It would be under-playing it to say that August hasn't been a great month for the UK airshow scene. First there was the grounding of the Vulcan owing to a fuel leak, then Bournemouth suffered a complete opening day washout, but all of that paled into insignificance with the loss of "Red 4", Flt Lt Jon Egging, on recovery back at Bournemouth after what was reportedly a truly rousing performance by the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team.
Ahead of the August Bank Holiday's Dunsfold Wings & Wheels 2011, The Red Arrows had, totally understandably, confirmed that they would not be available to take part in Sunday's show (they had been due to be elsewhere on Monday anyway), but the removal of the grounding order from the Hawk T1 on the Thursday before did mean that Flt Lt Jules Fleming would at least be back on the billing.
Further positive news came through the next day when it was announced that, thanks to round the clock efforts by a number of parties, Vulcan XH558 would also be able to feature in the line-up - subject to the usual caveats regarding weather and serviceability - with her fuel leak having been repaired.
So when Gareth and I arrived at Dunsfold on Saturday afternoon (a combination of M1 roadworks and sheer weight of traffic on the M25 meant that my 117 mile journey had taken a massive three hours and fifty minutes to complete), it looked like the only change to the plan from the start of the week was the absence of The Reds. What became immediately obvious was just how much more 'stuff' there was over the southside (public side) this year! The 'Wall of Death', arenas for car and bike demonstrations as well as the traditional static aircraft and vehicle parks.
Jules had arrived shortly before I did, complete with spare jet, while Team Viper (sadly reduced to a four-ship) and Miss Demeanour had arrived over the course of the preceding week.
The light was stunning; very reminiscent of the conditions we'd been treated to after a monster downpour on the Sunday of the 2010 event when I was forced to seek shelter beneath one of Sqn Ldr Steve Kenworthy's display Harriers! This time, there was no rain, however! Sadly there were no Harriers either (save for the resident static Sea Harrier FA2!), but there was very little anybody could do about that. Of course, 12 months earlier we had no idea that Harrier would be gone from UK military service so soon….
Another type present in 2010 that wouldn't be there in 2011, for entirely different reasons, was Typhoon which is currently deployed to Italy flying missions in support of Operation ELLAMY over Libya.
There had been some criticism of the organisers on Facebook in the run-up to the show that the line-up was looking weaker than in 2010 - in truth something that was perhaps a little difficult to disagree with - but not because of any lack of trying on their part. Harrier and Typhoon's boots are quite difficult to fill!
I understand that we at GAR often get a privileged look at what goes on behind the scenes, but anybody that thinks airshow organisers don't care could not be further from the truth. Of course, much of the criticism is born out of a lack of understanding or appreciation of just how these things work - prior to setting up GAR I'll admit to being quite naïve myself - but that doesn't make it any easier to swallow.
Unfortunately it's not as simple as sending out a list of invites for aircraft to attend; if only it was! If Typhoon's not available for displays, Harrier's been retired and The Red Arrows have been temporarily stood down, what can anybody do?!
Well, Team Viper was added to the line-up for both days and we'd gained the Golden Apple F-86 Sabre and an additional Hangar 11 warbird.
I'm sure most hardened airshow goers would have loved to have seen the Sea Vixen present, but the cold, harsh reality is that very few displays can actually afford to feature both the Vulcan and the Sea Vixen on the same billing. The cost of booking and fuelling these old jets simply cannot be ignored, sadly.
And of course, Wings & Wheels is run for the benefit of a whole host of charities, and the subject of whether booking 'Foxy' when the Vulcan was already programmed would have had any impact on crowd numbers is debatable. Interestingly, over the course of the weekend I did speak to several display participants who were all of the opinion that the Sea Vixen's time will come when the Vulcan is finally put out to pasture.
Brendan O'Brien's quick practice and a handful of further arrivals, tailed by Flt Lt Dan Hayes in the Tucano, brought a close to proceedings for the day.
Gates opened to the public at 0900 the next morning and the crowdline started to fill up quite rapidly soon after. It was a beautiful start to the day that sadly wouldn't last. A handful of showers, a couple of them reasonably heavy, dampened spirits momentarily. Interspersed between them were some bright, sunny spells, however.
After a number of visiting aircraft arrivals, the 'proper' action on the runway kicked off with the Wheels element of the show. Now as anybody that knows me will tell you, cars really aren't my bag (as evidenced by the fact I drive a T-reg Focus!), but in my official capacity I felt obliged to at least let a few shots go, and (keep it to yourself!) even I have to admit that I enjoyed snapping away at them! It does have to be said that the view from the crowdline is not so impressive, however!
