RAF Waddington 2013 voice your views

[Headancer]

I have no understanding of logistics in terms of who invites who or who pays for fuel etc.....

BUT nobody ever seems to go to a European show and comes back saying well that was a letdown period !

Maybe F4s were a draw or maybe a Dutch anniversary but 10% of what they had at both these shows would have been nice.

The difficulty is that the "idly curious" make up I suspect 97% of attendance so whether you have a line up of the FAF, Luftwaffe, Swiss, Danish, Spanish etc or a country bumpkin Cessna from a grass strip 5 miles away seems to make no odds, the public are satisfied in equal measures.

The pilot of one of the civvies suggested to me on Saturday, it was a great show, my God no wonder.

He flew in from a grass strip 5 minutes away but was told he could have as much fuel as he wanted for coming, enough to get him to the South of France next week......

Appreciate topping up a Cessna is not a Tornado but hang on....austere or auster times ?

[benyboy]

No wonder half the aircraft from Breighton were there

[NAM Updater]

A genuine question - has anyone registered their views via the customer survey form on the Airshow website?

[PR9]

The main thing that spoiled it for me yesterday was Gingers, who despite having their own set of chairs/camp a row behind the crowdline, deemed it neccessasry to come and stand in front of mine on the crowd barriers. Pretty annoying especially as I had set up early and gone and done the statics but also had my girlfriend guarding them. A stratigic military operation commenced around 10:30am and was successfully completed during the BBMF display when the chairs were liberated and I could sit down. The day went quite well after that, although whoever invented hayfever needs attaching prior to flight to the underside of the Turk F-16 solo, who gave the best display of a Viper I have seen.

*Disclaminer, not only Ginger people can be annoying. I am not a Gingerist.

[Andy Marden]

Two weeks ago I attended the successful airshow at Volkel Holland, a few weeks prior to this I was at Chateaudun France for their open day, last weekend witnessed the Austrian airshow at Zelweg.
Three major air events in three different countries all of them admission - FREE!!!! Rather ironic wouldn't you say?

Not really ironic.
The taxpayers of Austria, France and the Netherlands are obviously willing to pay for free airshows in their countries.
Personally I would rather our defence budget was spent on our frontline combat troops than providing free airshows......

[Dunk]

Well this is an interesting thread, could almost have been copy and pasted from another forum....

Anyway.... Have to say in the last 3 years that I have been, this is the best Waddington airshow I have been to, by a long long way. Incredible value for money.

Flying display was to die for, well planned, well executed. A lot of thought had obviously gone in about displaying the 'star' attractions when the sun was around the crowd side of the runway. All 3 Viper displays had a chance to perfrom late afternoon to see them at their best. The Swedes were also put on after 3pm BOTH days to ensure they could be watched in glorious light. Solo Turk was the display of the weekend for me, stunning, and the commentator is up their with the Frecce Tricolori bloke as being most enthusiastic!

Talking of commentary, very imformative, very good I thought. Ben knows his stuff inside out.

There was plenty of advance notice about tickets selling fast this year, and plenty of info on where you could purchase them on the run up to the show, whether you had a card or not. You can actually buy tickets at Budgeons in Waddington up until the Friday night, which is where I have bought mine for the last 2 years.

Plenty of ground attractions and stalls - infact it looked way up on last year. Fun fair seems to have doubled in size as well, so plenty to do and see. Solo Turk stand was selling everything at a Fiver - unbelievably good value.

Bad points:

Have to say food stalls South of the VIP enclosures close to the crowd line were very sparse and needs improving on in number. Queues were horrendous.

Static was limited and rammed in, at the top and bottom ends. There was so much room that they could have spaced out the static a lot more. Roping was dire. Why so close? You could actually touch most aircraft as the bollards were at the end of the wings. Is there a stealth tax on rope in Lincolnshire?!

Overall a great weekend - hats off to the Waddington Airshow team. Bravo Zulu.

[bizfreeq]

I have to say I agree with everything Dunk said!
We made the trip up from Bournemouth over the preceding two days for the show on Saturday and we all came away with huge grins after a superb days entertainment. We are a mixture of number crunchers and photographers (or indeed both) and whilst we all agreed the static was minimal and quite poor,that was more than made up for with an excellent flying programme.
As for the traffic,we all know you get there (any show really) early and leave late. We arrived at the queue at around 7.40 and about a mile away.The gates opened at 8 and we were handing over our tickets at 8.15 and walking to the bus to the static.We walked around the static/stalls after the show (hardly any people around to get in the photos) and left the base at 19.55....no traffic at all. We do exactly the same for RIAT arriving around 6am and leaving around 20.00 and it works!
All I can say to the detractors...is don't come,then you don't have to moan about it.It is pretty well publicised into the run up to the show what is going to be there,so if it doesn't whet your whistle,you can stay at home.
However,with regards to next years show,I was told that it will be a helicopter static only and the flying participants will operate from elsewhere due to the runway works,can anyone substantiate this?? We will give it a miss if that is the case I think,unless the helis are pretty exotic!

