Yeovilton Air Day Saturday 17th Sept.

Yeovilton used to clash with Flying Legends in the mid-90s.
It didn’t work out too badly, with some aircraft displaying in the morning/early afternoon and heading straight to Duxford after their display.

August is out of the question as the base is on main leave for most of the month.

Im 99.9% sure the date is set and fairford is the following weekend (15/16).

This could be good for Yeovilton with aircraft pre-positioning for Fairford which is just up the road as the crow flies!

At the moment it only clash’s with the Legends show at Duxford.

http://www.militaryairshows.co.uk/listing2006.htm

Not fogetting it will be Farnborough SBAC and RIAT next July + others. Maybe the August Bank Holiday, if you dare driving down the A303. Vulcan should be ready by August as well!!!!

No Herc at Coltishall on Saturday.

July/August could get a little cramped next year. You might still find trouble getting “acts” if they’ve already committed elsewhere.

Perhaps earlier in September, closer to the end of August, might be better. They might stick around for a week or so if there’s a significant show. From my perspective (deepest south-west), there has been very little activity all year.

Some of my efforts on the 747. I loved the spiral climb into the clouds!

TJ

Yeovilton Air Day 2005

Firstly, Spey1-11, Great pics as always Sir.. Good to meet up with You down there..

As an ex 801sq Avionics engineer on FRS1’s I had not been to “Heron” since 1987 so thanks to friends I was able to come down to see the SHAR’s finale and also to meet some of the current 801sq people..
The show for me was very good, the obvious problems that You get at shows apart.. Shame to see the RAF let it down though!..
Sad to see the SHAR going as the FRS1/FA2 were fine aircraft perfectly suited for their role..

So till next July, (I hope to be there)

Thanks to all involved in the planning and operation of the show.

Nice photo’s!!

Btw, I dont think the fact we were battling with Jersey and Coltishall for aicraft helped this year either!!!

Would be interested to know if Colt had a Herky display or not!!

YeovilTower,
I may have been guilty of a bit of a moan, but as i said I did enjoy the day:)

It’s not my first Yeovilton, and it certainly won’t be my last. Rest assured that this enthusiast certainly appreciates all the hard work. Actually though I like the September slot, it rounds of the year nicely for me. 😀

The Hunter just edged the best display for me but the SAA Jumbo was spectacular, must have been impressive from the tower. 😀

Kilvy

As an insider I can tell you alot of of work went in to trying to get aircraft into the static park. The main probelm is the time of year. Its the end of the display season and the amount of aircraft available are few and far between. Hence no foreign jet participation.

The RAF let us down, no Tucano or Harrier were forth coming, and a Nimrod, Canberra and Dominee all pulled out of the static late in the week. On saturday morning the RAF Hercules display aircraft also pulled out, so its slot was filled by the privately owned JP, which is based at Yeovilton. We even had to park a civvie Skyvan in the static on saturday morning to fill some of the gaps!

The SHAR farewell was fairly tame, but 801 only have 7 jets at their disposal. They arrived back from Poland on Friday, so getting 4 airborne was a minor miracle, given the serviceability rate of the SHAR! The rest were in the static.

Highlights for me were the RAF Merlin, SA 747 conducting wheels up approaches level with the height of the tower (68 feet!) adn the RAF Jaguar display was also well performed, with a fast low pass the highlight.

As regards the toilet crisis, I think the civvie organisers (AHA) got caught short (pardon the pun!) by the numbers of people that attended. We noticed queues of over 30 people to each block of 8-10 lavvies, 30 minutes after the gates opened! I m glad i didnt have to queue!

Hopefully next years air day will have more participants, due to the fact its moving back to its traditional July slot. I think July 8th has been ear marked as the date, which is pre Fairford, and should result in a better, fuller static park!

Looking forard to seeing more photos of the 747 – anyone got a video of it?

Very nice set of images, the first show I remember is a 1970’s Yeovilton too! The massed helicopter assault looks as impressive as ever, even if the Wessex and Whirlwinds are long gone.

The SA 747 looks stunning 🙂

Flanker Man,

I definately agree with your comment about the water tower!!! 🙂

Kilvy

Lovely shots 😉 Anna 🙂

Great photos Spey111 – lots of similar angles to mine…..

Can someone please take a stick of dynamite to that bloody concrete water tower!!!

Every time I lined up to photograph something in the static, there it was in the background!

And – didn’t they put the barriers too close to the exhibits!!! How hard was that to get a decent shot without photographing the barrier.

Great flying display though – although I thought they could have made more of the ‘last SHAR’ theme – no special markings and only four in the flypast.

And the static was waaaaayy down on previous years – loads of empty spaces.

Never satisfied of Malmesbury…………

Ken

Superb piccies Spey111, I should hopefully get mine uploaded soon. I thought it was a great day, the weather and the display was very good indeed. My highlight was seeing all the helicopters together at the end, the more aircraft in the air at one time the better. Seeing the solo displays, although very impressive, they do get a tad boring after a few passes. Over all a top day 😀 The Navy personnel were very friendly and easy to talk to also.

Did anyone get any pictures of the ACC Blue Eagle Lynx doing the amazing “backflip” manouvre??

Thanks for the comments Kilvy. Your are very good too. I agree with your comments about getting in. I arrived at about 0840 having driven straight into the car park with no problems and then aws confronted with about 45 minutes queuing to get in the gates.

The Blue Note from the ETPS Hunter was fantastic.

Some more pictures for you all.

Great shots Spey,

I’ve had a bit of a whinge about some of the arrangements on my photo thread, but I really did enjoy the display 🙂

The highlight for me was the wonderful ETPS FGA9 display culminating with a blue note and that great curved approach and landing. 🙂

cheers
Kilvy