Riat 2010 Saturday. Post your thoughts

[PeteHemsley]

Just wondering what everyones thoughts were about today's show?? I thought It was fanbloodytastic!! F22 awesome but I think the 2 heavies stole the day for me. C17 and a400 were out of this world!

[StuBie]

Just wondering what everyones thoughts were about today's show?? I thought It was fanbloodytastic!! F22 awesome but I think the 2 heavies stole the day for me. C17 and a400 were out of this world!

I agree, the A400M and C17 were great. The Kiwi's put in another good performance too in the 757.

[Tanker Ray]

Overall an excellent RIAT, probably the best since 2006. No RIAT is without some issues so in the spirit of fairness, I've listed a quick overview of my personal pros and cons:

The good:

The nicely varied and imaginitive flying display, particular favorites being the F-22, C-17, A400M, B757 and Vulcan.
The excellent selection of food available, the stall selling Tex Mex chilli dogs and burgers was tops!
Some of the static aircraft displays were well positioned for photography e.g. C130s, others less so, see beneath
Getting off site at 1800 hrs was a breeze

The bad:

Getting to the red car park at 0700 hrs, finally entering the showground at 0900 after the 'balls up' with the queuing and the inefficient security checks in place this year.
The positioning of the static helos, shame they couldn't park them up on the acres of available apron space on the west end as in previous years.
The ever growing amount of corporate chalets and stands which take up the middle third or more of the flightline.

Despite the grumbles, and probably due in part to the much better weather than forecast, I really enjoyed the day. Hope Sunday's visitors have a good day too.

TR

[mrjolly]

The good - F-22, a400, 757, harrier, tonka roll demo, food prices
are better.

The bad- getting in from the red car park, getting back into the
red car park, the mix up of people waiting for
coaches and buses and the red car park. The traffic police used
to get you back to the m5, there was little help after
the base. Why can't there be a bailey bridge back
to the car parks like there used to be? Typhoon displaycalways feels lacking
to me. No solo mirage 2000 display.

[Sean Mac]

A great show as always.

Sean.

[skyking_comms]

Ive also been going to Fairford for many years (since 1985 as a young lad) and have to say this was one of the best displays Ive seen in many years. I spent the thursday - saturday at RIAT this year. Thursday I will always remember for the heavy rain which terminated the F22 display.. then 20 mins later the sun came out! On friday I saw one of the F15's nearly running into the other F15 on the runway due to brake and hydraulic probs. Then he only had 1 minute of fuel left before landing at Lyneham. On saturday it was blue skies (I got sun burnt!) which enabled full displays. Highlights were F22 (Ive seen it display 6 times at various places and this was by far the best!), A400M (man they can really throw that around) Patrouille de france (technically superb) Tornado demo and the Typhoon / Spitfire display to close the show. I cant comment on the static show, but from a display point of view it was brilliant. They will find it hard next year to beat, unless they put 2 F22's in the air or get a F35.

Darren

[Bobby Jo]

I went with my eldest daughter on the Saturday and we both had a great day. Yes there was a distinct lack of static this year and the fact that the F22's played hide and seek, which compared to the Langley ones did have us all guessing when we got to the bottom end .
The F22 that stayed at Lakenheath with the paw prints on the tail would have made everyones weekend if they'd put in the static like the F117 used to. Come guys, its not that hard is it?
I did spend the whole day telling my daughter that in years gone past that this large concrete space was full of fighters and this one was full of Helecopters.
The flying display really did make up for the poor static with some nice flybys of mutli national aircraft was a really nice twist. Favourites had to be the F22, Apache/F16 display, Roll demo A400M. and the C17 from Altus. ( Shame about the Altus tanker not going up)
I thought the WW2 Tent with all the replicas in and around it was the best thing at the show. So much effort went into that area and sitting down to "cream tea" at 10am had my daughter Very confused. Just brilliant.

We managed to get in just about every UK based Amercan aircraft including the Herc, Tanker and Pavehawk with the Yanks happy to chat for as long as you wished. This was all finished of with a tour of the KC10 before leaving around 5.30pm. Happy Days !!

We found an excellant Pizza place which did the best bacon, mushroom and metled cheese baguettes for £3.50 and coffee for £2. Great value unlike the rip off one bit of bacon baps for £3-£4. Get real
Green car park was a breeze and we were off base and on our way ome in no time, stopping off to watch the GR4 Demo at the pub before heading home to Doncaster.

All in all a Brilliant day was had by all, helped by great weather, seeing my Bro (Tiger 1) and living my youth again through my Daughter, Charlotte.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to taking my other two girls next year in the hope of another great day out

Best

Rob and Charlotte Moore

[davedubya]

It was a great day out.

The good:
F18 - best display of the show, for me anyway
Patrouille De France - gave an excellent display
Red Arrows - who went out there and topped it
F22 (complete with the comical commentary, which should've had "America, F*ck Yeah" playing in the background) Still think the Typhoon gives a better display though.
The Dutch Apache/F16 team
The Battle of Britain flypast was excellent as was the Typhoon/Spitfire tag team to finish the show.
Vulcan still wows everyone. Hopefully it managed to get a fair chunk of the Breitling sponsorship money.
The Bloodhound SSC stand

The not so good:
The constantly changing cloud conditions
The static display was a bit sparse.
A Phantom being there again and not flying
The Sukhoi 17 being there and not flying
MiG 21 cancellation
The entrance security was ridiculous. (hopefully the Mildenhall organisers aren't using that as a template)
The tradestands (why would anyone go to a airshow to buy perfume?)

[LN Strike Eagle]

AFAIK, there wasn't a MiG-21 there. Did you mean Su-22?

[davedubya]

AFAIK, there wasn't a MiG-21 there. Did you mean Su-22?

