Blackpool Air Show 2016

On Sunday we spent the day with David and Jeannie, going down to watch the Air Show on the Promenade and then going for a Chinese meal at Chu's Phoenix on Whitegate Drive, Blackpool - highly recommended!

We were a little selective in what we wanted to watch - the main attractions being the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (which ended up being cancelled due to strong winds) and The Red Arrows. So the show had already started when we left David and Jeannie's home to walk down to the Promenade. From near their house we kept seeing the Eurofighter Typhoon appear over the houses as we walked.

There were huge crowds as was to be expected, but we found a spot on the inland side of the tram track and the first plane we saw relatively up close was the BAC Strikemaster. They were an armed version of the Jet Provost.

The Calidus Autogyro came next. Highly manoeuvrable, it's probably fun to fly in but only if you are ok in flying in something that would drop like a stone if the engine cut out... I know commercial flights are not known for gliding long distances to safe landings without engines but at least they look as though they have a chance of gliding...!

I've never been in a helicopter either, but I'd quite like to experience that even if they seem to match the non-gliding qualities of the autogyro. This is a Gazelle helicopter. So called because they are "deer" to buy? There are very few helicopters that look pretty but this is definitely not one of them...

Team Raven aerobatic team. The aircraft are an RV-4 (the leading aircraft) with the rest being RV-8s. These are kit aircraft for home-builds although not all of these aircraft were built by their pilot-owners as some were bought second hand. Described as "Quick-Build" by the kit manufacturers, I suspect it takes probably more time and knowledge than your put-together wardrobe and there will be slightly more agonised angst if you find you have several screws and bits left over at the end...

The Twister aerobatic duo. The Silence Twister aircraft were originally designed as radio-controlled aerobatic aircraft but the design was modified and this aircraft is the result. With the beautiful elliptical wings reminiscent of the Spitfire they make for a stunning sight in close formation.

The Red Arrows made a superb entrance, bursting from behind the Tower and flying over the heads of the crowd who roared their approval. It was a much better sky this year than the last couple of years as there was no low cloud. The only bug-bear was that by the time of their appearance at 4:00pm, the sun had swung itself into the line of sight. You can't win. A morning display would be better for Blackpool as the sun would be over the land and behind or at worst to the side of the audience, but it would cause difficulties for anyone wishing to just come for the day to watch.

I took lots of photos, but will limit myself here to just a few!

Now that's what I call a close pass!

A brilliant display by the world's leading display team. At the end of the display, the Red Arrows make one final pass along the front to say goodbye and take applause.

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Blackpool Air Show Sunday 9 Aug 2015

Yesterday saw us down in Blackpool for the first of a two-day air show. Weather could have been better, but it remained dry and at times patches of blue came through the clouds, but cloud base remained fairly low and many of the photos would have benefited from a touch of sunshine. On saying that, my head did take on a certain red soreness by the end of the afternoon...

First up was the Typhoon - I still think of it as the Eurofighter. This put on a superb show with lots of opportunities for taking shots like this with the twin engines glowing from the afterburners.

It looked even better when it started to turn and the air condensed as water was squeezed out of it, forming mist and vapour trails.

Conditions were not ideal for taking photographs due to the low light levels coupled with the speed at which aircraft travel meaning several photos were a touch blurred. But I did take quite a few so there are enough to go round!

We were sitting on the steps leading down to the beach just south of the North Pier. Cones and a security cordon kept the beach clear of onlookers who might otherwise have strayed a little too close to passing aircraft. It's been an unfortunate year indeed for air shows with a number of incidents in recent weeks. Happily Sunday's show went ahead without mishap. (Monday's is going ahead as I write - a helicopter clattered over the house half an hour ago and I can now hear jet engine noise.)

The Extra EA-260 is a hand-built aerobatic plane designed by Walter Extra which is a name any manufacturer would want on the payroll. Project behind time? Put a bit of Extra into it! This thing can roll a full 360 degrees in a second. Great to watch but it doesn't photograph well...

