Not long now until the Airshow!
We are fast approaching display day and the pace here is hotting up. It’s a busy time for me – I’m also planning the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT), which takes place the week before the Airshow at National Museum of Flight, but in reality begins on Wednesday when aircraft start arriving from all over the world.
As for East Fortune, I thought I had a plan – I had a plan for the programme, but, as always in the air display business, things change. In this case, the cancellation of a display aircraft due to lack of serviceability. I’m working on a solution and hopefully we’ll be able to plug the gap with something similar, but it still gives me a bit of a problem until I have a solution sorted. Other than that, the admin that surrounds the display seems to be coming together quite nicely. Crew accommodation is now sorted, crew transport is planned and crew meals are ordered.
As for me and my team – we’ll be in the same hotel we have used for the past two years so we know we’ll be well fed and looked after. I spoke some time ago about the challenges we may have with sharing so many aircraft with the Sunderland display. Well it looks like that is now sorted to everyone’s satisfaction and I can carry on with my planning accordingly.
Looking at the long range weather forecast – well I don’t think it will be Caribbean weather (and I don’t mean hurricanes), but I think we’ll be OK. Obviously there are never any guarantees with weather forecasts, especially this far ahead, but I do admit to feeling better about it than I did at this point last year.
The crews will be getting all their display documents this week, so any last minute changes can be sorted (and there are always last minute changes). Once that’s done, hopefully all I will have to do is wait for the day – and help run RIAT in my copious free time.
I hope that those of you who attend enjoy a fine day out – I’ve always been very impressed by the organisation of this event by the National Museum of Flight team, and I hope that you find the flying display as exciting and as interesting as I have always intended.
See you there.
Take a look at some of the fantastic images on the air display and on the ground activity that were taken of Scotland’s National Airshow in our Flickr Group.