Greatest airshow moment (Very old thread dredged up)

The Great American Airshow

Back in the dark days of apartheid SA, a group with the above title toured the country. As an airshow starved youngster I had to go along to Ysterplaat airforce base near Cape Town.
By the time the show had reached this outpost, they were down to two aircraft, a Piper Cub and a Pitts Special.
A lady pilot flew the Cub extensively, I recall flour bags taped to the wingtips being burst by tapping the wingtips on the runway. At least she did not try to do both wingtips at the same time. 🙂

Finally the great moment arrived, and the dashing pilot leaped into his trusty Pitts Special, started it up, and taxied about 10yards straight into a corrugated iron portable loo. The loo won. Glad I wasn’t him! 😀

The SAAF shows however were excellent, my first Spit sighting, Evelyn.

A Cheetah (upgraded Mirage 3) snuck over the crowd from behind, and went into a full afterburner climb. Wow. Shock and paraffin smoke!

Whenever a new aircraft was shown, they would play Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t she lovely” of course!

Edit. Moggy. Some other forums I use state beneath the poster’s avatar if the member is deceased. Is that a facility we could use here? At least newer members would be aware if resurrecting old threads?

Just seen this part of the post.

Kind of reminds me of the famous wall of past-pilots featured in the bar in Right Stuff. Not sure I think it’s a great idea, probably because I am a prime candidate myself 🙁

But going back to it… Mike reacted, I explained why, we changed the thread title.

Nobody is making a big deal of it.

Moggy

As a young loon of an Air Cadet helping to drag a glider down the grass alongside the runway at a Biggin Hill (At Home)
A maroon went up and then 3 Valiants did a ‘scramble’ off the ORP.
Quite impressive when you were so close,i can still hear the noise and see the smoke.

Abotsford airshow

Two episodes come to mind
1. late 60’s if my memory serves seeing the Vulcan at Abbotsford BC doing a full 360 turn inside the field perimeter. The ground shook.
2. almost a tragedy but luck was with evryone. Had a RCAF Voodoo in my binoculars when it flew through a flock of birds while entering a pull-up an cutting in the afterburner. Started a slow roll to the right, canopy blew off and both crew came out sideways, then a HUGE ball of fire. Crew were okay, one with very slight burns to the legs and probably quite soiled undies.
After talking to a RCAF member later that day I was called to the accident inquest. All very official.

Warren

Steve died the same day that my Dad died. It’s been almost eight years and I have long ago come to grips with the fact that Dad’s gone. I don’t get all upset every time some little thing reminds me he was once around and no longer is. The same goes for Steve.

Mark.
That’s a blast from the past (even though I’m not on it).
It was a great forum group in those days.

Greatest airshow moments for me.
1) Solo EE Lightning at the opening of Norwich airport, 1970. Can’t now remember the pilot but he might have had enough paraffin left to get the five miles back to Coltishall from Horsham St Faiths.

2) Neil Williams flying MH434 at a Burma Star do at Waterbeach–mid seventies.

3) A day in 1970, when age eight, I first went to the hallowed acres of Old Warden.

4) Stefan Karowski flying the Bearcat at Biggin Hill–1981/82, can’t now remember.

****’s sake guys lighten up! Steve would be pissing himself to know he could still wind you all up :diablo: I’m very happy whenever i’m reading through a thread and a post of his pops up. He’s only dead if you think him that way.

Greatest Airshow Moment? Steve and I creeping up on all our mates with cameras as the mustangs shot in low and from the right, up by the tank bank and Steve yelling “P51 CADILLAC OF THE SKIES” as they were all about to press the tit and start rattling off frames…threw the lot of them and we laughed our **** off.

It was a little more than a week later that his fiancee called me and told me the news of his death and I had to let the rest of ‘us’ know. Hell we had some laughs that saturday though.

Found an old thread disturbing ???? I find your comments disturbing !!! I think you need to get a grip ….

Rather than being cryptic or opaque, I will simply state that Steve Young (prolific and much-liked forum member) was killed in a motoring accident, and his loss is still felt by those who knew him well, despite the passing of the years.

To see his posts crop up, is a bit of a jolt, and an echo from another era. Nobody’s fault, but unsettling, and sad, of course.

I think it was the fact there were people on the old thread that aren’t around anymore so i can understand some of the feelings.I certainly never mean’t to upset anyone but unless all threads are deleted from the website after either someone disappears away from the thread for whatever reason or a certain date then i don’t see a way around it.
There are some terrific threads from the past and some i would like to see resurrected on a reasonably regular basis ie the Memphis Belle filming’s,Battle of Britain filming’s because there may be new members who have got memories to share.

