[Goody]

I'm thinking of popping up to this one on Sunday but as there will be two of us going, I don't really fancy the £65 entry fee on top of petrol costs so I'm wondering whether anyone knows of any decent vantage points away from the site to view the displays.

The main reason to go is to see the Vulcan again. Anybody have any info on flying times for this?

[Sonic67]

It was flying at Waddington recently and might have been cheaper. It also just missed out on Cosford.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/l...re/7491918.stm

Various air show dates (though not necessarily featuring it):
http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/shows/showdate.htm

[nheather]

The main reason to go is to see the Vulcan again. Anybody have any info on flying times for this?

As a regular airshow visitor I know that it is now very difficult (if not impossible) for joe public to get sight of flying times without buying a programme.

I have tickets for Sunday and will be going providing the weather is good. Believe me airshows in the rain are one of the most miserable forms of entertainment. There's no shelter to speak of so you get cold and wet. And to cap it all the planes don't fly if there is the slightest hint of rain - even the all-weather capability ones.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Ambient Fish]

Jeeze Goody this show is put on to support former RAF personnel and their families. Military aircraft also cost a lot of money to buy and then a small fortune to fly in a display so £65.00 is a small price to pay for what you actually get at one of these events, so spend the cash and enjoy the show whilst helping a deserving cause.

[nheather]

Saturday show has been CANCELLED due to bad weather and waterlogged parking area.

Nothing has been said about Sunday as yet.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Indiana Jones]

Thought I would mention that if tomorrow does go ahead then they will only be letting in people who have already bought Sunday tickets, there wont be any tickets on sell at the gate.

[nheather]

Thought I would mention that if tomorrow does go ahead then they will only be letting in people who have already bought Sunday tickets, there wont be any tickets on sell at the gate.

I didn't read it like that. I interpretted it that they wouldn't let people who have bought Saturday tickets use them on Sunday.

If however, it is as you say then it's going to be a pretty exclusive affair.

I have Sunday tickets and I'm awaiting the 4pm announcement to see whether it is on or not.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Indiana Jones]

Originally Posted by nheather

I didn't read it like that. I interpretted it that they wouldn't let people who have bought Saturday tickets use them on Sunday.

If however, it is as you say then it's going to be a pretty exclusive affair.

I have Sunday tickets and I'm awaiting the 4pm announcement to see whether it is on or not.

Cheers,

Nigel

Got this straight off the official RIAT site...

Are tickets available for Sunday?
No tickets will be on sale at the gates on Sunday. If you have a Saturday ticket please do not travel to Fairford.

I guess they have to do this otherwise they would get everyone who would have gone today try to attend tomorrow and they just dont have the room.

[nheather]

From a selfish point of view I hope it goes ahead then.

I reckon no more than 50% of tickets are pre-purchased so crowds should be very light.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Indiana Jones]

Originally Posted by nheather

From a selfish point of view I hope it goes ahead then.

I reckon no more than 50% of tickets are pre-purchased so crowds should be very light.

Cheers,

Nigel

It will certainly be different with half the number of people, fingers crossed it goes ahead.

[Indiana Jones]

Well thats it, been officially cancelled

The first time in 5 years that I decided to go and this happens lol

[nheather]

Yep, real shame. Looking forward to seeing the F22s and the return of the Vulcan.

Got to work out how to get my money back now - mine were bought through my employer so don't know whether that makes it easier or more tricky.

Cheers,

Nigel

[gunslinger]

Confirmed.... the show on sunday is cancelled as well.

The vulcan flew direct to farnborough from waddington this afternoon instead of staging at a nearby RAF base in preperation for RIAT tomorrow

[Junglist]

What a shame.

I used to go to 2-3 shows a year with my uncle years ago...havent been for a while.

My 2 year old loves planes so was thinking of taking him to one this summer (weather permitting). Will probably get him some mufflers as it does get quite loud. I remember as a kid it was the vulcan was the only plane to actually make me cover my ears. The sound was immense.

[nheather]

Got a telephone call from my employer checking that I realised the show had been cancelled. They were ringing round all employees that had taken up the deal, to make sure they understood what was happening and explaining how to get a full refund. A nice I touch, I thought.

Cheers,

Nigel

[grahambaylis]

I went on the Sunday 2009 and did see the Vulcan that was Brilliant, but I must say that the Fairford show overall was disappointing for me.

First the traffic control to get people in was terrible, queues for 8 miles. Now I know these shows are popular, but so do the organisers, why do they not sort out better ways of moving people in by using Park & Ride etc, or one way systems like the Royal Show does. Poor Poor Poor in my view.

I was also unlucky as we booked tickets in the Pimms Flightdeck enclosure, this was at one end of the runway and litterally no one ‘displayed’ to us, they were all concentrating in the middle. The catering was useless too £12.50 for a burger with queues of 100 yds. We did not bother TERRIBLE enclosure.

Won’t be going again, that is for sure.

[grahambaylis]

I went on the Sunday and saw the Vulcan, but I must say that the Fairford show was disappointing for me.

First the traffic control to get people in was terrible, queues for 8 miles. Now I know these shows are popular, but so do the organisers, why do they not sort out better ways of moving people in by using Park & Ride etc, or one way systems like the Royal Show does. Poor Poor Poor in my view.

I was also unlucky as we booked tickets in the Pimms Flightdeck enclosure, this was at one end of the runway and litterally no one ‘displayed’ to us, they were all concentrating in the middle. The catering was useless too £12.50 for a burger with queues of 100 yds. We did not bother TERRIBLE enclosure.