The BAC Strikemaster, jet trainer and light attack aircraft. An armed version of the Jet Provost, they were mainly used as trainers, but some were deployed on active duty. They first flew in 1967.

The Breitling Wingwalkers are a team of very brave young ladies who take it upon themselves to stand on top of a couple of biplanes hurtling about the sky at 150mph and doing synchronised poses such as high kicks and stuff. In the old days wingwalkers would perform without tethering themselves to the aircraft with some even walking off the wing of one aircraft onto another. This practice quickly fell off though...

Even so, you need a certain amount of nerve to do this and performing in a 150mph gale is not for ninnies!

"Pull up! Pull up!!!"

This is what many people had come to see. The Avro Vulcan's last tour of the North West before it is retired. The ultimate V-Bomber, operational through the Cold War and the aircraft that famously flew down to bomb the runaway at Port Stanley during the Falklands War.

The THRUM! of those jet engines in your chest as you watch is to be savoured! We used to have a ceramic-coated metal scale model on a plinth when I was a teenager. With a wingspan of around 12 inches it would probably be worth a fortune now. It got thrown out at some point unknown...

I remember well in the early days of Ebay when the dilapidated Vulcan from outside Blackpool Airport quickly gained bids of several million pounds before it was pointed out that all armaments had been stripped out and that it wouldn't fly... Wouldn't move at all in fact - it had to be taken to bits on site.

The RotorSport Calidus autogyro. They look great fun but I'm not sure you could coax me into one unless there were twenty of you with cattle prods...

They take two people sitting tandem style in the tiny cockpit and are highly manoeuvrable. Bizarrely the wikipedia website says they can be fitted with navigation lights for night flying - but that night flying is not allowed...

I used to love the air shows of the sixties and seventies which were always full of Spitfires doing their thing. After TV shots of them flying in swarms earlier in the year this was a rather disappointing showing with only one Spit from the Battle of Britain Memorial flight and which seemed to me to stay well away from the audience, making close-up photos impossible.

The Chinook helicopter is an awesome sight. The blooming thing just chunkered over my house whilst I was writing about the Vulcan a bit ago too - I had to stop and make sure none of my teeth were going to rattle loose... The only aircraft of the day to - literally - take a bow! Show-off!

Aw... that's nice! The RV8tors fly a pair of RV-8 aircraft (you see what they did there...?) which are highly manoeuvrable and skid about at 230mph. This is the climax of their display when the two planes each create half of a heart with their smoke trails.

When this appeared I was wracking my brains trying to think what it was. It had a bit of the look of a Feisler, but their best-known model, the Storch, had high wings on a level with the top of the cockpit... It turned out to be a Bűcker Bestmann. If you watch The Great Escape and can tear yourself from the scene where Steve McQueen jumps the fence on a motorbike, concentrate instead on James Garner and Donald Pleasance, who nick one of these and fly back into the hands of the Germans. Oh sorry - I should have said "spoiler alert"...

The Red Arrows have had a bit of a grotty weekend with technical problems. A couple of displays at Belfast and Newcastle had to be cancelled due to the requirement that pilots after a leave must conduct a practice with nine aircraft. Faults were eventually fixed and a practice held, but then an instrument check on one aircraft meant that it had to be pulled again and the Blackpool show went ahead with only eight aircraft. Due to cloud cover this was a flat (flattish) display but the 70,000 strong crowd were making plenty of appreciative noise!

It was madness after the display ended. We had gone down to Blackpool by bus but with so many people heading for public transport we decided to just set off and walked back to Bispham along the cliffs. A good afternoon!

