I'll be honest, seven days prior to the event taking place, this was not something I expected to be attending! That all changed on the Monday of the lead-up when Guy Westgate, leader of the Swift Aerobatic Display Team and a man I'd first met at RAF Woodvale during the 2008 Southport Airshow display briefing, dropped me a line asking if I fancied flying with them from RAF Halton into London-City for the Fun Day and then back again. I was liking the sound of it very much, even before I got to the bit about doing air-to-airs over the Millennium Dome on the way in!
So, a little after 1100 (damned Dunstable traffic!) on the morning of the event I met up with Guy and Pete Wells, the Twister pilot in the team, at RAF Halton where Guy was getting on well with the rigging of the Swift glider. My 'driver' for the day, Ian "Gally" Gallacher, himself no stranger to RAF Halton as until recently he'd been the Station's Chief Flying Instructor (CFI), was making his way cross-country from RAF Cosford with our trusty steed, Chipmunk G-AOUO.
Guy gave me a better understanding of how the event worked. At 1200 they close the airport to commercial operations and from that point on there's a mad rush to turn the ramp space in front of the terminal building into the showground in time for the 1430 opening of the gates to the general public. This is billed as being "London's only airshow", and what's more, it's free. The 2008 event boasted an attendance of a whopping 22,000 people!
We'd been told that the airport wouldn't open to airshow traffic until 1330, so we planned to depart Halton at 1230, giving us approximately a 45-minute transit time and allowing for 15-minutes worth of photos on the way in.
Prior to 9/11 the Class D airspace surrounding the airport was 'switched off' from 1200 on the day of the show until 1200 the following day, but since then that's (understandably) been changed and is now in place 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The Aerodrome Traffic Zone (ATZ) extends two and a half miles from the centre of the airfield and meant that we wouldn't be able to get quite so up close and personal to the Millennium Dome as we'd hoped. While slightly less than ideal, the team were still confident that would give us enough scope to get what we wanted from the air-to-airs. Additionally, the whole of London has a 2500ft Class A airspace 'lid' enforced upon it, restricting displaying and visiting aircraft to a maximum height of 2400ft AMSL and the airport is also the subject to various local bye-laws and planning permissions governing who can and cannot land there, so for the Fun Day the airport is closed, effectively meaning it becomes nothing more than a lengthy piece of concrete!
With Gally and Oscar-Uniform on the ground the final preparations were made for our departure, including the removal of the back window on the port side of the aircraft, thus eliminating the issue of having to shoot through scratched perspex, and then we were off on our way!
Our routing took us down to the M1-M25 junction, past the de Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre at Salisbury Hall, Waltham Abbey and around the north-eastern side of London until we hit the River Thames near the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge. From there we followed the course of the river towards the airport with Guy releasing himself and the glider from the tow rope just past the western extreme of the airport.
We'd been advised that City were able to accept us earlier than the 1330 opening time, so our air-to-air activity was curtailed somewhat, resulting in more of a tight, spiralling descent than anticipated, but still one that worked rather well for pictures!
Having followed Guy and Pete in, Gally placed the Chippie down on runway 27 and we taxied in. British Airways had a couple of their (Cityflyer) BAe146s on the deck that visitors could enter for a look-around and there were a few bizjets parked up at the extremes of the ramp, but other than that, literally all there was to see were crowd barriers - very few people, very few stalls, activities or anything else. Guy said to me then that I wouldn't believe how it would be transformed and how right he was!
When we came out of the display briefing the gates had opened and while it was far from busy at that stage, the whole showground looked much more impressive. As it says at the top, this is billed as a "Fun Day", not an airshow, and with the opportunity for those attending to try their hand at boxing, climbing walls, to play basketball on a court operated by the NBA, to take tips from West Ham United Football Club's coaches and even have their picture taken with the Barclays Premiership Trophy, it certainly lived up to its name!
The airshow element was split into two roughly 45-minute slots, each featuring five display acts and including three new performers for me. Airshow commentator, Brendan O'Brien, who'd formated with us in his Cessna 172 on the way into LCY offered me the opportunity to photograph the show from the roof of his commentary van - that bit of extra elevation being worth its weight in gold in getting over the heads of the now assembled masses.
Unlike when we'd arrived the clouds had now parted rather perfectly, with the white and pink Stearmans of Team Guinot who opened the show looking particularly good against the blue backdrop.
When I'd heard that the legend that is Dennis Kenyon was due to display his Schweizer S269C at the show I was excited for two reasons, firstly because I thought he'd retired following his horrific (looking) crash at West Desert Airpark, UT, USA in 2008, which miraculously he walked away from, and secondly because I don't think I've ever seen his display before, and by all accounts it's rather good.
