I was first introduced to this show about 12 years ago when I met my then-to-be-husband, Andrew. He treated me and my three kids to a lovely day out. We thought it would be a long, and perhaps boring, day for the kids who were only about 7, 9 and 10 at the time, but they thoroughly enjoyed it and when it ended at 7pm in the evening we had to drag them out having been there since early morning.
Since then we have been back a few times and it keeps getting better and better.
This year we went with our good friends Lezley and Ian and went for the two days, the plan being one day one to watch the air displays and on day two to look around the static displays.
Day 1 saw us get up at 7.00am, head to Asda for breakfast, leave Asda about 8.15am for the 40 minute drive to the showground. We know from experience that there is a little queuing, we anticipated about an hour, getting us into the ground in time for the 10.30am start of the air displays. Humph!! We actually got parked and out of the car just before 12 noon, missing the first few displays, including the Vulcan and the Apaches. The Hubster was not best pleased.
Day 2 saw us getting up at 6.00am, eating snacky breakfasts in our room and setting off at 7.00pm. We got in at 8.45am so had a little wait for the displays to start, but on the plus side we got an excellent pitch right down at the front of the runway.
We pitched camp (four folding chairs and a towel) and cracked open a cocktail or two.
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As it happened, day one was a little cloudy so the air displays were 'bad weather' displays, the next day was much better weather wise so the full displays were shown. We ended up watching the air displays on both days and just having an hour each evening to glance quickly at the statics :)
Amazingly gorgeous weather for which we were very grateful for, except for the stingy sunburn even after applying two lots of factor 30 sun cream.
My favourite display has to be the Vulcan, I don't know what it is about this machine, maybe the way it glides through the sky like a prehistoric bird, or the fact that at one point we thought we were watching her last ever flight. Luckily the 'Vulcan To The Sky' organisation has managed to get her up again this year.
Second favourite has to be the Aerobatic teams, of course we have all heard of the Red Arrows, who are excellent, but also good are the Frecce Tricolori from Italy and the Royal Jordanian Falcons from Jordan.
There was the Battle Of Britain memorial flypast......with a Lancaster Bomber, a Spitfire and a Hurricane.
....and fabulous displays from the helicopter display teams too. (There's a guy in the back of this Chinook, with one of those huge foam hands on to wave at the crowd with)
If you would like to see a few more photos you can find them HERE on my 'Photography by Sooz' Facebook page, but I am a bit disappointed with them this year. Daddy L offered to lend me his camera with the more powerful lens on, but I declined - stupid me! I won't make that mistake next time.
It was a lovely weekend, made even better with lovely weather, lovely company, lovely hotel rooms, even lovely toilets at the show. Happy days.
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