No Reds at Biggin?

Absence of Reds from Biggin appears to be confirmed on their website 🙁 – their first scheduled UK display this year is June 10th as part of IoM TT week.

Excellent photos – good to some some different types and colour schemes on the forum for a change, and also to see a different background to the usual familiar ones.

Love the shot of the F16 with it’s brake-chute deployed but not yet developed.

Paul F

Prague – Enjoy!

Hi Y11F

Was there Sept last year for an overnight business trip which left us with a free day to explore the city (tough job, but someones gotta do it… etc etc). Beer is generally cheap though we never found the mythical “70p a pint”, as is food, and is very good quality 😀 – but watch out for the usual over inflated “tourist prices” in popular places like Wenceslas Square – our host ended up forking out £15 for three beers there!

The city itself is very beautiful, even to an architectural philistine like myself – amazing unspoilt buildings on every corner! Views down from the monastry/castle area over the river and city are very impressive on a clear day, and there’s a good terrace restaurant up there mid-way between the observatory/funicular railway and the castle. Food there wasn’t cheap, but it was excellent, and the view was outstanding, well worth the money.

The Prague Technical Museum up on the hillside above the river is well worth a visit if you get an hour to spare – they have some very rare locally built aircraft on show plus others mainly pre WW2, and gallery design allows you good photo opportunities – trawl/search back through the forum’s Historic board for the photo thread I posted.

Prague – locals are very friendly, beer very is cheap, and the local girls are very pretty.What more could a man want ENJOY 😀

PaulF

Daz,

Very good, I like that 😀

Paul

At last, a light in the BB-induced darkness!

What a relief this thread is, I was beginning to think I was the only person in the UK who doesn’t watch Big Brother 😉 (I’m pleased to say I have never intentionally seen a single second of any of the series 😀 ).

Why did it spawn the term “reality TV” when it is obviously so far removed from what most normal people feel constitutes “reality”? Or does everyone else in UK spend 24hrs a day in false imprisonment with ten or so other self-centred, fame-seeking, brainless idiots? Discuss….

And why is everyone so obsessed with seeing two of the idiots get it on – if viewers are that desperate to see sex on their TV screen, then why not just pop down their local DVD hire store, I’m sure they can offer something from the “Over 18’s” shelf to meet the need 😀

And as if the TV program itself isn’t enough we then get the air-headed wannabees appearing in the popular press, and on TV chat shows for months afterwards, simply confirming to most of the rest of the UK that C4 would be doing the rest of us a service by locking them up for real, and then throwing away the key…. :diablo:

And then there are all the clone-shows BB spawned 🙁 , and I guess multi-channel digital TV will simply mean even more of them 😡 , so we’ll soon get wall to wall BB-rip offs -Oh what Deep Joy :rolleyes:

…and breathe.

Oops, sorry, rant over

Paul F

Or:

I told them that piece of wire looked a bit too long….

So sad…..

I never managed to get to the ‘Hall, though many of my mates did. Living fairly close to Greenham Common meant IAT was more my bag.

However, this thread has suddenly made me:

1. Realise just how much of the old “hardware” at both shows has now long gone 🙁 🙁 .

2. Realise just how much we took the variety and types of aircraft we used to see in those days for granted. I can even remember standing at Greenham one year thinking “Oh no, not ANOTHER F-104 flying display……haven’t we seen enough already today” 😮 .

Okay, so there were fewer Spitfires about then, but that perhaps made those that were on the circuit feel a bit more “special” ( :diablo: starts heading for the door and ducking the incoming brickbats), and we didn’t have to suffer endless bl**dy F-16 displays.

Instead we got statics and displays full of Lightnings, Hunters, Phantoms, F111, F15,F104, Fiat G91, Vulcan, Jetstream, Gnats, Fouga Magisters, Canberra, Jaguars, Harriers, F14’s, A7, A6, SR71, KC135, C130, S-3 Viking, C141, C5, T37B, A10, U2, Wessex, Seaking, Gazelle, Lynx, CH53, Shackleton – All just still in day to day service. (Drool, Drool).

Of course, had there been a Flypast Historic forum in those days these types would not have been discussed here, as they would have been considered more appropriate fodder for the Mod-Mil board – just shows how things change as tempus continues to fugit!

In later years at (R)IAT we got most of the above plus F16, F18, Draken, Viggen, Tornado, B1 etc, so maybe the last Greenham or Mildenhall shows, or the early Fairford years were the best for variety, but even then the static displays were getting a bit too uniform for my tastes, I just can’t get excited by seeing the same modern ‘plane in multiple different squadron colour schemes.

Sad to say, that while I adore the Spitfire, it’s actually the lure of the less common types that really draws me to shows like Legends like the Swedish B17 and the Curtiss Hawk last year rather than the appearance of almost every mark and sub type of Spitfire ( :dev2: …..starts running for the door).

Is it me, or do the photo’s posted on this thread confirm that the UK airshows of today have largely lost the variety we saw at Mildenhall and Greenham Common?

Oh for the chance to relive a day at the ‘Hall or a day at Greenham. Now all I can do is look through my photos from those shows and dream 🙁 .

Paul F