first air show

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Dragon Rapide
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Re: first air show

Post by Dragon Rapide »

Ryand19 wrote:
Dragon Rapide wrote:Perhaps I am being both nostalgic and prejudiced but, for me, the Hunter was, and still is, the best looking formation aircraft bar none. :smile:


Would have to agree with that, although the most I've seen in formation are the 4 Hunters of Team Viper at Leuchars two years ago. :lol:


I can vouch for the fact that 22 Hunters looping is about as good as it gets and better than you could imagine!! :biggrin:
Listen to that Gipsy music.....

Dragon Rapide

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Ryand19
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Re: first air show

Post by Ryand19 »

Dragon Rapide wrote:
Ryand19 wrote:
Dragon Rapide wrote:Perhaps I am being both nostalgic and prejudiced but, for me, the Hunter was, and still is, the best looking formation aircraft bar none. :smile:


Would have to agree with that, although the most I've seen in formation are the 4 Hunters of Team Viper at Leuchars two years ago. :lol:


I can vouch for the fact that 22 Hunters looping is about as good as it gets and better than you could imagine!! :biggrin:


No doubt, hope you realise how lucky you are! :smile:

silver fox
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Re: first air show

Post by silver fox »

Dragon Rapide wrote:
Ryand19 wrote:
Dragon Rapide wrote:Perhaps I am being both nostalgic and prejudiced but, for me, the Hunter was, and still is, the best looking formation aircraft bar none. :smile:


Would have to agree with that, although the most I've seen in formation are the 4 Hunters of Team Viper at Leuchars two years ago. :lol:


I can vouch for the fact that 22 Hunters looping is about as good as it gets and better than you could imagine!! :biggrin:


Not wishing to rub it in at all, but 22 Hunters in diamond looping across Farnborough was pretty awesome. :yahoo:

Abingdonman
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Re: first air show

Post by Abingdonman »

22 aircraft is too many,must have took all day to get a display out of that lot! :grin:

silver fox
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Re: first air show

Post by silver fox »

Abingdonman wrote:22 aircraft is too many,must have took all day to get a display out of that lot! :grin:


It was all very slick and smoothly done, the Black Arrows formed the centre of the formation joined by the rest of 111 plus friends, the Black Arrows then did their usual 9 ship formation, it is worth noting that there had been a tendency for using larger and larger formations added to the regular display teams.

Showing my age now, but the Hunter is still one of the best looking display aircraft around, IMO one of the very few jets which can bring the same response as say a Spitfire.

SPLAT
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Re: first air show

Post by SPLAT »

North Weald 1989 , with my Praktica MTL5B with a 50mm lens
Thats how I became hooked with a Jag powering up the runway , Portugese G91's Vulcan etc.
Just think the air tattoo started life at this airshow.

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the fairford mole
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Re: first air show

Post by the fairford mole »

My first airshow I went to was when I was just barely 9/10 months old at IAT83, apparently my mum and dad couldnt get a baby sitter for the day so they reluctantly took me...and I just sat in the push chair and didnt make a sound....First airshow I have memories of would have been IAT87 sitting in my dads van eating sandwhiches watching the RAF Falcons falling with the rain. Went to every IAT/RIAT till the mid noughties. Was lucky to be in the ATC so went to a few shows Kemble 96, 98, Mildenhall 97, Cottesmore 97. Think the best show would have been RIAT 99 B-2 on static brilliant weather all week/end closely followed by IAT 91 Gulf War Salute think I cried when I found out that would have been the last time I would see the Vulcan fly...

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bennysdad
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Re: first air show

Post by bennysdad »

Went by train on my own about age 14 to HMS Condor at Arbroath and had to walk up from the train station. I remember a couple of years later seeing a Sea Vixen formation aerobatic display with 6 aircraft there. By that time I was going to Leuchars as well but I always thought the navy displays were more exciting. The aircraft seemed to fly lower and nearer the crowd than at the RAF displays. It was also easy to persuade the navy crews to let a young lad climb into the aircraft in the static park as the crowds started to clear towards the end of the display.

I also remember a Turnhouse display about the same time were a Vulcan arrived to do a few of passes. It got kept in the hold while some commecial flights landed and because it was light on fuel it had to cut the display short but made up for it with barrel roll as it climbed out after the last pass. Those were the days when there were traffic lights on the main road from Kirkliston to Edinburgh to stop the traffic while aircraft landed

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AMB
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Re: first air show

Post by AMB »

bennysdad wrote:Went by train on my own about age 14 to HMS Condor at Arbroath and had to walk up from the train station. I remember a couple of years later seeing a Sea Vixen formation aerobatic display with 6 aircraft there. By that time I was going to Leuchars as well but I always thought the navy displays were more exciting. The aircraft seemed to fly lower and nearer the crowd than at the RAF displays. It was also easy to persuade the navy crews to let a young lad climb into the aircraft in the static park as the crowds started to clear towards the end of the display.