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The Red Arrows Display, Blackpool Air Show 2013

Not a lot of text to go with this as I'm sure I don't need to say a lot about the RAF's famous aerobatic team! The photos were taken on the second day of Blackpool's Air Show a couple of weeks ago, which this year was held over two days, Sunday and Monday. Miss Franny and I went down with daughter Gill and granddaughter, Grace, to meet David and Jeannie. We were moved off the steps to the beach - "There's going to be an Air Display you know..." Ye-es... we did know and I've never yet seen one come so close to the Promenade that we would be in any danger from standing two yards in front of it. And if anything went wrong and there was a disaster, we would be as safe there as we would be at home in Bispham...

Today's Britain is obsessed with Health & Safety, mostly thanks to the legal profession trying to argue that people should be allowed to go about with brains switched off and eyes shut and if anything happens to them it's someone's fault and they should be sued... If judges made sensible decisions the scams would dry up. Meanwhile those in authority think up ludicrous excuses for their rules.

Rant over - here's the Red Arrows!

I hope you like the photos - we'll have a look at the World War II war planes next time.

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Blackpool Air Display 2009

Today there was an air show over the sea between the South and Central piers. I went down there with my trusty camera - eventually after thinking it would as usual be between the Central and North piers...

Topping the bill as usual were the Red Arrows, the RAF display team. First however there were a lot more things to do and see.

Several thousand people for one thing. A Promenade still cordoned off for building work for another. I did stand on the North Pier for a bit but it soon became obvious I wasn't going to see much from there so I set off walking down towards the Central Pier. Which meant walking on the tram tracks really.

Whilst I was still walking, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight gave their display. This was one of the main attractions for me and my view was somewhat limited by railings and fencing, trams going past and people's heads - duh, if 5 foot four inches is good enough for me, it should be good enough for everyone...

Anyway I managed to get one or two shots but the aircraft, flying out over the sea seemed a long way away.

Also the sun sets in the west and at Blackpool the sea is to the west, so having an air display late afternoon over the sea means squinting against the sun and hence a few photos are a bit like silhouettes I'm afraid. They should have it in the morning!

By the time I got down onto the beach just south of the Central Pier there was a wing walking display going on. There wasn't a lot of walking going on actually as she looked to be fairly well fastened to one spot. But she did wave cheerfully and managed to hide the sick bag until the plane had gone past and she had her back to us. Rather her than me. I mean... wouldn't do a thing for my hair!

And then... oh, fabulous! A Vulcan bomber did just two fly-past runs. Those things must suck in fuel at a rate my car can only aspire to, so whilst brief, the Vulcan display might well have been amongst the more costly of the displays of the afternoon. But what a magnificent sight.

I used to have a mate who, during the Cold War, had to sleep under one of these in readiness for being woken up to go and drop atom bombs on Russia. And you think you are stressed at work?

Then a four-aircraft aerobatic display, The Blades. Apparently they are all ex-Red Arrow pilots and they did give a superb display.

But now it was time for the real thing.

The past few times I've seen the Red Arrows there has been low cloud and they had to do a low-level display to avoid being invisible to the audience for much of the time. No such problems this afternoon and we had a superb display, well worth the long walk from the car park.

It took me an hour to walk back afterwards with an incredible amount of people all wanting to either get back home or head back to a hotel for their evening meal. A bit like Blackpool of old! I came over all proud!

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I Think We Might Stay In...

The Red Arrows are appearing in Blackpool again today.

I caught a glimpse of them yesterday as they did the first of two displays in Blackpool at their usual tea time slot. Not sure why they time it for then - mostly people have got fed up at watching a single aircraft flying up and down that the council seem to think constitutes a display. Not too bad if it was something interesting like a Spitfire (two of these do make an appearance apparently) but the prospect of watching a single Hawk jet scream past when you are waiting to see nine of the very same aircraft doing formation flying is just an annoyance unless you're an anorak.

Anyway today the Red Arrows and the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight are at the better time of midday and I was quite fancying going down to the Prom to see them until I looked outside and saw the weather.

By gad! It's raining! Not just rain, it's more like having a row of people standing along the edge of the roof and pouring buckets of water over...

I think I'm starting to develop webbed feet...