Royal International Air Tattoo Saturday 14 July 2007
Today we both went to RAF Fairford for the International Air Tattoo, something I had been looking forward to all week. The day dawned with overcast skies and it was raining just after we started off. As we progressed towards Fairford the weather started to clear and by the time we got there it was looking promising. We had one little sprinkle of drizzle and then it cleared for a good day to watch Airplanes.
We left home at 7:00am as I knew there would be a lot of traffic and didn’t want to spend too much time queuing. It is only just on 100Km from home so it didn’t take much time to get there and from about 20Km out there were signs to follow to get you there. This part of it is very well organised as they have a different colour for each of the routes in depending on where you are coming from. You follow the signs and end up in these huge car parks. We struck a queue about 5 Km out and it took nearly an hour to travel that last few Km’s. Once in the car park there was no queue for getting in, like last week at Yeovilton, we got in immediately.
The first thing we did was to establish ourselves on the grass near the crowd line at the edge of the runway and set up camp for the day. Once settled I went for a walk to see the static aircraft park. We had established ourselves about mid way along the runway and so it was easy to divide the area into 2 parts for viewing. Last week I said I was like a kid in a candy store, well this week it was like being let loose in the toy store with unlimited spending!!!
With camera in hand I set out to photograph planes as quickly as possible before there were too many people around, it was a good plan but there were already lots of people there. It is quite difficult to get shots without people in the way especially the large aircraft, also some were made a bit more difficult by where the sun was making it hard to photograph as you were looking into the sun.
In total, more than 320 aircraft from 24 countries representing 37 air arms took part in the Air Tattoo and a nine-hour flying programme.
While I was looking at the static park the flying display started with a Finnish Air Force F18 and this was followed by a Mil 24 Hind of the Czech Air Force, this was followed by a Belgian F16.
The next display was from “Team Guinot” which had 4 x Boeing Stearmans with wing walkers on the top wings.
The flying display then had aircraft in the following order: Catalina; F86 Sabre; P51 Mustang followed by an F15E Eagle and then a fly past with both aircraft to represent 60 years of USAFE.
Then was a couple of highlights for me; an Indian Air Force Su 30 although it’s flying display was very tame and the F117 Nighthawk.
This was followed by: B1B; the US Thunderbirds Display team; Nimrod and then the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight put up 3 x Spitfires and the Hurricane. Another F16 from the Dutch; the Red Arrows; Swiss F18; RAF Black Panthers Lynx display team; Royal Navy Hawk; and then the Lancaster; Jetstream T2; Slovenian PC9; French Alpha Jet.
The Italian Il Frecce Tricolori Display team was next and then an RAF Typhoon. This then bought the last demonstration for the day which was an airfield attack by the RAF involving Tornado F3’s and GR4’s; Hawks; Hercules; Chinook and E3A Sentry.
The day was finished off with a concert from the RAF Squadronaires and USAF Check Six jazz bands that wound up the day nicely and meant that we didn’t have to battle the traffic hassles to go home.
All in all a very very good day and something I will do again.
Today we both went to RAF Fairford for the International Air Tattoo, something I had been looking forward to all week. The day dawned with overcast skies and it was raining just after we started off. As we progressed towards Fairford the weather started to clear and by the time we got there it was looking promising. We had one little sprinkle of drizzle and then it cleared for a good day to watch Airplanes.
We left home at 7:00am as I knew there would be a lot of traffic and didn’t want to spend too much time queuing. It is only just on 100Km from home so it didn’t take much time to get there and from about 20Km out there were signs to follow to get you there. This part of it is very well organised as they have a different colour for each of the routes in depending on where you are coming from. You follow the signs and end up in these huge car parks. We struck a queue about 5 Km out and it took nearly an hour to travel that last few Km’s. Once in the car park there was no queue for getting in, like last week at Yeovilton, we got in immediately.
The first thing we did was to establish ourselves on the grass near the crowd line at the edge of the runway and set up camp for the day. Once settled I went for a walk to see the static aircraft park. We had established ourselves about mid way along the runway and so it was easy to divide the area into 2 parts for viewing. Last week I said I was like a kid in a candy store, well this week it was like being let loose in the toy store with unlimited spending!!!
With camera in hand I set out to photograph planes as quickly as possible before there were too many people around, it was a good plan but there were already lots of people there. It is quite difficult to get shots without people in the way especially the large aircraft, also some were made a bit more difficult by where the sun was making it hard to photograph as you were looking into the sun.
In total, more than 320 aircraft from 24 countries representing 37 air arms took part in the Air Tattoo and a nine-hour flying programme.
While I was looking at the static park the flying display started with a Finnish Air Force F18 and this was followed by a Mil 24 Hind of the Czech Air Force, this was followed by a Belgian F16.
The next display was from “Team Guinot” which had 4 x Boeing Stearmans with wing walkers on the top wings.
The flying display then had aircraft in the following order: Catalina; F86 Sabre; P51 Mustang followed by an F15E Eagle and then a fly past with both aircraft to represent 60 years of USAFE.
Then was a couple of highlights for me; an Indian Air Force Su 30 although it’s flying display was very tame and the F117 Nighthawk.
This was followed by: B1B; the US Thunderbirds Display team; Nimrod and then the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight put up 3 x Spitfires and the Hurricane. Another F16 from the Dutch; the Red Arrows; Swiss F18; RAF Black Panthers Lynx display team; Royal Navy Hawk; and then the Lancaster; Jetstream T2; Slovenian PC9; French Alpha Jet.
The Italian Il Frecce Tricolori Display team was next and then an RAF Typhoon. This then bought the last demonstration for the day which was an airfield attack by the RAF involving Tornado F3’s and GR4’s; Hawks; Hercules; Chinook and E3A Sentry.
The day was finished off with a concert from the RAF Squadronaires and USAF Check Six jazz bands that wound up the day nicely and meant that we didn’t have to battle the traffic hassles to go home.
All in all a very very good day and something I will do again.
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