Excellent shots there from an airport we seldom see!

Never realised how tiny the baby bus is! Why not just get an E190?? Unless of course you want to keep businessmen happy across the pond!

I have seen many aviation themed quizzes on Facebook, mostly “name that airline” from the tail or “name that aircraft type”.

Lovely pics! Looks as if it was a Norwegian AF meet up!

To be honest I really don’t know where the UK and the USA are going with this “war on terror”. First of all what is terror or terrorism? It is not really something we can fight a war against. Terrorism is not a physical entity but an ideology. We are fighting against a whole host of different people who honestly believe that they are freedom fighters and that what they are doing is for the greater good. The men who committed the unspeakable acts 8 years ago this Friday believed in their minds that God would reward them for their “bravery”. The same for those that blew up the train in Madrid 2 and a half years on and on 7/7 attacked London.

Let us also remember that there is not only “Islamic terrorism”, which I think should be called “unIslamic terrorism” as it goes against the vast majority of what Islam stands for. For many, many years British servicemen and women fought terror not in the deserts of the Middle East but in their own back yards in the fields of South Armagh and Belfast. In Northern Ireland the British army always outnumbered the IRA volunteers and for the most part had far superior weapons so in theory the IRA should have been defeated in a year or so. However after 30 years of conflict the IRA was only slightly weaker than it had been in 1969! That is because you can shoot at the IRA, you can bomb IRA strongholds, you can torture IRA members but you cannot defeat the heart of the IRA. Irish Republicanism! Sure the majority of republicans have now adopted a more peaceful strategy because that is now a viable alternative. However in the days where the only way an Irishman could oppose the British was by taking up the gun there were always more and more Irish teenagers taking up arms against the British army.

I think much the same thing is happening in the 21st Century. The Taliban can lose men to the allied forces but there are always more corruptible young minds waiting to be brainwashed. No army in the world can stop the Taliban corrupting young minds with their skewed views of religion and jihad.

I take my hat off to anyone who has served in the forces in any campaign be it the Great War, the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Iraq or Afghanistan. However the brave men who are going out to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq (although the Brits have now withdrawn I am thinking about US service personnel) are fighting an un-winnable war. Sure we can kill Taliban members and the Taliban can kill our men with roadside bombs but the Taliban have thousands of reserves waiting to take on the fight. How long can Britain rely on “the kids of the English working class” as an Irishman once put it, to fight the next generation of Taliban!

Just my thoughts on the matter, criticisms welcome:)

For the first time in about 5 years I cannot make it to the show this year! My mate who I usually rely on for transport has another engagement south of the border that weekend! I was planning on going up on the Friday (weather dependant) to maybe see some arrivals and practice displays, my mate did that last year and had a ball!

Thanks for the heads up, will be at Edinburgh on Saturday to see her come in. You would have thought they could have at least let her wheels touch Scottish asphalt! Oh well should be good nonetheless!!