From the northside it was impossible to hear the commentary to gauge how well observed the minute's silence in memory of Flt Lt Egging had been, but Monday's made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and goose bumps raise on my arms, with Peter Teichman bringing it to a close to the second with the majestic sound of his Merlin-engined Spitfire PRXI, PL965. Prior to that point you literally could have heard the proverbial pin drop. The PRXI was only there at all because of a serviceability issue with the Old Flying Machine Company's Spitfire IXb, MH434.
I've not been out and about as much on the UK airshow circuit as normal this year. In fact, my tally prior to Wings & Wheels 2011 stood at just Abingdon, The Cotswold Airshow (Kemble) and Dawlish, plus arrival/practice days at Yeovilton and Fairford and the RAF Benson Families Day. The primary driving factor behind my abstinence was simply that I, like many other people, have been feeling the pinch.
We at GAR have always tried to position ourselves to see the bigger picture, often to the extent that we get knocked by certain elements of the enthusiast community, but the truth is that I'm still to talk to a single airshow organiser (or display act, for that matter) that believes the percentage of their event's audience made up of the 'die-hard enthusiast' (and by that I'm talking about those attending more than a couple of shows a year) is anywhere even close to 20%. I guess Flying Legends or maybe some of the Old Warden shows might be the exception to that, but they're certainly not the rule.
So, if upwards of 80% of your audience is attending an airshow for the only time, or maybe one of only a couple of times during the year, surely it makes sense to assemble a line-up containing the best, most recognisable acts that you can? That's certainly the basis of the formula that TSA Consulting, which is responsible for the flying display element of Dunsfold Wings & Wheels as well as a whole host of other shows up and down the country - primarily at seaside venues - employs. And who can blame them?
It's hard to argue with the inclusion of regular acts like Miss Demeanour, The Breitling Wingwalkers, The Matadors (in both their Red Bull sponsored Su-26 and unsponsored Sbach 300 guises), The Hangar 11 Collection and OFMC Pair, The Blades, gliderFX, SWIP Team, or any of the Royal Air Force displays, all of which represent outstanding value to an airshow organiser - plus of course, TSA knows exactly what it's getting for its client.
True, to the airshow regular, things might start to seem a little samey after a while, but no-one has any excuses for complaining about participation after attending an event nowadays. The notion of turning up and seeing what you get simply doesn't apply anymore. Shows have their own websites, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, all of which are updated on a regular basis.
Dunsfold's flying programme takes place in two halves, bisected by a second 'Wheels' run down the runway, and with the running orders varying slightly each day.
A banner tow conducted by gliderFX's Piper Pawnee opened the show proper with team leader, Guy Westgate, informing me that it takes between four and five hours to prepare the banner for each show! Judging by the crowd's reaction as the words "Welcome to Wings & Wheels 2011" were unfurled before them, it's well worth the effort!
One of the more recent additions to the flying display programme was Golden Apple's magnificent North American F-86A Sabre G-SABR, the only airworthy 'A-model' anywhere in the world today. Former RAF Hawk Display Pilot, Mark Linney, put her through her paces each day with a striking series of graceful, sweeping topside and underside passes, each autographed with a trail of jet black smoke pouring from the exhaust.
For sheer "Wow" factor, few acts made the same impact that Gerald Cooper did with his Sbach 300. I first met Gerald in 2009 at Sywell where the GB team was working up ahead of that year's World Aerobatic Championships held at Silverstone. Ultimately he achieved a highly respectable 7th place overall in his CAP232. In fact, at Dunsfold, Gerald told me that his Sbach had only been ready for five weeks and that he was still "fighting with it".
While I don't claim to have the requisite knowledge to pick out any technical flaws in his routine, I have to say that I was genuinely blown away by what he did in the skies above Dunsfold Park each day; the slow-quick-slow roll rate work, in particular, really catching the eye.
After his performance on Monday, Gerald headed off to Italy for WAC 2011, where he's hoping for another top 10 finish. I for one wish him all the very best with it, and I'm amazed he's not been harassed to appear more on the UK airshow circuit!
The undoubted highlight of the show for me was this year's 'Hawker Formation' which comprised Jonathon "Flapjack" Whaley in the unmistakable Hunter F58 'Miss Demeanour' G-PSST and Lt Cdr Chris Gotke in the Royal Navy Historic Flight Sea Fury T20 VX281/G-RNHF. Flapjack's plan was to position the aircraft for the photographers on the crowdline in a series of passes from both directions and with each aircraft taking a turn at leading. I'm not actually sure that it could have worked out any better than it did! On each occasion the aircraft were bathed in sunshine whilst parading around in front of some imposing cloudscapes.
Of course, the biggest disappointment of the weekend came when the news broke that Vulcan XH558 had been forced to divert to RAF Coningsby whilst en-route to Wings and Wheels after suffering an in-flight hydraulic leak. It might not have been quite so gutting had the whole "will she / won't she" saga that had been running in the couple of weeks leading up to the show, seemingly been overcome….
