Low-level, Cad and Bwlch

Seeing all the pictures together on the screen makes it look like a busy trip, but 4 days for a handful of Hawks, a Hercules, the Boscombe Tucano and ex 9 sqdn Tornado GR4A, made for a slow time up on the hills. The F15E started the week with the hollow promise of excitement; the truth being several long 3 or 4 hour waits between aircraft; many of them being too high when they did arrive!

F22 Raptor

Having not seen the Raptor properly displayed at RIAT (RAF Fairford) due to the weather cancellation of the show, I ventured to Farnborough airshow to catch it on the first day of the trade shows prior to it going back to the USA. This is one seriously impressive aircraft the manoeuvrability and controllability is quite phenomenal.

Flying Legends

Duxford "Legends" is the jewell in the crown of UK airshows, and it gets more polished each time its on view!
What a fantastic day out with a full-on flying display that is well paced and packed with the noise, smell and nostagia that only 'warbirds' can generate.

Fairford arrivals

A day of sunshine and showers that turned to downpoors and mud; however there was also a steady stream of arriving aircraft interspersed with a few departures and several rehearsals.
The stars of the day for me were the F22 Raptor, the Greek RF-4E Phantom and the Canadian F18 Hornets, Charlie Matthews tried very hard to dry out all the rain with the Typhoon's burners, awesome it was too!, and the Turkish stars twinkled brightly against a the dark storm laden sky. Lots more here http://www.flickr.com/photos/nigelblake/

Waddington 2008

With the weather forecast for the weekend looking very dodgy indeed it seemed that the arrivals and rehearsal days would be a better option for photography, and as always its the only chance to photograph the static show participants in the air, blue skys, towering "candyfloss" cumulus clouds and great light made it perfect for great images!
XH558 the only flying condition Avro Vulcan was the star of the show, but the tooled-up Typhoon and the Spanish F18's were a great sight and subject to photograph, despite sounding like hairdriers the Patrulla Aguila, Spanish AF team in their Casa C101 Aviojets put on a good show too..... RIAT at Fairford next!