[QUOTE]

………. a real surprise was SX336……….

I saw the Seafire displayed at the Moth Rally at Woburn around mid-day today too – it’s nice it’s doing the circuit.

Owing to the RNHF Sea Fury’s continuing unserviceability, the RNHF and Kennet have come to an arrangement whereby the Seafire will be replacing the Sea Fury at the displays it’s been scheduled for. So that’s why the Seafire was at Elvington.

Could I ask how many people were present at Elvington today given how poor the forecast was?

As for those who want more variety in their shows, I wonder where they think it exists? The rest of the world has some great shows, but in terms of variety, it’s mostly bread and butter compared to the UK’s multi-type multi-national show. To re-use the quote – ‘eat cake, and like it.’

And actually Biggin (this year as well as historically) is one of the very best when it comes to variety – fast jets, warbirds, classic WW1 aircraft, aerobatics, helicopters, even an airliner; spanning the range from military to civil, modern to historic.

What’s worth remembering here is that airshows don’t take place in an isolated, cocooned world of their own. Their organisation is totally contingent on the nature of the world generally. And of course in the everyday world prices for everything are rising and rising (just look at house prices). So it follows that the cost of running shows, and therefore the cost of gaining entry to them, tends to increase year-on-year. It’s simple economic reality.

Airshow pricing is bound up inextricably with “value for money”. Whether a person regards an airshow as expensive really depends I think on whether you think what you’re going to get in return represents reasonable value for the money you’ve paid.

Good to see that the bookings are so healthy for WK163 this year.

I’m surprised that considering the Falklands 25 theme, that there is no Harrier of any description

Lack of a Harrier is not the fault of the organisers. The RAF is not providing a Harrier display this year due to operational commitments on the OCU at Wittering and the focus on the new-style “capability demonstrations” which will be seen at selected events. Similarly Royal Navy-operated Harriers are also unavailable due to operational constraints.

Regarding Southend, take a look at this for the info: http://www.southendairshow.com. The display itself takes place on the seafront of course, but many enthusiasts head to Southend Airport to obtain close views of participating aircraft (many of the participants operate from there).

It is indeed a great shame – as you say, the north west isn’t well served by airshows, and by all accounts the show at Walney in 2005 was a nice day.

A thread on another forum suggests that the cancellation has occurred because of personality clashes within the organising team. Don’t know anything more than that.

Via the wonder of Google:

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/pdf/dmj/issue32/DMJ32%20John%20Mills%20ATL.pdf

Go to page 4 of this PDF document and your query is solved.