I also remember a Turnhouse display about the same time were a Vulcan arrived to do a few of passes. It got kept in the hold while some commecial flights landed and because it was light on fuel it had to cut the display short but made up for it with barrel roll as it climbed out after the last pass. Those were the days when there were traffic lights on the main road from Kirkliston to Edinburgh to stop the traffic while aircraft landed


Any chance of some dates ?
Adrian

Dragon Rapide
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Re: first air show

Post by Dragon Rapide »

Ryand19 wrote:
Dragon Rapide wrote:
Ryand19 wrote:
Dragon Rapide wrote:Perhaps I am being both nostalgic and prejudiced but, for me, the Hunter was, and still is, the best looking formation aircraft bar none. :smile:


Would have to agree with that, although the most I've seen in formation are the 4 Hunters of Team Viper at Leuchars two years ago.


I can vouch for the fact that 22 Hunters looping is about as good as it gets and better than you could imagine!!:


No doubt, hope you realise how lucky you are! :smile:


I think those of us of an age really do know how lucky we were to experience the RAF during the post-war peak years, yes. :smile: Such a multiplicity of types and so many of each type. And of course the prototypes and development aircraft often at Farnborough within weeks of the first flight - or less!!

And to Abingdonman - you can never have too many Hunters!! :lol:
Listen to that Gipsy music.....

Dragon Rapide

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Cimmerian
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Re: first air show

Post by Cimmerian »

The first shows I can remember going to would be our monthly treks up to Old Warden. Used to be a 3 hour drive each way, leaving home around 6am and getting home around 9pm. I was just a little school lad then, complete with an old 126 Kodak instamatic (still got some of the old square slides now). Good times, many happy memories. :smile:
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Vodka
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Re: first air show

Post by Vodka »

Biggin Hill, 1974.

My father took some cine-film footage on standard 8 film camera, which i still have; camera and film.

Only ever missed one Biggin show, including the RAF at home & B.o.B shows.

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bennysdad
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Re: first air show

Post by bennysdad »

AMB wrote:
bennysdad wrote:Went by train on my own about age 14 to HMS Condor at Arbroath and had to walk up from the train station. I remember a couple of years later seeing a Sea Vixen formation aerobatic display with 6 aircraft there. By that time I was going to Leuchars as well but I always thought the navy displays were more exciting. The aircraft seemed to fly lower and nearer the crowd than at the RAF displays. It was also easy to persuade the navy crews to let a young lad climb into the aircraft in the static park as the crowds started to clear towards the end of the display.

I also remember a Turnhouse display about the same time were a Vulcan arrived to do a few of passes. It got kept in the hold while some commecial flights landed and because it was light on fuel it had to cut the display short but made up for it with barrel roll as it climbed out after the last pass. Those were the days when there were traffic lights on the main road from Kirkliston to Edinburgh to stop the traffic while aircraft landed


Any chance of some dates ?


According to this site http://www.seavixen.org/index.cfm?fa=co ... geId=91425 it was 20 July 1968 for the Sea Vixen team. That made me 16 at the time. There was an airshow at Turnhouse in 1968 so it may have been that year but I can't really remember now.

Homer
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Re: first air show

Post by Homer »

Church Fenton a couple of years running sometime late 70's or early 80's, sat on the roof of my dads car.

Vulcan1010
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Re: first air show

Post by Vulcan1010 »

My First Airshow was Abingdon 1981 it was a great show :clap:

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nigelblake
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Re: first air show

Post by nigelblake »

My first airshow was probably the Armed forces day at Wethersfield in 1960 when I was 5 as there are pictures of my brother (he was 3) and I standing in the side of a Kaman Husky helicopter...... I don't remember it clearly, I may well have been to shows earlier than that as my dad was an avid aviation enthusiast.
However I do remember a startlingly low pass which was at the show in 1964, and there is a picture of that here http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1048137/
I can also remember an H P Victor opening up the throttles, ripping up huge lumps of the taxiway tarmac and blowing it into the crowd at Wethersfield, also early 1960s.

AARDVARK
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Re: first air show

Post by AARDVARK »

Airshow FIA 1980,display, Red Arrows,mid 70's Broadstairs Beach,Kent.