Indeed....I cleverly somehow managed to combine two points into one.

[tim_raper]

Oh BLUE car park, oh dear.
The nub of the problem was that at 19:30 when I left, the police were routing everything from BLUE down the C124 road(with the two sets of traffic lights on the sharp bends, not sure if they were one-way at that time) but were leading nothing away down the 'alternative' route, left to Castle Eaton, which had nothing on it all the way to the A419, on which they had one lane coned off to filter the traffic.

[glasfryn]

Got there at 9 and queued for about 15 mins before the security check.There was a guy in his late 60's in front of us and they went through everything the poor sod had, They even made him take has pac-a-mack out of its bag and to top it all off they even looked inside his lenses as he was still putting everything back in his bag they wave us stright passed the poor guy.
Great flying display, and although it was great to see my first raptor the f-18 did it for me as well as the Hawk(sorry but for me thats the best scheme i have seen on a hawk).
Down side for me was although i know we will never get the aircraft we used to get in the static 20 years ago due to the obvious, but i do think the Raf could have put a bit more effort into it and sent prehaps even just a couple more tornado's and put one of them 19sqn hawks with special marking's in the static.
On the whole compared with tickets prices for other events such as footy games and gigs etc, I still think its great value for money and can't wait for RIAT 2011

[Tiger 1]

Hi all

The Good

The flying Display, very good, varied and interesting.

The Battle of Britain static display at the 27 end was fantastic, well done to all those invlovled in putting this together.

The buses that take you from one end to the other, not as young as i used to be so these are most welcome.

The Weather of cousre.

Meeting up with my bro ( Bobby Jo ) and seeing my Niece Charlotte made my day

The Bad

The poor static

The very high price for food and £2.50 for a ice cream is ahaving a laugh

No F22 in Static, there are 4 in the country and they coudn`t get one in static, come on guys this was the biggest crowd puller and you couldn`t get a close look at it.

best rgds

Tiger 1

[EF-111]

I was there on Saturday. Security checks on the way in were crazy. I queued for 20 minutes with my brother, I had alloy camera case and when we got to the metal detectors the chap let my brother straight through but told me I had to go to another queue to have my case X-rayed which led to another 10 minutes of queues before finally getting through. It's not the fact that it had to be X-rayed, so much as the number of people with large ruck-sacks who didn't even get searched which was so annoying.
Once inside, the static, whilst being a lot emptier than in the past, was fairly well set out without too many cones. At one point though, my brother pointed out that it felt more like walking around a country fair than airshow. As "cosmosboy" said, who wants to buy perfume at an airshow?
The flying display was very good, but I think the organisers missed a unique opportunity on Saturday when we had the Vulcan and B-52 in the air at the same time. Surely they could have arranged for just one flypast together??
Getting out of green car park was the easiest I have ever known it, but it did seem to be only 3/4 full, so I'm not sure if attendances may have been down this year?
Overall not as good as it has been, but I will still be there next year.
Steve

[MarkL]

My 19th Tattoo


The Good

Great Weather (Sat)
Good time in Kempsford.. better entertainment especially Fri night ... loved the blond kboard player, mmmm
Good selection of a/c considering the current world issues
Two Raptors
The NZ 75 made it
Nice Gripen developement a/c (39-7)
Warbird heaven especially EADS 109
Stunning C17 Display
A400M ... nice a/c and great display
Met Red 3 !!
Polish Su22
Fast jet heaven
Open top bus trips to live side return !!
Good commentary. Dan O'Hagan and team got it right. (No more UKAR references, I promise )
Battle of Britain Tribute ... *cheer*
tent and ladder policy
plenty of grub especially early morning bacon roll and cofee, un-missable.
etc etc etc


The Bad

I have work on Monday

[viper3111]

As I sadly had to miss the show due to various reasons, I was hoping to see some pics of the SU-22. Has any one got some pleeeeeaaaaassssseee

[pb643]

Security.....we seem to be speaking with one voice on this being a joke,firstly why is it there ? American insistance ? It doesn`t happen at any other show so I presume it`s a U.S issue if so RIAT need to inform the American`s that it doesn`t work simply because it can not work,you can`t properly search that many people in such a short period of time,in my case the guy with the metal detector got 5 ! buzz`s,keys in one pocket,belt strap,cigerette lighter,change and watch before I could say anything never mind show anything he just said "yea,go mate" but that is not because he was incompetent, it was simply because I had been queing for well over half an hour and the que behind me was getting longer and longer, he and the Police have a difficult call to make, the situation could get out of hand to the point where a "Hillsborough" type stampede/push could result in very serious injurie`s.
I hope people from RIAT read these thread`s and take this issue up with the base and get`s this tedious farce of "security" stopped,at Waddington I shut the car door and 5/10m min`s later was at the first static aircraft on Saturday at Fairford it took well over an hour from entering the base gate !!

Couldn't agree more about the security, arrived in the red car park at 06.30 and joined the queue, handed over the ticket and walked on to the airfield at around 08.20!!

Does anybody know what they were looking for? I certainly did not see any lists of prohibited articles.

Yet the whole thing was a complete waste of time! When it came to searching my baggage, I told the RAF guy to help himself and he said that his was not able to touch anything, so he had a peer in the top of my 40litre rucksack and that was all. As it was I had 4 litres of drink, a 100-400mm lens and waterproofs. What nasties could you potentially have fitted in the same space? Wheelchairs and prams also seemed immune to checking as well.

Surely some sniffer dogs would be far more effective?

The whole thing is just getting too insane.

The C17 was amazing!
Phil

[Mike]

I'm just wondering how many people thought the static display ended at the Hawk T2,because I spoke to someone after the Saturday show and he was very disappointed how few heli's and fighters there were !

He should have kept walking,shouldn't he

[banshee]

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!

[POL]

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.