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Riat 2010 Saturday. Post your thoughts

Post information relating to the Royal International Air Tattoo here.
banshee
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Location: Humberston, Lincs

Re: Riat 2010 Saturday. Post your thoughts

Post by banshee » Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:35 am

A very poor show indeed, saved only by a fantastic Raptor display. I couldn't believe it when at 10:30 I had logged and photographed all the static, and the South side flight lines as well. At least I had the rest of the day to take photos of the flying!

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Lowfly11
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Re: Riat 2010 Saturday. Post your thoughts

Post by Lowfly11 » Tue Jul 20, 2010 11:50 am

I haven't been to RIAT for several years....it does sound a bit thin on the ground this year,i was a regular at Fairford Airshows in the early 1980's and remember a lot of U.S. Navy and Army,Air National Guard etc etc..remember loads of KC-135's!! must have been one from every ARW, likewise with other air forces..how times have changed...Bl**dy cut-backs!!!!.

POL
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Re: Riat 2010 Saturday. Post your thoughts

Post by POL » Tue Jul 20, 2010 12:33 pm

I'll start by saying it's not often I moan in public about airshows (In fact, I don't think I have before!)

However, for the first time we decided to enter RIAT from the East, so that was the red car-park. Ok, far enough, off the M4 and start tracking towards Fairford. We started picking up signs "Purple Route - Public entrance+ Fair enough we thought, we'll go that way. We got half way along the route only to be told by the police officer that it was for VIP's only! Never mind, turn round, get to Lechlade and join the Red Route, it's only 0800, it'll still be quiet. No. 90 minutes from Lechlade to the car-park (About 6 miles).

Security was, as has been said, questionable as to their point, I went straight through, my dad was stopped. Both carrying one camera and one lens, no bags, etc. at all! Only took 5 minutes after finding a queue in the middle no-one else was stood in for some strange reason!

Once inside and past the usual barrage of people trying to give, sorry sell(!!), you things, we found ourselves in a car-park. How that worked, we still don't know, but it shows just how few aircraft were in the static!

Overall I quite enjoyed the flying, though we were only really against the fence for the 'important' bits - F-22, F/A-18, A400M, etc. Static, again it's already been said, but it was obviously well down on the past years, maybe the organisers could do more to fill it with "common stuff" but then I'm sure people would moan about that. It's a loose-loose situation for them, and we have to be thankful we got what we got, as much as I think they seem to rely too much on a couple of 'star' items nowadays! It was, however, nicely laid out, even the larger stuff was photographable for a change, but I'm not sure how much of that as just because they had to make it look fuller?

Agreed wholeheartedly with the country fair comment, I counted only 15 aviation related vendors on the entire showground...

Finally, did anyone see the Romanian MiG-21's? (If you were listening to Wings FM or whatever it's called at about 0830 you'll understand!)


I think that's about it, all being said, I did enjoy it, but, and being totally honest, I think it's days are numbered as somewhere I would go.

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eagle driver
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Re: Riat 2010 Saturday. Post your thoughts

Post by eagle driver » Tue Jul 20, 2010 2:51 pm

Just think, next year it will be worse.
i personally gave up going into fairford 4 years ago now stick to doing either the departure day or friday before, far less hassle and no security checks or muppets calling themselves security getting in your way

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Lowfly11
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Re: Riat 2010 Saturday. Post your thoughts

Post by Lowfly11 » Tue Jul 20, 2010 3:35 pm

From what i'm reading..sounds like "market traders" have a lot of stalls at airshows selling non-aviation related tacky trash rubbish..i've noticed this at airshows and i think to myself what the hell have these stalls got to do with aviation,same with funfairs...extremely annoying when you are trying to record with camcorder with loud background music..there's a time and place for this and it's not airshows...they can make better profits/money elsewhere.

ScottieSRI
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Re: Riat 2010 Saturday. Post your thoughts

Post by ScottieSRI » Tue Jul 20, 2010 5:00 pm

first post since re-registering

Highs,

A400 display was top notch and will be a massive asset when we get them, F-22 display was jaw dropping but in fairness everyone knew what it was capable of anyway,

Patrouille de france - last time i saw them i almost laughed at them as i thought they were quite poor - this time round i think they knocked socks off the red's display.

We Fly! team, fair play to them and nice touch with the emitting of the " 2 "

The flypast was good too,

The laugh everyone had in green car park sunday morning with the main crash gate being left open overnight and a group of us walking through it up to the security bit at 6AM, the look on the guards faces was classic! although i felt sorry for the people that were stuck outside the gates once they got locked up and at half seven when they were unlocked again they had found that we were already sorted in to different isles in the checkpoint all metal bits out and ready, must have been walking half way through the static park before the rest of the q got past bag checking!!

Seeing Flawless on sunday, only lasted 8 minutes but were quality

The Lows,

Didnt get any Q's getting in really as we actually made an effort and got there early to avoid them and to get a nice location for sitting down and watching display saturday however the Q getting out of green after show on saturday was pathetic, hour and a half and the length of 2 cars was all that moved, was a welcome relief when they opened up the side bit and drove over end of runway to get out,

Static park was stupid, hardly anything in it, what compounded that was the fact that so much was over the east side out of view, wouldnt it be easier and nicer to set out a bit on the east side so the public could see the spares and the planes still have a route out if the spare is needed? spare hawks/tornado/harrier/typhoon/gripens/raptor and a KC 135 all over that side, understand that spares are needed but still.............
Also only one typhoon in the static! that is riduclous,

food prices didnt bother me that much as its obvious what prices are like so take my own but did see how much places were charging and was disgusted. the range of stalls was annoying too, oh yeah i forgot, whilst at an airshow i will buy some perfume for the missus, a new garden table and chairs with a free parasol and sod it whilst im here i may as well pick up a £40k land rover to put it all in

people pushing to front on fly in days as well as well as saturday, the arrangement of the blue cones stopped people " overtaking" to a point but think more should be done, especially with the ( polite way of putting it ) muppets who convienantly arrived at the end of the road that runs parrelel to green park at 7:25AM on saturday and merged with Q when it opened, the 500 odd people standing in the que were oblivious to this due to the trees,only the twenty in front of the gate saw it, people like these 6 should be banned and ashamed of themselves! :@ :@ :@

the programme, £9 for a load of adverts, still bought one though and will next year too and RIAT know it too

F-22 commentator - get over yourself mate!!!!!!!!!

Aileron
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Re: Riat 2010 Saturday. Post your thoughts

Post by Aileron » Tue Jul 20, 2010 6:27 pm

Security got my gripe too we went in both sat and sun. Wife has partialy torn her akiles tendon so we got a wheel chair on loan.

The WAND guy didnt want to scan her so she got out of the chair to prove a point on both days.

Both days i didnt have my large camera bag searched but pulled out 17 year old to one side with a small camera bag to have searched.

what a complete Farce.

another bad point for me is im pretty sure that food prices went up this year wasnt impressed with that.
And the fact if your sat in the middle near the jublee garden you have to walk to the other side of the airfield to go to the toilet so i missed i few pictures. like the A400M and a few others. not to say i didnt see the display.


But other then that we thourghly enjoyed our selfs and had a brilliant weekend all round.
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