Old Warden Navy air show 05-06-016

Having been to the Abingdon and Shuttleworth spring shows and the Duxford American air show this year, I was hoping for a day that would live up to its mouthwatering display list rather than a show stunted by mostly unnecessary new CAA regulations.

Sure enough, I though it was a great day and I well pleased

The displays of the Corsair, Bearcat and Wildcat from the Fighter Collection was in my opinion, the best way show off a warbird to with dynamic manoeuvres not too distant from the crowd and certainly not like the dots lost in the background like at Duxford . I go further and say that as Old Warden is a relatively small airfield compared to Duxford, the flying of these aircraft was much tighter making for a display that would more than have equalled a display from Duxford even from 2015 and before.

Though there were only few top side passes to photograph from these aircraft, I found myself getting almost as much enjoyment from just from looking at the spectacle.

Also, though he Sea Vixen display was very nice,the Morane Saulnier was great as well. The Harvard display this time round was much more engaging – a lot better than at the spring Shuttleworth show.

There were also many other highlights but I will not delude myself to think that all of sudden that display flying has generally got better.

I was still using my 500 mm lens much of the time and though some of the larger aircraft could be got quite large with a lens up to 400 mm in cropped camera, I felt that some of he Shuttleworth own aircraft particularly the lighter and smaller ones still looked far, far away .

Due to here being no change in the basic CAA regulations since the new ones came in to effect, I think it is to early for me to decide if display flying has all of a sudden improved.

We will see.