[jblcfc]

I went on Sunday and thoroughly enjoyed the day.

[starfighter]

I took your advice Bizfreeq went to Leeming on friday insted , better aircraft ,
better pictures, no funfair in background, no rope in the way, sun in the right place,
no traffic , and did not spend £20/£30 to be disappoint.

[Thor]

I went in on the Friday & Saturday this year. Static was thinner this year than last, but even the organisers will freely admit that last year turned into a fluke year for display items. Some of the 'missing' nations aren't sending things anywhere this year - Poland as an example didn't send anything to Wittmund despite it being virtually next door to them, nor did the French, Greeks, Italians or Turkish. The Greeks did try, but apparently went u/s in Italy. The Dutch defence ministry are refusing to allow squadron jets to attend shows - the demo team are, I believe, the only ones funded for show appearances. How many foreign shows are the RAF supporting this year? The UK MoD is currently so stretched that we didn't have UK examples of Chinook, Tristar, C-130, Voyager, Tucano, Apache on static either, not an example of a Typhoon from each unit. What we did get was thoughtfully provided and nicely parked. The organisers have tried extremely hard to book acts this year, but as has been seen with the US when the 2000lb gorilla of budget cuts comes to sit on you, the non-essential stuff goes out of the window first. Unfortunately airshow attendances fall squarely into that category. I know the effort that the show team put in to trying to book juicy items for our delight and the unhappiness they feel when either they get no response, a negative answer or a cancellation of a booked item. To accuse them of not trying to get good stuff in displays a childish naivety.

In that sparse static, however, were some nice items - the Belgian & Czech specials, the QinetiQ RJ100, the very nice black Delfin, Piaggio 166, Dutch CH-47 & AB-412, 100sqn Hawk, Erieye. In the flying, I'd have paid the admission purely for the Viggen & Tunnan alone. The 3 F-16 displays, Sentinel with the Reds were a nice bonus. The Blades put on another superb show and used the airspace to good effect. The aeros in the Breitling Extreme display were stunning. The people I was with are all FJ-junkies, but to a man we all stood & watched this display in absolute awe.

The Vulcan display was disappointingly sedate - almost as though the crew were coaxing a sick aircraft.

On the airfield a couple of marshals where traffic merged from 4 lanes to 2 to 1 near the entrance to Sentry dispersal wouldn't have gone amiss to assist some of the less prescient visitors from trying to stop the lanes merging. Despite that, on saturday morning we got to the gate at 0805 after spending all of 8 minutes in traffic on the A15, and were parked up by display centre by 0820. Not bad at all, especially considering one of my mates spent 10-15 mins in traffic on the A15 on Friday morning trying to get to a turn from the A15 at the end of the airfield. There were accidents on the A15 on both Saturday & Sunday which apparently caused problems, and it sounded like there were problems getting out onto the A607 on Saturday evening. I left at around 1845 Saturday, got straight out onto the A15 with no problem.

I was a little surprised to see just how many people left very early (2pm ish!) and then spent ages trying to get through the crowds in their cars. The exodus after the Reds & the Vulcan was very noticeable and did show that a large number of people will pay to see just those 2 items.

In terms of attendance figures, if it was the worst Waddington show ever then nobody told the public - a record 148,000 attendees across the 2 days is a lot more than other shows attract. The weather may have played a part, but those 148,000 all bought tickets in advance...

To put my comments into perspective, I did this show on the back of a 5-day run around Germany which included Wittmund and 3 major museums. Given the quality and quantity of stuff I'd seen in the preceding week, I could understandably have felt let down by the show. Not a bit of it, the atmosphere was wonderfully relaxed, everyone seemed to be having a good time and the crowd seemed to enjoy the flying that they were presented with.

Thor

[Mayfly]

Phill

It still costs them the same amount for insurance, toilet hire, barrier hire, waste disposal, grandstands, marquees etc, etc so dropping the price to reflect what is or isn't considered a good line up isn't going to work. With 78,000 through the gates yesterday they must doing something right.[/quote]


they had the sun...[/quote]

Yes they did but that doesn't count towards advanced sales only the those sold in the last week or so.

[blakey]

This thread is very informative, but I would like some feed back on one the static stands in hangar 3. Positive and negative welcome.

I went in the hangars before and after the flying display, and loved them

Hangar 4
Brass band was very impressive and i listen to Linkin Park full blast in me car

The Lightning stand... Awesome

The Big screen showing about the RAF and the Dams .... Awesome

Model RC aircraft stands

hangar 3

Sentinel at the back....very impressive

The Heritage stands

Really enjoyed looking round the Hangars just a shame the E3D hangar wasnt open this year

[Richard B]

Good Show Great weather, getting out very quick and easy,
winner alround this year.