Hey can someone recall a show around 1977/78 or even 79 that was held at RAF Manston,think Sally B attended?

I was supposed to go and remember watching a formation of old WW2 stuff with the resident Westand Wessex SAR Unit from Manston prior to show(perhaps coming into land),it's a dim and very distant memory,I was naughty that day and we didn't go in the end :lmao:

Abingdonman
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Re: first air show

Post by Abingdonman »

Vulcan1010 wrote:My First Airshow was Abingdon 1981 it was a great show :clap:


and the show was on the BBC next day too!
I wondered why a helicopter was hovering behind the airfield throughout the show....big part of the show was shot from the air!

Traveller
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Re: first air show

Post by Traveller »

Would have been Blackpool mid-late 70s. Then the first big one was Fairford 1984. In the UK my visits consist entirely of only Fairford, Mildenhall, Duxford, Old Warden, Finningley, Waddington and Farnborough shows. Coventry in the 90s was good and does anyone remember the 1997/98 one off Cranfield show. I think it was a one off anyway, plenty of old jets. Never done Leuchars, Yeovilton, Cosford or stuff like Little Gransden. Oh I did Abingdon once about 5 years back, didn't rate it.

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Blackbird
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Re: first air show

Post by Blackbird »

My late dad took me to the Wethersfield shows in the early 1960s, the first in I think 1963 when I was seven :oops: I longingly looked forward to each show! I've previously posted a few of his slides which I now have. I hope the mods won't mind me posting one of them again here.
Image

Other memories include going to the Yeovilton show in 1970 whilst on a family holiday in Somerset (went down well with my mother!!) which included this FAA flypast:
Image

After that, I remember being gobsmacked on my first visit to the Tattoo at Greenham Common in, I believe, 1974 and thoroughly enjoying the 1992 show at Boscombe Down - that was one of the best :clap: .

Andy :smile:

Viking1
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Re: first air show

Post by Viking1 »

My first airshow was to RAF Feltwell in 1949, I can only remember a RAF Lincoln flying through a flock of birds, and the highlight for me was a 10/- joyride in a Dragon Rapide
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Jooles707
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Re: first air show

Post by Jooles707 »

Reading the posts have made me envious that I've missed some of these aircraft of older designs, and just to see them tootle by in a flypast would make me happy just like a few years ago when I had the pleasure of the REDS escorting the mighty VULCAN. Ahh memories.

My first air display was 82/3ish at Cosford and I distinctly remember 2 things first being the REDS flying in from crowd rear what looked like about 6 foot in the air barely clearing the crowds heads :hide: (child perception isn't great) and the meanacing sight of the VULCAN (big black and blotting out the sun) along with the famous howl :music: and the chest feeling like it was about to cave in.

But what got me into aviation was being taken to BHX(Birmingham International) on the same night as the Handsworth riots (87ish) and watching the spectical which was Concorde arrive with the U.S Ryder cup team.

Since then I have achieved that childhood ambition of working with aircraft and still in the aviation industry :win:

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Mad Dan
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Re: first air show

Post by Mad Dan »

Blackbird tweeted:
My late dad took me to the Wethersfield shows in the early 1960s, the first in I think 1963 when I was seven I longingly looked forward to each show! I've previously posted a few of his slides which I now have. I hope the mods won't mind me posting one of them again here.

I don't care if the mods do mind - that brings back glorious memories of those amazing Wethersfield shows - and others like North Weald and Exeter which also got the KB-50J towing a trio of USAFE aircraft around...they are actually plugged as well, by the look of it...and don't you just love that 81st TFW Voodoo..................
I am not a loony... I used to be, but I think I am better now...

Concorde216
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Re: first air show

Post by Concorde216 »

As my Dad was a keen aircraft spotter, he always took us to airshows and I went to them more or less as soon as I was born!

The first airshow I went to would have been IAT at Greenham Common in 1981, however, I barely remember it (I was only 11 months old :smile: ). And 31 years on, I still got IAT or RIAT as it is now called and it is still the main show for me to go to for six days.

I remember the Yeovilton shows though and from a very early age, I was a fan of the Lightning and that is probably because I had a Matchbox toy (remember those? :smile: ) of the jet when I was growing up.

F575
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Re: first air show

Post by F575 »

I'm sure somebody will know the correct dates but the first two shows I went too where at Bruntingthorpe in 93? 94? The first year I went on the DC-3 pleasure flight that Air Atlantique used to run, the following year in a helicopter where we had to wait to take off as the Russian Knights where landing. Can't remember too much more other than that though, might not even have been Bruntingthorpe for all I know!