RIAT 2018

A few weeks ago and for the 4th year in a row (for me anyway) a small group of us went to RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo) 2018 at RAF Farham in Gloustershire. It was an early start for me – especially on a Saturday – and I was picked up no long after I’d normally be getting up on a weekday workday. After picking up a third member of the squad (and changing cars) we made good time and got to the venue nice and early. The queue to get in was pretty substantial but moved at a fair clip and we were through the gate in maybe 10-15 minutes from parking the car. We had a pretty good idea where we were going to set up so the wind/sun screen and chairs appeared in short order and the main business of the day (at least for the other two) was a coffee and bacon roll to start the day off. As we walked to the nearest food area the flying started with an acrobatic display by a pair of small prop planes.

This year the weather was glorious and much, much better than last year were we suffered low cloud and rain. Flying was somewhat curtailed that year but they tried their best. This year though there was hardly a cloud in the sky for most of the day. Having kept an eye on the weather I knew what to expect and planned accordingly. Not only did I have spray-on factor 30 sunblock I had also purchased a shemagh (an Arabic scarf) to protect my neck and ears – and it did the job admirably (though I had no real idea how to wear it which must have given the Jordanians and good laugh if they’d seen me in it. I did pick up a slight tan/burn on my left arm (which is still there 2 weeks later) but overall I got away lightly this year.

But to the important bit – the planes! As it was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the RAF on 1st April 1918 I had hoped for some special events and I wasn’t disappointed (I never read the schedule beforehand as I was to be surprised rather than disappointed at potential cancellations). Early on we had a pair of de Havilland Vampire fighters which entered service with the RAF in 1946. It was amazing to see them fly again so long after they were retired from service. Continuing the theme we had displays of 3 Spitfires, 2 Hurricanes, a Lancaster bomber and a DC-3 transport plane. Later we had three generations from the Dambuster squadron – the Lancaster, Tornado GR3 and the new F-35 Lightning II. It was funny to see the Lancaster clearly at full throttle, the Tornado just about flying slow enough and the F-35 really struggling not to stall out!

Inevitably there was lots of acrobatic stuff from air forces across Europe (including the Red Arrows naturally) but to be honest acrobatics leaves me kind of cold. I still remember though, a few years ago, watching the new turbo-prop A400M GIANT transport plane being thrown around the sky like a mad thing. That must have been a LOT of fun to do! It wasn’t long before they began announcing a ‘special guest’ later in the afternoon that wasn’t on the scheduled programme. We all speculated what (or who) it was when, during the Chinook demo, I spotted a very familiar shape in the distance. I waited for it to circle around before I confirmed my first impression. Then the announcer came on “The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed an all too familiar shape in the distance. May I present to you, all the way from the continental United States…… The Boeing B-2 Stealth Bomber.” So over it flew, accompanied by a pair of McDonnell Douglas F-15’s. I’ll have to say that the B-2 flying almost directly over us was probably the strangest, weirdest and one of the creepiest sights I have ever seen. It’s hard to describe but it felt unreal, surreal, and even ‘wrong’ in that such a thing surely couldn’t really exist. It was clearly flying above us but, to me at least, didn’t seem ‘real’ in some deep down gut-feeling way. It was like something out of a SF B-movie. Just…. Weird! It was most definitely the highlight of the day.

So, overall it was a good day. Great weather. Avoided getting burnt. Saw some great aircraft, both static and flying. Had a large ice-cream which I managed to consume before it melted all over my hand…. And bought some T-shirts. A result! Here’s looking forward to 2019.