the final scene plan.)
Included
Not included
Clifton Cameras and Canon will joining the COAP team for the whole shoot (and the VIP Print Workshop). Try new gear, get advice and ask about on-the-day deals.
Bring kit that covers both clean daylight detail and the later, moodier work after dark. A mid-zoom and a longer option is a great base, plus something fast for blue hour and the night scenes. A tripod, plus low-key personal on/off headlamp helps once we’re working in the dark, and gloves you can actually operate a camera in are worth having if it turns chilly. Sensible clothes and footwear for all weather. Kneepads are also very useful.
Images on this page... This is the first time this particular shoot has taken place, so images below are from previous COAP BoB-style shoots including the most recent Sywell event from late 2025 portraying WW2 USAAF airfield scenes.