[blakey]

Thank you for your feed back, is there anything that can be improved in your opinion with regards the Sentinel "in maintenance"?

Id seen the E3D in its hangar with the steps round it afew years back but i was very impressed by the Sentinel set up. Dont know really, stripped down a bit more, not sure how far they strip the aircraft or what else comes off it but i was impressed with what i saw

[Northolt Nobbler]

They set up for the masses rather than the guys on this website.

Enlighten me... I can't for the life of me imagine why they would do that.. . Anybody would think that enthusiats were in the minority at airshows!

As for my two-pennarth, the Vulcan display was truly, truly awful. If you want a decent view of its display go to Cranwell as its closer there than it was to the crowdline this afternoon. Anybody would think they were trying to eek a couple more seasons (and, no doubt a few more quid from Joe Public) out of the airframe

Why fly one of the main showpiece acts at 12 o'clock when the sun is in its worst position for those who paid for a ticket rather than the topside tosspots peering over the fence from the A15.

And next year advertise a 5 hour flying display that runs for 5 hours hours not 7....

Sorry Northolt Knobber sorry Nobbler ..... Wake up smell the roses your rose tinted specs need changing !!!

Times have changed I can guarantee 95% of those who attend Waddington and a vast majority of airshows wouldn't have a clue what was actually flying in the display be it a Bulldog or a Viggen !!.

I for one welcome the income to charities that Waddington and other displays generate be it for local good causes or service charities, as an ex-serviceman you never know when you might need some help !!

Are you trying to talk from a photographers point of view ? If you are I guess you need to look at a different approach to getting the shot you want and be creative !!! Unless of course you are after the side on A.net boring as shot ! Then you are truly screwed if the sun is in your face.

Static was poor but I don't go to airshows to shoot static aircraft besides god forbid there is a barrier, cone or fairground in your shot that would give you something else to complain about!!!! The flying display from any angle was pretty damn good for these times of budget cuts and over stretched resources.

I always stand by my views that £30 for an airshow is value for money considering what you pay to watch football of any type !

Surprised your not complaining it was hot and you got sunburnt be thankful its wasn't persistently raining

Of course if you reply was tongue in cheek I retract my comments and LMFAO !!

3 days at an airshow beats 3 days working

Thanks for the typo - your wit has been noted.

You've evidently missed the sarcasm at the start of my post to get Twonk1 or whatever his name was to explain his thoughts more clearly.

I have never had rose-tinted glasses - like you, I've done my bit for Queen and country, so any off-coloured spectacles were soon broken...

As for my comments about the timing of 'star' flying display items, they were from a photographers point of view. At midday the sun - yes I was aware that it shone quite brightly over the weekend - was not in the best position for those of us who had stumped up to enter the showground. You can only be so creative once you have committed to doing something like that.

You're right about any time at an airshow being better than working, that's why I'll be off to work at RIAT next Tuesday for the nineteenth time!

And as for A.net and their 'standards'....

[f1jetfan]

Ok, heres my take on this years show. Yep, static was thin but had some lovely paint schemes and was maybe the last time for a VC10 at Waddo show. Now to the flying, i thought it was a great line up, Turkish, Dutch and Belgian F16's, Czech Gripen and ALCA, the Swedish historic flight, now does anyone remember 2007 and 2009 in particular ! I do, so i really cant understand any complaints about the flying line up.

[Runner]

Hi arrive early, beat the traffic took me and me brother a total of five minutes in traffic{we arrived at 8am}
Leave late, total time to get out 3 minutes only cause we took it real steady over the grass! {left at 8pm}
Cost - Go to a premier league Football match then tell me if you think its still expensive!!! Personally I think Airshows are very good value for money.
The actual show.Static too spread out,as for the civvie stuff,personally I quite like it.
The flying display - was very very good. Not perfect but hey will it ever BE!
Too many F16s You can never have to many F16s in my opinion!!
Vulcan display was brilliant with a few different twists,showed they are trying to make it different!
The Viggen was AWESOME,as was the flying 'barrel'
Personally thought it was a very very good show and will definitely be hoping to go next year.

Would agree with almost all of that Stingray, apart form the F16s bit and I thought Saturdays Vulcan was a bit tame and distant. Thought the Pdf were fantastic and it was great to see a VC10 again, so great I've been back again today.

Folks keep using the footy analogy, I paid £22 for a ticket, that'd get folks a couple of hours at Scunny United on a cold saturday

[Mayfly]

A genuine question - has anyone registered their views via the customer survey form on the Airshow website?

Have you a link to the page please I can't find it?

[Dunk]

A genuine question - has anyone registered their views via the customer survey form on the Airshow website?

Have you a link to the page please I can't find it?

Here ya go

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/waddo13

Dunk

[Mayfly]

Thank you