I think that's the thing I've come to appreciate more in the last few weeks than anything else through my / our associations with Dawlish Air Show and, to a lesser extent, Wings & Wheels: it doesn't matter how much time and effort, blood, sweat and tears you pour into the organisation of an airshow in the preceding 12 months, ultimately you're held totally hostage by fate and circumstance. Why on earth does anybody put themselves through it?!?
That's not to detract in any way from the pain that everyone associated with the Vulcan must have been feeling on Sunday, particularly those that had worked their backsides off to ensure that she was airworthy on Friday, but, unlike the poor old airshow organisers, at least they get more than one crack at it….
I have to say, Alister Kay made the Old Flying Machine Company's P-51D Mustang "Ferocious Frankie" absolutely sing on both days. There can be few more satisfying sounds at an airshow than that of a 'whining' Mustang, and Alister's swooping routine really seemed to emphasise it. Just wonderful!
Closing Sunday's show was a Team Viper three-ship (just three due to the short-notice of Sunday's booking following The Reds' cancellation), featuring new member of the team, Andy Hill in 'Fox One' (WV372 / G-BXFI), for the first time in public. The name will already be familiar to many of you as one half of the RV8tors, the other being the aforementioned Alister Kay. Andy comes from a military background where he instructed on both the Jet Provost and Harrier and now flies part-time as an Airbus Captain. Additionally, he also flies for Ultimate High from Cotswold Airport.
Unusually, the team was led on this occasion by Sqn Ldr Dan Arlett in G-VETA, rather than the more familiar name of Chris Heames who was away elsewhere. Andy Gillett completed the trio in PR11 'XG194' (which is really WT723 / G-PRII) and they looked extremely tidy.
Monday started in a similar way to Sunday, but the forecast indicated that a band of cloud would be pushing southwards during the day. The only question was whether it would extend quite as far as Dunsfold. Needless to say, it did, and for almost the entirety of the second half of Monday's flying display, overcast conditions prevailed, in stark contrast to the glorious blue skies of much of the opening segment.
The Breitling Wingwalkers arguably got the best of the conditions, but Brendan O'Brien's Flying Circus, the F-86 Sabre (again!), Flt Lt Dan Hayes in the Tucano, Flt Lt Shaun Kimberley in the Tutor and the Royal Navy Lynx solo were all notable beneficiaries too. The latter created quite a stir when hover-taxying post display in the vicinity of the Stampe and Turbulent Team on the northside, prompting a mini-Mexican Wave as the aircraft were briefly bounced around on the grass, fortunately with no lasting damage having been inflicted.
I'd got quite a long list of things I still needed to get done at the start of the day and it once again dawned on me just how much stuff there was to see and do on the ground. If you were a lover of both cars and planes, I honestly can't imagine how you could have done the show justice in anything less than the whole weekend. For me, I was left wishing it was a three day show! I never did get to see the Wall of Death or any of the other car and bike demonstrations….
One addition to the Monday line-up was Hangar 11's P-40 Kittyhawk, flown by Stuart Goldspink and complete with very smart new "Clawin' Kitty" noseart.
Poignantly, Flt Lt Jules Fleming's display in the Hawk enabled the organisers to mark "Women in the Air Day", held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first British woman, Hilda Hewlitt, obtaining a pilot's license at Brooklands on August 29 1911.
Mark Southern was available to join his Team Viper colleagues on this occasion, while an engine issue meant that the SWIP Team's paired routine became a Pete Wells Twister solo, with Guy Westgate missing out. As another indication of the commitment our airshow players regularly demonstrate - often unbeknown to the public and without grumbling - after shuttling back and forth between Pete's base near Bicester and Dunsfold by road, Guy planned to drive the engine back to the manufacturer in Belgium the next day!
The responsibility for wrapping things up fell to Alister Kay in Ferocious Frankie, and, having spent the final couple of hours northside with the Turbulent Team (expect a feature on them in the coming weeks), I got a rather close look into the cockpit where, for some bizarre reason, Alister appeared to have an almighty grin on his face. That probably tells you all you need to know about flying the Mustang!
OK, so the Vulcan's loss, literally at the twelfth hour, did hurt, but there was nothing that anybody could do about that. It would be nice to think that Typhoon might be back on the RAF's roster of display aircraft for 2012 and that The Red Arrows will be available.
More than 30,000 people did attend Dunsfold Wings & Wheels 2011 over the two days of the show, with it officially being hailed as the biggest so far. Whether cars and bikes or planes are your bag, it's pretty hard to imagine that there wasn't something there for you. And if both happen to tick your boxes, you'd best hope that you were present for the whole weekend!
A wider selection of images can be found in the Dunsfold Wings & Wheels 2011 Image Gallery.
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