So you’ve found the website and you’re looking at it wondering “What the….!!”, well let me tell you a story.....

The beginnings of The Blue Buzzards can be traced back to Southport Pleasureland 1999 when founding members Ben Young, Lyndon Hurford, Martin Wakeling, Keith Wakeling & Jason Wakeling discovered the delights of the “Mistral Flying Machine.” Having never seen one of these contraptions before, let alone ride one, it was an odd experience watching the tubs fly round noticing that the rider had some degree of control over the ride. A couple of goes were had by all and although it was fun it wasn’t really anything special. Then Ben got the ride doing some really odd things, he had discovered the art of “Chain Snapping.”

‘Chain Snapping’ is a generally used term by theme park enthusiasts to describe the moment where the rider manages to get the cable to go slack for just a fraction of a second. Usually this is done by getting the tub to dive down from its highest point and come to a virtual stall at the bottom. As the tub has descended faster than the ride is rotating there is a moment of stillness as the cables attaching the tub to the rotating frame go slack. Then everything catches up at once with a good solid snap of the cables and the tub is rocketed skywards where the rider then attempts to do the same thing again.

Watching Ben have so much fun was our cue to try and emulate his efforts and sure enough a couple of goes later and I had also managed to get the ride really going. It was only a matter of time before Martin and then Keith joined in the fun. At this point there was no mention of Buzzards or display teams. That is yet to come.

The next step in the evolution of the ‘Buzzards’ happened in the USA during a them park tour in 1999 when Lyndon and myself found the “Flying Eagles” ride at Holiday World. Seeing as neither of us knew they were there our faces lit up with the prospect of having a play. During one of the rides Lyndon manage to clip one of the surrounding trees with the underside of his tub. In his excitement he turned round to tell me, I was in the tub behind, only to see me a couple of feet higher taking an entire branch off. By now I had really got the knack of making these things fly and during the same trip at Paramount’s Kings Island I had one of those magic moments that you always remember. During the evening the ride ops were asking everyone to double up on the ride so a young American lad had to sit with me. Needless to say he didn’t have a clue what he had let himself in for and I just smiled when he asked if I knew what to do with the ride!! I promptly gave the lad the flight of his life and I had the tub snapping top and bottom much too his delight. Once the ride had stopped he ran off to his watching parents with a grin slapped across his face as bright as any you could imagine. They then came over and thanked me for giving the lad so much fun. Subconsciously I now know that here were the seeds of the display team being well and truly laid.

Back to Southport again in 2000 and by now a small group of us had kind of got together when it came to ride takeovers on the Mistral Flying Machine. The core of the team was now together and all of us were getting rather good at making the tubs fly but it was 2001 before the real breakthrough was made. (Continued)