Sounds like fun! Can I beta test for you?!
What OS/platforms will you support?

Half the fun of university is being able to move several hundred miles from home! Have you considered moving further afield? Believe me, you won’t look back once you’re gone… so you might as well go someplace where they have aircraft!

It sounds sensible to me that a student should at least be exposed to spinning.

It’s like how we’re not allowed to be taught to drive on a motorway as part of the standard UK driver training. How stupid is that? The first thing my friends and I did after getting our car licenses was to get an hour’s motorway lesson, and we all felt so much more confident as a result. I’m sure the same would be true of a spin lesson.

Re: Texas drivers

Originally posted by China Clipper
You just have to watch out for those Texas drivers…

Whoah! So you not only drive on the wrong side of the road, you have to watch for aircraft cutting you up as well?! 😉

RogerS, what a fantastic image 😀

Why do we take pictures…?

Well, for me, it is for several reasons. I love to be around aircraft, enjoying their sights and sounds. I do try not to spend an entire show with the camera glued to my face. I want to eyeball the aircraft directly to know that I saw it myself. If that means missing a photo of a great pass, well, that’s what memory is for. Who am I taking the photo for anyway? If I’m at a show with family and friends, do I smeg off info the distance to get the maybe-perfect location, or enjoy their company?

Where do my pictures go? For the most part, they hit my website, as most of the regulars here probably know. I have been lucky enough to have received requests for pictures as a direct result of this, which have ended up in magazines and some forthcoming books. This I am proud of, and spurs me on to take more pictures. However the greatest pleasure I get from my pictures is to take the best images from a show, print them out big and enjoy the sight of an aircraft in its element 🙂

I love the unusual, and any aircraft that I haven’t seen before is fair game for my lens. I follow civil aviation a lot and go to loads of fly-ins, where in amongst the Cessnas and Pipers, there are any amount of interesting beasties to be found. Although collecting numbers is beyond me, collecting types is proving to be another matter 😉

Moggy has a good point about Shuttleworth. If there was ever a good place for the all-round aviation nut, this is it. Warbirds, historics, civil fly-in visitors, usually some sun, picnic location, a cracking shaped flightline and plenty of passes. Whatever your tastes, you can satisfy them there.

And after all this, I’m still only learning. I’m sure everyone has a long list of missed opportunities or almost-good shots. I’m working on making that list grow less quickly 😉

I had to check that one out. You have a very good point sir! That is a lovely picture.

Barriers? No thanks!

I’d hate to see barriers at a fly-in. It would completely defeat the purpose of a social occasion, for both the pilots and the public alike. Without barriers, it’s easy to find pilots to talk to. It would also ruin the chance to get decent pictures of aircraft 😉

Having said that, at both North Weald and Rougham, there is a flightline in place which the public may not wander across. In both places though, it is perfectly possible to get permission to access the aircraft if you so desire. Both places have good reason for this – North Weald has an active taxiway right there, and Rougham operates as a family event, so a greater level of control, particularly of children, is required. But for the aviation enthusiast, there is no problem.

RE: Mildenhall Cancelled

OK, so why does the BBC report on Mildenhall show a pic of an F-15 from Lakenheath?