Airshow 2010

Fiona and I headed out to East Fortune for the 2010 Airshow. Its the first airshow I've been to in ages and I had a really good time. In all honesty, it wasn't Fiona's thing and I'm sure I'm going to have to owe her something.
It was a pretty good day though. Having been out for her cousin's 21st, we started out form her mum's house, which took at least an hour off the get-up and go time, which made things much easier. The forecast was for clouds with light rain as the afternoon progressed, but we hoped there was enough margin for error to allow us to see the planes. The drive to East Fortune was quiet enough with not much traffic, even once you got near the airfield. The parking was simple. They were using the old runway and we were put into the first row of the second half (the intersection of the 2 runways) where the car would be easy to find on the way out.
We had two hours before the flight programme started so we looked around at the 'static' display. In a sense it was a little disappointing. Apart from vendors, there were no new static displays for the show itself, only the usual museum displays. That being said, there was still a lot to see in the various hangers and store rooms, including the first operational Concorde, lots of info on the R34, the first transatlantic airship which flew from here to Mineola in Long Island, and the usual array of restored planes. After wandering around for the 2 hours we headed down to the main display arena, bought folding chairs and settled in to watch the show.
In all, there were 17 displays over the next 3 hours, including an intermission where Fiona and I managed to get something to eat.
The displays ranged from a plane towing a glider which was performing with another plane, to the glider on its own, to the tug plane and the glider pilot (in a tug plane); to early jets displaying on their own; old and new biplanes with and without lycra clad wing walkers; and restored war veterans.

It is always amazing to see the control that these pilots have over the planes. Two of the planes, the Mustang and the Skyraider both developed mechanical faults which limited their performance, but in both cases they managed to adjust the show to accommodate this. (Both plance did actually fly and display, but restricted their actions to fairly simply passes - the Mustang had a generator fault and the Skyraider had an open landing carriage bay). Most of the other planes (with the exception of the Catalina and the Douglas) put on an impressive display and the wingwalkers went for a handshake - they just barely missed each other

Visually, the most impressive had to be the Wingwalkers (even without being able to see them close up). The idea of standing on your hands while travelling at up to 150 mph on the wing of an air plane is not my cup of tea. Even the noise of the biplanes - as the pitch of the propeller changed the wingtip would sometimes go supersonic with tiny sonic booms adding to the noise. Sound wise it was between the awesome roar of the Hunter's jet and the emotional Merlin of the Spitfire.

The photos here are (from the top) a Vampire, the Aerostarts in Yak 52s and Yak 50s, the Mustang, the Skyraider, the Spitfire, the Catalina, the Wingwalkers and the Hunter. Not showm are the Swift Team (the Glider and Twisters), Tigermoth, Pitts , Dakota DC-3, Kittyhawk p-39, the Starduster, the Bulldog, and the Tutor.

At the end fi the flight programme we thought we would have an opportunity to continue looking around the museum displays, but sadly everything was closing at the same time. In fact, in a remarkably short time the traffic was clearing the car park. So we never got the opportunity this time to see Concorde (although I have seen it here a few times already) Perhaps we'll have to make another trip back?
We did get the chance to shop with another few models being bought, though not of anything on display today - Ciaran tends to prefer Russian modern fighers.

We made it back to the car, now sitting alone, facing the wrong direction for the flow of traffic with streams of cars passing on the drivers side, making it hard to simply get back into the car. Taking the road less travelled "Local Access Only" brought us down the quiet roads into North Berwick where we had a nice Italian dinner before heading back to Strathaven to collect Fiona's car.