For the second year running, my brother and I had opted to travel up to Telford for the RAF Cosford Airshow, going via Duxford on my way to do some Hangar 2 crate spotting - for those who are interested, the Horsemen have arrived, though I question the humanity in keeping Messrs Hinton, Shipley and Friedkin locked up in a box until Flying Legends.
Arriving at Cosford late in the afternoon, I caught the arrival of the Hawker Hurricanes I and IIb, with Stu Goldspink and Peter Teichman flying nice low level run in and breaks against the leafy Cosford backdrop. Heading to the train station, which offers an excellent panorama across the airfield for those considering the arrivals day next year, we caught further arrivals from Alister Kay in the Old Flying Machine Company's P-51D Mustang, Anna Walker in Kennet Aviation's Seafire XVII, the SWIP Team and the Belgian A109 pair returning from commitments elsewhere.
That was the sum total of the afternoon's activity for me, so it was off to our luxury accommodation at the Telford Holiday Inn (all of five minutes' drive from the airfield) to check in before setting out for dinner in town where we enjoyed the familiar surroundings of a Frankie and Benny's, a place where the staff are as vanilla as the ice cream. Blinded by the low sunlight (particularly hazardous when navigating the maze of car parks and roundabouts that make up Telford's "town centre") on the way back to the hotel, I was optimistic that the met men would be wrong - why break the habit of their careers, after all? - and the blue skies would hold for just a little longer.
It wasn't meant to be. Sunday dawned grey and gloomy, and in the time it took to take on some food (where we spied the RAF Falcons tucking into a full English, all the trimmings, with a mountain of toast - those men know how to do breakfast) it had deteriorated to some pretty full on rain. Still, that's never stopped me before. Starbucks sausage butty buttied, it was off to Cosford...
It was a pretty grim state of affairs this year, all told. Someone had clearly left the tap running upstairs overnight, with Sunday starting wet but thankfully not too windy, in a welcome break from tradition, and staying wet for the remainder of the day. Arriving on base to hear airshow radio plugging out tunes like ELO Mr Blue Sky seemed almost cruel, given the circumstances. We parked up roughly equidistant from the nearest lavatory block and the hangars - prime airshow car park real estate right there - and went for a wander up to the RAF Museum.
The excellent, albeit highly controversial due to the unorthodox positioning of the exhibits, Cold War Museum is a must see, but it was absolutely rammed on Sunday so we were in and out of there faster than "a certain well known footballer" at his sister-in-law's house. I have to say, even though it reminds me of my bedroom ceiling, circa 1990-94, I quite like the layout. As Paul Fiddian said in his RAF Museum Cosford article, the tightly packed aircraft, bearing down on you from all angles, do give a suitably foreboding impression, representative perhaps of the nation's Cold War fears. Whether that was the intention is another question, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
After a steady trudge through the many hangar displays, we bumped into a remarkably dry and chipper Gareth Stringer, accompanied by ex-Team Merlin manager and current member of the RAF Presentation Team, Gareth Attridge. The latter was on his way to begin the first of the Team's presentations of the day, introducing two of the Tornado GR.4 role demo team to explain what their current role is in Afghanistan and Libya, complemented by footage displayed on a large screen behind them and followed by a Q&A session with the public.
I can't really see the Presentation Team's airshow debut as anything other than a triumph, from both the engagement perspective (it can't be anything other than an aid to the RAF's awareness campaign, surely) and in the sense of breaking down the barriers between the public and personnel. Many events maintain a strict "us and them" policy where you can watch the pilots grazing in their tent from afar, but this particular innovation strips that feeling away and enables a far more informal and refreshing approach to the interaction between paying punter and participant. It would also be excellent to see the concept expanded in future to take in civilian pilots and crews too; either way, they're on to a winner.
It's at events like this where the ground attractions really come into their own. I'd wager that in years gone by, spectators would wander into the hangar at one end and proceed straight out the other end without stopping. That didn't seem like the case at Cosford - practically held hostage by the rain, people were stopping and reading, watching, asking. It was nice to see the extensive RAF displays being utilised to their full potential. I can only hope that they managed to drum up a few future recruits over the course of the day!
It was at this point that the already fatigued, flagging Team GAR set off to find the dodgiest looking burger vendor on the airfield, settling for the "Gourmet Burger" stand near the funfair. If it has "gourmet" in the title, it must be the finest Aberdeen Angus beef sourced from the healthiest, happiest highland cows, carved and prepared by Gordon Ramsay himself, right? In truth it was more 'indeterminate puck of gristle' than 'Michelin star masterpiece' but nevertheless, all we needed was a hot meat injection to build our strength for the home stretch.
