Royal International Air Tatoo 2010

Going to Farnborough next thursday on a trade show day.. flying display not impressive as RIAT but the static display is mighty good :)
 
Busa said:
Not the same experience though...and i like to support the RAF charities and pay to watch.
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Very true.....but after around 12 years of going, sitting in the stupendously long queues to get in and having 2 young children in tow I feel like a break from the constant whinging and the "when are we going to get there" comments from the back seat.

I used to work for Nissan in Cheltenham many years ago and I used to collect the American service men's Nissans to bring back to Chelt for servicing.
Meant that I had a base security pass so on the tattoo days I was able to not only get in free but also go to the flyboys bash, which was pretty much an all day party, which was usually held in the hanger that you can see with the plane painted on the doors....this was wicked as I got to meet loads of pilot's of all nationalities and drink loads of Bud, enjoy the pig roast they put on and then crash out at one of the pilots houses....just so happened that I was dating one of his daughters at the time....WIN :D
 
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Brown route: traffic is a ****ing joke. 4 hours sat in traffic and still 9 miles away, poor planning this :(
 
Will be coming up from near London tomorrow, so up the M4. Plan to leave at 6am, hope to get to the area by 7.30, what do you think the queues will be like then?
 
That's blue route, which was probably the best route. We were going to ignore brown and head for blue off the m4 as it's dual carriageway most of the way from motorway.
You should be fine tbh
 
Over Clocker said:
Will be coming up from near London tomorrow, so up the M4. Plan to leave at 6am, hope to get to the area by 7.30, what do you think the queues will be like then?
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Might be okay at that time, wouldn't leave it any later though. We left today at 09:30 and it took 3.5hrs, when a normal day it would have taken 25mins. That wasn't even going into the ground either where there was an even bigger queue. We went around the back of Fairford for park and view.

I missed the C-17, Typhoon, F/A-18 and F-15 due to the traffic as they display between 10:00-13:00.

Can't say the show was that brilliant. No solo flights with the Mirage or F-15's, just rather boring slow formation flying. The Vulcan and B-52 were in the air at the same time, but never together. I thought this would make for a good display having the 2 big cold war bombers flying side by side but it never happened. Lots of WW2 fighters there, I believe 11 of them up in the air, but once again, slow formation flying with no high speed runs, aerobatics or mock dog fights. The Lancaster flew by itself which was odd, it's usually escorted by the Hurricane and Spitfire. The F-22 stole the show again.

We found a good place right at the end of the runway, brilliant spot as the planes fly 10-20 meters above you. Vulcan, Lancaster, B-52, Boeing 757 and F-22 coming into land = :eek:! It's something you just don't get when you go in and view from the stands.
 
Longbow said:
Might be okay at that time, wouldn't leave it any later though. We left today at 09:30 and it took 3.5hrs, when a normal day it would have taken 25mins. That wasn't even going into the ground either where there was an even bigger queue. We went around the back of Fairford for park and view.

I missed the C-17, Typhoon, F/A-18 and F-15 due to the traffic as they display between 10:00-13:00.

Can't say the show was that brilliant. No solo flights with the Mirage or F-15's, just rather boring slow formation flying. The Vulcan and B-52 were in the air at the same time, but never together. I thought this would make for a good display having the 2 big cold war bombers flying side by side but it never happened. Lots of WW2 fighters there, I believe 11 of them up in the air, but once again, slow formation flying with no high speed runs, aerobatics or mock dog fights. The Lancaster flew by itself which was odd, it's usually escorted by the Hurricane and Spitfire. The F-22 stole the show again.

We found a good place right at the end of the runway, brilliant spot as the planes fly 10-20 meters above you. Vulcan, Lancaster, B-52, Boeing 757 and F-22 coming into land = :eek:! It's something you just don't get when you go in and view from the stands.
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I have to say that it did all feel a little flat this year. The Eurofighter display was dull and uninspiring as usual, the Vulcan display was rather tame and even the Red Arrows seemed a little lacklustre (as the French team's display earlier in the day was almost identical and just as good). Indeed many of the displays lacked a certain excitement factor for me. Thank goodness for the Dutch, the USAF C-17 and the simply awesome (used in the correct context for once) F-22.

I don't think I'll be paying to go again soon.
 
Mate of mine said he was getting tickets..
Asked him today if everything went ok
"Yes we got ours but didn't get you any".
Cheers then.

Actually it's better that he didn't as the restaurant bill from the daffodil last night was a bit scary and I haven't got much money left now :D
Oh well.
Sunday on OCUK then
 
Wang Computer said:
I don't think I'll be paying to go again soon.
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Yeah I'm glad I didn't go in this year, it needs to lower the price or put on better displays.

You said Dutch? I presume you mean the Dutch F-16? I saw the orange one flying with the Apache, did they have the silver/blue one displaying earlier on in the day as well? The USAF F-16's did nothing but slow formation fly-bys. I love the fact that the USAF even have their own American vehicles over here, they were driving pickup trucks and mini vans on the roads around Fairford with American plates.
 
Longbow said:
We went around the back of Fairford for park and view.

We found a good place right at the end of the runway, brilliant spot as the planes fly 10-20 meters above you. Vulcan, Lancaster, B-52, Boeing 757 and F-22 coming into land = :eek:! It's something you just don't get when you go in and view from the stands.
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So did you not actually have a main entrance ticket? Just the £18 or so park and view ticket? From their website I thought this wasn't available on sat/sun as it was only for sale in advance on other days.

Were you to the west of the runway? I went to the recreation ground in Meysey Hampton, paid a fiver to get in and park, view was ok.
 
Stupot_ said:
So did you not actually have a main entrance ticket? Just the £18 or so park and view ticket? From their website I thought this wasn't available on sat/sun as it was only for sale in advance on other days.

Were you to the west of the runway? I went to the recreation ground in Meysey Hampton, paid a fiver to get in and park, view was ok.
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I didn't have any tickets, the pre ordering part was past of the reason why we didn't go in. As we did consider it, but by that time we didn't have tickets.

We parked north east of the runway in between Horcott and Whelford, and then walked around to the east side of the base right at the start of the runway (27). Got to view a lot as the aircraft would turned around and came over that spot. This is the same place we went to today and on Friday.
 
AH cool, so you could park on that road between them? I found a lot of the roads were closed off. Looks like a good spot, I'll keep it in mind:)
 
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