I used to love the Mildenhall displays including the food stalls.
I also enjoyed the rare stuff you wouldn’t normally see over here

Found an old thread disturbing ???? I find your comments disturbing !!! I think you need to get a grip ….

Were you at Biggin Hill the year it didn’t display because of a fault?
If you were lucky to have stayed late the Vixen did a very nice departure. It took off, went vertical and did a roll off the top. Looked very impressive.

I remember that in the queue to get out i was in my car, and heard the noise and saw it in my rear view mirror, quickly jumped out and managed to catch it.

Indeed why ? Only joined this forum today but if people are happy to continue writing on any given topic , however old , why does that make it ‘disturbing and unneccessary’ ?

Anyway, before we all fall out , my nominations would be at each end of my spotting spectrum :

Any Finningley BoB display during the early sixties when the final item was the ‘airfield attack’ featuring the ‘standard’ RAF firepower package of 4 x scrambled Vulcans , 6 x Hunter F.6’s plus a couple of Beverleys pitched against that year’s selected foe – usually an Arab fort but one year the Daleks !

The USN Centennial airshow at North Island 2 years ago – a static of 80+ including 2 berthed carriers , 2 hour flypast of c180 current USN/USMC types culminating in a fly over the top of San Diego by the best part of a carrier air wing in loose battle formation – approx 40 F-18/ E-2/ EA-6 ‘s. AWESOME.

1st display by Dan Griffiths in the Sea Vixen at Duxford in 2001, is the best I’ve ever seen it displayed, things became sedate with it after Brian took the controls.

Were you at Biggin Hill the year it didn’t display because of a fault?
If you were lucky to have stayed late the Vixen did a very nice departure. It took off, went vertical and did a roll off the top. Looked very impressive.

I can’t remember if I posted this before, but my greatest airshow memory – well, not technically an `airshow` but it was at Duxford and featured Warbirds.

During 89 when the Memphis Belle aircraft were based at Duxford. It was a very warm and sunny day. Blue skies and just some whispy cloud. As it was a weekday there were not many people at Duxford. In fact I pretty much had the museum to myself. I was just wandering along by the Hangers, getting a bit drowsy in the heat. When overhead roared a flight of P51’s, all in 8th Airforce colours (five if I remember correctly). They were in loose formation, fast and low. They came in over the hangers. Then broke into the pattern for landing.
I had to pinch myself. It really felt like I had been transported back in time.
It wasn’t staged like an airshow and felt `real` somehow. I guess that was how it would have been in 44, coming back from escort missions. A few aircraft at a time.

If I had to pick an airshow moment it was the Mosquito at Biggin Hill during the last year it flew. That was a real `power` display.

1st display by Dan Griffiths in the Sea Vixen at Duxford in 2001, is the best I’ve ever seen it displayed, things became sedate with it after Brian took the controls.

I would concur with cometguy, seeing thre Bristol F2b’s in a tailchase on a beautiful evening with my Dad, brother and nephews- fantastic for a lot of reasons

The “last” display of the Vulcan at Woodford airshow when i was a young lad, for many years after i had a massive poster on my wall of the beast in flight as a reminder. First time i saw her in flight again was at the Dawlish airshow when she flew with the Reds, if somebody had took a picture of me it would of been something like this….. :D:D:D

A two ship A-10 display at Duxford many many years ago. Think it was a Sunday and the weather was a bit claggy.

Commentator said that the 2 had been asked if they where able to do a short display as they where up flying around from Woodbridge and had not much else to do.

It was well orchestrated pairs attack profile, one running in on the target (control tower) whilst the other was using the hilly ground to full effect for terrain shielding – I imagine this was way before Stansted was a bit busy!

What added to it was they had the pilots chatter over the radio – each pilot giving a rundown to the other of where he was in the attack, with a “Firing, Firing NOW” and then the extreme sharp break left or right.

Went on for about five minutes showing how they would operate at extreme low level using the terrain and the various attack profiles.

Always sticks in my mind, keeping an eye on the fella running in, whilst the other was in and out of the high ground to the front.

On the first subject, is it possible for the mods to obviously flag an old thread that has been resurrected, to minimise the scope for confusion?

We do that, as I have with this one, but it does depend on us seeing it first. There is no pre-posting moderation here.

Moggy

Leaving aside the last few exchanges which explain the earlier objection, with which I can sympathise, it’s impossible to single one out but:

The Roly Falk Vulcan “roll”
The Roger Topp Hunter loop
and at innumerable shows over the years from the Lightning through to the F15 the full reheat take-off into the vertical climb to the blue!!

As well as memorable aerobatic displays from the Zurakowski “cartwheel” through Neil Williams to the Red Bull Extras today.