It was quite a spectacular show, basically a giant RAF recruitment drive, with the airforce showing off all their latest military hardware to the crowd, mixed in with lots of local warbird performances, and accompanied by some world class aerobatic teams- the audience ranged from young families right up to WW2 veterans, so there was something for everyone really.
Now, if you know me, you’d know that I was standing right at the front centre of the crowdline (got up early to make sure I had a good spot)- roughly half way down the 3300 foot tarmac runway, which gave the best perspectives on landing, take offs, and the mid air routines. However, unlike Wanaka for example, where all the action is a fairly close distance from the fence, there was a large grass runway/taxiway separating you from the airplanes, which coupled with my digital camera’s absolutely cr@p 5x zoom, didn’t make for the best quality of photographs (wish I had brought my Dad’s Fujufilm Finepix with me!)
Also, the weather made things a bit difficult: It had been constantly overcast for the whole week here in Brighton, yet on Saturday, I woke up to find a perfect clear blue sky overhead, with the sun beating down at a toasty 27 degrees! In the morning when I arrived, the sun was shining from behind; directly at all the aircraft, so most of my photos looked real glary, and the aircraft details are too dark to pick out clearly. However, in the afternoon, as the sun was coming from the west, it lit up the performing aircraft brilliantly, and the static displays on the apron were facing just the right angle to make for great photos. I had plenty of room left on my 4GB memory card, and could have taken hundreds and hundreds more pictures, but unfortunately my bloody battery ran out again (like when I was in Belgium), and as it only takes the special Panasonic Li-Ion type, there was no chance of quickly buying a new pack of AA’s to keep me going
Anyhow, here is a small selection of the shots I got in morning and around midday- remember that the camera I was using is pretty much bottom of the range, so don’t go expecting any Gavin Conroy sort of quality stuff
Token Squirrel chopper:
RAF Chinnook- the only one in the country apparently. The rest are in Afganistan and Iraq.
Team Guinot Boeing Steerman, formally the ‘Utterly Butterly’ display team
Another Guinot, taxing for takeoff with wingwalker waving on the roof
Smoke on!
2 of the 5 Steerman’s performing a crossover manoeuvre:
A RAF C-130J (one of only three left in the UK) about to take off, with the Falcon Parachute Team on board:
Much like the ‘Kiwi Blue’ team, dropped in from 12,000 feet:
Christian Moullec, a crazy Frenchman, who somehow managed to teach Geese to fly in formation with him!
One of the 7 spitfires (
) based at Shoreham for the day:
ML407, a converted 2 seater Spitfire from the Irish Air Corps, on finals:
A Dutch B-25 Mitchell taxing for takeoff:
A four ship team of Yakolev’s from the Ukraine:
Not the best attempt at the heart shaped smoke pattern, however, they finished off with a three ship smoke ‘tunnel’ that the fourth Yak flew through in the other direction, which was very impressive.
De Hav Vamp T11.. Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (6 Merlin engines combined there- sounded amazing!), Eurofighter Typhoon (piloted by Charlie Matthews, ex RNZAF pilot from Napier).. C130J again, the famous 1930’s control tower, and the crowd at Shoreham.
Static’s:
The show ran all weekend, on duplicate days just like Wanaka, but I definitely chose the best day to go, as I woke up Sunday morning to the sound of thunderstorms low over town, which led to on and off rain all afternoon long.
Other aircraft that I saw on Satuday included the Black Cat Lynx, Prince William’s Grob Tutor, a Shorts Tucano, a BAe Hawk (the Red Arrow’s were at an airshow at Bouremouth so only a single example was displayed at Shoreham), three ‘Casutt’ 1950’s pylon racers, a PBY Catalina, P-40 Kittyhawk, P-51 Mustang (the actual Jumping Jacquels original with the Bugs Bunny drawing on the fuselage, that is represented in every major FS P-51 addon), and to finish the day, there was a mock attack on the airfield with six Spitfires, two Hurricane’s, two ME108s and a single ME109 which lasted for a good 30 minutes. At the end, four of the Spitfires flew continuous low flybys along the crowd line in formation, which as you can imagine, was just total aerial perfection!
The ‘Sally B’ B-17, and recently restored Vulcan Bomber were both scheduled to make appearances also, but the B-17 had an engine failure at Duxford, and was not airworthy. The Vulcan however, was stranded at Biggen Hill, in perfect working order after minor repairs, but the CAA were late in approving it flying status the previous week, and had not granted it permission to fly until Monday 1st of September which was a big disappointment for everyone- hopefully I’ll get to see it sometime in the future when I’m equipped with a better camera!
If you are after some more snaps from the day, obviously do a search for EGKA on airlines.net, and also have a look at image galleries on www.absolutebrighton.tv and www.theargus.co.uk
Cheers for now!
Looks like a nice airshow.
great photos Trolly 