I don't know exactly how old he is but Brendan described him as being "closer to 80 than 70", and amongst others a former-Canberra, Hunter and Meteor pilot in the RAF, with more than 80 types and 13,700 hours in his logbook. As for his display at City, it was quite superb. OK so the Schweizer might be a small, lightweight helicopter, but even so, the precision with which it was displayed was fantastic, pirouetting around on one skid and performing lots of nice wing-overs. It was made all the better for the most unusual backdrop that much of it was flown against - the striking blue-tinted glass of the council offices on the other side of the Royal Albert Dock.
Paul Ambrose in the Pitts and Pete Kynsey in the Cosmic Wind both put on impressive routines in their respective diminutive aircraft before Guy and the Swift Aerobatic Display Team closed the first half of the show with one of their typically jaw-dropping displays.
Part two was kicked into life by the Turbulent Display Team, on this occasion featuring three of the tiny little Turbulent aircraft and including husband and wife team of Julie and Alan Garside. As always a combination of washing-line limboing, flour-bombing and (attempted) balloon bursting ensued, though the latter proved particularly unsuccessful!
Standing in at the last minute for his father, Richard, was 18-year old Michael Pickin in Bucker Jungmann G-BTDZ. As was the case with a large number of the participating pilots, Michael's also a member of the Tiger Club at Headcorn. His dad had been scheduled to display a CAP232 but was unable to due to servicability issues. I'm sure Michael will be one to watch in the coming years as his experience grows.
A familiar name on the airshow circuit at smaller events could be seen displaying a far less familiar T-6G Texan next - Tony Richards was at the controls of G-BGHU "Carly", a lovely US Air Force marked olive green example with red extremities, apparently owned by Chris Bellhouse at Headcorn. Tony displays the type as well as anyone and this was a very nice graceful display, showing off both the top and undersides perfectly.
Anna Walker made history in the penultimate act of the day, Historic Aircraft Collection's Hurricane XII Z5140. It's believed that Anna's the first female pilot to have flown the type since the end of World War II, and I'll be honest, I was rather disappointed with her display in P-51D Mustang "Old Crow" at RAF Cosford in June, but the performance here was splendid; a real joy to watch.
The responsibility of bringing the curtain down on the show fell to another lady - Carolyn Grace in the famous "Grace Spitfire", T.9 ML407/G-LFIX, which she did with great aplomb.
And with that we made for a quick escape! Pete and the Twister had departed in between the two parts of the flying display to undertake a solo performance at Langer, near Newark, so it was just us and Guy. I think we were the second aircraft to depart at the end of the programme and it sure beat the hell out of queuing to get out!
So what did I make of London City "Fun Day" 2009? It was all a bit strange, to be honest. Not bad strange, just different strange. According to the figures that have been published post-event there were more than 26,000 people present, smashing last year's record, yet every time I glanced at the crowd only about a quarter seemed to be aware or interested that a flying display was taking place, despite the commentator's enthusiastic urgings, which I found quite sad - it certainly wan't an indictment on those performing.
I guess I'm used to the aircraft being the main focus of the show and I suppose, perhaps by design (?) this isn't the case here. In fact, maybe that's a change that's being seen increasingly across the board at airshows? Take RIAT's latest TV ad-campaign and the revamp of their website. Maybe it's now more about getting people through the doors by hook or by crook than it is about the thing in the title? The main thing I suppose is that everyone enjoyed themselves and had a good time, and that's where City delivered a real "Ronseal" performance, it did exactly what it said on the tin, with something for everyone and fun all the way.
As an airshow venue I thought it was rather good, with an interesting and unusual backdrop, and while I don't imagine too many enthusiasts will trade in the bigger shows around this time in the calendar to come here, London-City can hold its head high for offering a varied line-up that incorporated a number of seldom seen, yet still high quality display acts.
The activities on offer on the day generated more than £35,000 for the event's designated charity, Richard House Children's Hospice which provides care and respite to children with life-limiting illnesses.
While the flying display element has apparently been the subject of much wrangling and has become quite political, the 2010 edition has already been slated for Saturday July 3rd.
As we landed back at Halton I suddenly started to appreciate just how much effort some of these display acts have to put in on a show day... Before Guy could set off for home (some two hours away - and from where he'd set off at 0730 that morning) the glider needed to be dismantled and put it back in its trailer, something which most of us probably don't even consider...
GAR wants to interact with its readers so if you have a question for the author or a comment to make on this feature, please click on the button below. The best comments will appear right here on GAR.If you would like to discuss using any of our imagery or feature content please contact us.