It was during our meat-sweat induced stumble back to the hangars that we came across a hidden quarry - the static! Well, part of it anyway - Jet Provosts, a Strikemaster and a Chipmunk, tucked in the corner between a hangar and the fringes of the funfair. What a shame that our canny pet Neil McCarthy's fair chariot was inconsiderately blocking the view of the House of Horrors bouncy castle when there was all that apron space going spare...
As we marvelled at the thoughtful choreography of the static exhibit, we noticed that unbeknownst to us, the Turbulent Team - who will always give it a bloody good go in any weather in true British bulldog spirit - were in the midst of their routine. Major credit to the pilots for braving the rain, it can't be very rewarding flying about in an open cockpit vintage aircraft in such conditions! The Turbs signalled the start of a much revised flying programme, made up primarily of the hardier modern types that could safely perform in the rain.
Suffice to say, the warbirds and classic jets were unable to take part, and rightfully so, given the potential risks to pilot, aircraft and spectator. What did fly, however, was gratefully received and I can't stress enough how thankful everyone was to the Flying Control Committee, the pilots and everyone else who worked hard in some really soul destroying weather to entertain the large crowd.
Highlights for me were the Hawk T.1 solo from Flt Lt Jules Fleming and the return of the terrific Tornado GR.4 role demo, even though the latter saw only one of the Tonkas partaking in the ground and pound of a "Libyan convoy" following the first opposition pass, due to the visibility, or, rather, the lack thereof! Both the Hawk and Tornado(s) gave numerous topside photographic opportunities, which ought to please those whose cameras will only focus on the much sought after topside angles.
The Royal Air Force continued to try their very best to support the event, with the Red Arrows flying most of the first half of their routine with eight Hawks, much to the crowd's delight, before calling it a day (a wise decision!). New for the 2011 season are the 'diamond nine' (or on this occasion, the chipped diamond) twinkle rolls; it looks impressive, no doubt, but I'm sure I've seen a similar manoeuvre performed by other international display teams in the past...
Elsewhere, we were treated to full displays from the Royal Navy Black Cats and the sole foreign military asset on parade, with the sprightly Belgian Air Component Agusta A109. On the lighter side of things, the Blades gave it their best shot, the SWIP Team defied the weather and flew a full aerobatic close formation display, and airshow legend Brendan O'Brien flew his quite insane crazy flying and truck top landing sequence.
A much abbreviated programme then, but it was more than enough to keep the spectators interested and given the prevailing weather of the day, I doubt anyone would've held it against the organisers had they pulled the plug completely. From my perspective, it was more of a social day spent at "crowd rear" as it were, enjoying some fine company and a good bit of banter.
I didn't take any photographs for fear of killing my camera, what with the epic stretch of Kemble, Waddington, Flying Legends and RIAT in the coming weeks, though I shan't complain. It was actually nice to stand back and look at the bigger picture rather than focusing (if you'll excuse the pun) on one tiny piece of the sky.
Getting out was a surprisingly swift exercise. The radio claimed some had spent 70 minutes queueing for the exit, but clearly they hadn't realised that there were actually two ways out, one of which was moving smoothly and without delay. Still, we're British. We love a good queue, especially if it lets us have a moan. It's what we do.
On reflection, had I driven up from London on Sunday morning (necessitating a ridiculous 5am start, or thereabouts, and that's the middle of the night as far as I'm concerned), I might have come away considering it all to have been a waste of money - £60 in petrol, £50 for a hotel room, £25 entry fee, a criminal amount on 'food'... - but as it was, it wasn't a terrible haul.
I got to see my Pegs on Saturday afternoon; had a drive around Telford, which was sublime; had my traditional airshow bath in the Holiday Inn (though being a "hefty fellow" as Peter Teichman called me at Biggin Hill 2010, I could only fit one cheek in the tub. Or was it a bidet?); met some new faces; enjoyed a good bit of a banter throughout the day; was given a King Air pen by Flt Lt Leon Creese (which Gareth used to autograph my Abingdon DVD, naturally) and, to top it off, I managed to demolish a tremendous full three courses at Frankie and Benny's (hello, banoffee cheesecake), so I can't complain.
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