RAF Leuchars Airshow 2008

The BoB was all about the defence of Southern England, not the far north of Scotland, well not directly at the time anyway.
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Pete, Not wishing to have a go, or sound nationalistic ( though I am proud to be Scottish) but I always thought Battle of Britain day was as more about commemorating and remembering those who flew, defended the airfields and worked all hours to keep the aircraft servicable.

I would imagine that there were a substantial number of Scots involved in this and, as such think that Leuchars, and Scotland, has every right to stage a Battle of Britain airshow.

Pete Truman:

First of all you need to get your Scottish geography right. Leuchars is not by any stretch of the imagination the “far north of Scotland”. Leuchars is located in the Kingdom of Fife which if you knew anything about Scottish geography is in what they call the “Central Belt” of Scotland. This Central Belt happens to be the most populated area in all of Scotland with Dundee only 20 mins away, Edinburgh (the capital) just over an hour away and Glasgow about 2 hours so or so away by car.
Secondly the BoB might have been about the defence of the precious White Cliffs of Dover by the City of Edinburgh Squadron fought very hard to keep the German bombers away from the invaluable port of Rosyth in Fife. They did such a good job that not only the first German bomber to be shot down over Britain was claimed by them over Fife but the Firth of Forth was nicknamed “Suicide Alley” by the German Luftwaffe. I think they are due some recognition.
Quite frankly Leuchars can reschedule their airshow to earlier on in the year, September is the most stupid time to have an airshow in Scotland, the weather in 2005, 2006 and 2008 were really against the organisers (no show in 2007 due to runway resurfacing). I would be all for a July airshow as this would be slightly better for the Scottish climate

Regards

AJ

I’d be for a Scottish airshow in April/May, that’s when we’ve seen the best weather in recent years… Oh and I’d love to see a return of the Scottish International Airshow at Prestwick Airport. Those were the days with regular airline traffic mixing in with the displays, I recall a Northwest Orient 747 making a thundering low fly past before commencing it’s flight to Boston back in the early 80’s !

Pete Truman:

First of all you need to get your Scottish geography right. Leuchars is not by any stretch of the imagination the “far north of Scotland”. Leuchars is located in the Kingdom of Fife which if you knew anything about Scottish geography is in what they call the “Central Belt” of Scotland. This Central Belt happens to be the most populated area in all of Scotland with Dundee only 20 mins away, Edinburgh (the capital) just over an hour away and Glasgow about 2 hours so or so away by car.
Secondly the BoB might have been about the defence of the precious White Cliffs of Dover by the City of Edinburgh Squadron fought very hard to keep the German bombers away from the invaluable port of Rosyth in Fife. They did such a good job that not only the first German bomber to be shot down over Britain was claimed by them over Fife but the Firth of Forth was nicknamed “Suicide Alley” by the German Luftwaffe. I think they are due some recognition.
Quite frankly Leuchars can reschedule their airshow to earlier on in the year, September is the most stupid time to have an airshow in Scotland, the weather in 2005, 2006 and 2008 were really against the organisers (no show in 2007 due to runway resurfacing). I would be all for a July airshow as this would be slightly better for the Scottish climate

Regards

AJ

Many years ago, just about every RAF airfield held it’s BoB display, now it’s restricted to Leuchars.
Fair enough, I agree with the Scots having an airshow to look forward to for a change, they don’t get much of a deal after all.
The thing is, Leuchars is pretty remote from the main population areas of Scotland, let alone the rest of the UK. Up until relatively recently, we had at least the Finningley Airshow, but now nothing.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to reshedule Waddington as a UK appreciation of the old BoB displays that we used to look forward to in the old days, I suppose that Leuchars would have to go, but not neccesarily, there’s enough air power to go around, surely.
The BoB was all about the defence of Southern England, not the far north of Scotland, well not directly at the time anyway.
We miss our BoB displays down here, I think that something should be done to rectify this, ‘Lest We Forget’, well I think that the ‘Powers that Be’ have gone down that road, haven’t they.

I think the right decision was made by the display director and his team. If he had said go and the aircraft went IFR straight after take off, then the CAA would have had his guts. I believe that erring on the side of caution is the way ahead. If you take risks in the first year of flight or even flout the rules then the lawmen would soon tear up the permit to fly. then where would we be.

This however really peed me off.

Could you not have taken the covers off guys BEFORE you moved to the other side of the airfield ??

I heard a few people asking the same question.

I take your point but I would have thought that the pilot’s judgement that a display was possible would have over ruled any CAA regulations. After all i don’t think that TVOC would want to take any risks with XH558. Another complaint from the pilot after the show was that a Spitfire was let up after XH558 had vacated. What are the chances that the Spit was operating IFR (after all the airfield was operating IFR at the time)

Right so Merlin.
Most frustrating but at least we were able to see 558 under her own power.
It was worth the trip just to see that.
Regards
Der

But due to stringent CAA regulations they were not able to. Lets flame the CAA

Lets just remember one thing though. The CAA rules are there for a reason and that is why they were made.

It could well be one of the major reasons the Vulcan can fly is that it is under VFR and possibly another reason it got lottery money as well.

Lets not forget who would be the first to moan about losing the Vulcan if it had displayed yesterday and something had went wrong.

I liked the second taxi from the west end of the runway when the vulc saw air beneath all of its tyres for just a split second.

Well done to all of the Leuchars and associated staff for trying to bring us a display and if there is one thing you cant account for its the weather.

Just get the CO told to order the right kind of weather for next year or there may be trouble 🙂

doesnt look like im going now, due to my friend not having enough fuel, he was travelling from manchester and calling for me on the way, unfortunatly it isnt pay day for him yet:(

You really did not not miss the world’s best airshow. The weather was very much against the organisers, cloud base of 500 ft rising to 1000 ft later on and visibility extremely poor throughout the day. Many of the displays were cancelled, the Role Demo was scaled down considerably and the Vulcan could not fly. Instead it did 2 fast taxis up the runway and raised the nosegear. The pilot of the Vulcan David somebody (not good with names) did then go and meet the crowd after taxiing back to its parking position. He said that the crew were able and capable of putting on a display for the crowd but due to stringent CAA regulations they were not able to. Lets flame the CAA :diablo: :dev2:

doesnt look like im going now, due to my friend not having enough fuel, he was travelling from manchester and calling for me on the way, unfortunatly it isnt pay day for him yet:(

Just got back from “arrivals day” managed to fill 2 CF cards today so, some good stuff to be seen.. Vulcan done a cracking display on arrival, and Dutch AF (i think) F-16 (i think) done an awesome display, one of the typhoons also pulled off a ripper of a display, Even the Czech AF wee trainer type things and An26 done some great stuff too, as well as some insane helicopter stunts…. so, not bothering with the show… seen most of it today!!:D Only bummer for me was hoping the Phantom would do a bit, but, just a flypast and land. Some good stuff there at the airshow.. it’s been getting a bit of a pasting up here with the apparent lack of contributors, but looks a decent enough show all the same… weather was improving through the day, and was really nice by late afternoon, hope it holds for you and have a great time.