Won’t be going again, that is for sure.

[DJT75]

£65 when you can go to somewhere like Bournemouth & watch for 4 days for free?. Doesn't make sense to me. What are you actually getting for £65?

[nheather]

Fairford prices are pretty much in line with most airshows now. Their adult prices are more expensive than others but accompanied children get in free to compensate.

The differences

Well Fairford has a much bigger and longer show. More importantly, it is a prestige event so more foreign air forces make an effort to attend.

I must admit that this year was pretty poor compared with previous but the sort of things I have seen there that don't show up elsewhere in the the UK are

US Stuff
B52
B-1
F117 Stealth Fighter
B2 Stealth Bomber
A10 Tank Buster
F15 Strike Eagle
Starlifter
Galaxy

Display Teams
Flecce Tricolori
Patrouille d' France
Patrouille d' Suisse
Thunderbirds
Breitling
Royal Jordanian

Foreign Attendees
Mig 29
Sukhoi 27\30\35
F18
F16
Gripen
Hind

Loads more.

These simply don't get to the other shows.

Having said that the US attendance this year was very poor, apart from the B52.

The weather ruined it for me though (Sunday). Now that they have made it all ticket I don't think I will bother next year. There are plenty of smaller shows nearby that I can decide on the morning if the weather is good enough to attend.

Cheers,

Nigel

[gunslinger]

unfortunately, the RIAT organisers have only so much control over the road system in the surrounding area, they do work very hard with the local authorities to try solutions for this problem, to this end these are some of the things they have done.

Car parks are spread out around the whole southern area of the air base meaning you go to the one on your "side" depending on where you are coming from.
There is a temporary one way system in place from the lechlade side which will reverse in the evening to accommodate the higher flow leaving, unfortunately this does come slightly unstuck because of the road leading up to what is normally the main gate and 'domestic' side of the base, they can't make this one way because it will increase traffic inside the fence line crossing the runway, which is not a good idea.
This year they sacrificed a large area of usable airfield space to incorporate on base car parking to try and ease some of the pressure on the roads by getting the cars off the supplying roads faster, although this doesnt seem to have worked as well as they hoped..... as for the on base parking, well, you cant blame the organisers for peoples stupidity, when it came time to leave, people simply ignored the pedestrian lane marked out for them and walked down the middle of the road next to the car park, next time guys, i WILL run your asses over !!!
Adding the on base parking took away a lot of the area that had been used previously as 'live' taxiway and used to park the flying display aircraft, so unfortunately they had to be on the far side of the airfield this year and not accessible

No on the day ticket sales was i believe another attempt to ease the traffic issue, their limiting factor on attendance is not people but parking, the showground can handle a lot more people but not the associated parking, so by having pre-sales only they can try and control that a little bit.

Participants was down this year on previous years, some of the smaller things that were scheduled to come, simply could not because of the weather on friday when they were due to arrive, although this number was low, the one big, and main reason for what appeared a low turn out is that every country has more and more of it's assets deployed constantly, whilst politicians are constantly cutting budgets and airframe numbers and manning, whilst sending their military to more remote locations... airshows simply become an impossible luxury that they would like to attend but cant.... the RAF C-17 was re-tasked on operational duties both days and was not able to fly it's planned slot.
These aircraft are, with the exception of a few (like the Dutch F16's) fully operational military aircraft with their associated responsibilities/tasks

I think they did a fairly good job overall this year, given the current climate and other things.... dont be put off by one year not meeting what you expected, i am sure the organisers will be looking very closely at the transport arrangements again, and as for park and ride, people just dont like using them.

Private 'Enclosures' at these types of events are pointless, and purely for those that feel the need to appear better than everyone else.... and your not guaranteed a better view as you found out.
RIAT for example, has about a 2 mile runway and crowd line, on the 'front' of that crowd line, you have the FRIAT (Friends of RIAT) stand near the western end, with sloped seating, general grassed area anyone can use, then the 'VIP' tents etc taking up a good sizable chunk of real estate in the middle, then the larger general area to the eastern end with one other enclosure at that end if i remember correctly
Thats a huge crowd line for any display pilot to deal with, many of these show routines are based on smaller crowd lines and much tighter airspace (in many ways they are spoilt for protected airspace at fairford) I am also sure that in the various briefings the crew are reminded to display to as wide an audience as possible, add to this the cloud cover, the Italian display team on the Saturday waited on the runway for 5 minutes, for no other reason than they wanted the clouds to blow over a little before displaying, this was ONLY possible because they were last to go.

[nheather]

the Italian display team on the Saturday waited on the runway for 5 minutes, for no other reason than they wanted the clouds to blow over a little before displaying, this was ONLY possible because they were last to go.

No they waited on Sunday aswell - whilst we had to listen to RIAT FM - and they were quite early in the schedule then.

Still they were lucky and got one of the few breaks in cloud\rain that day.

The traffic is always bad but was worse than usual this year - at the time I left I would have normally been on site well before the flying but this year arrived about 45 minutes after flying had started.

But overall, I think the organsiers did the best they could - my only niggle is that on the day RIAT FM kept acknowledging the traffic problems and apologising but the official statement on the website after the event claims there was no traffic problems at all.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Decadence]

We had a fantastic time on Saturday except that I got pretty bad sunburn! Having not been to an airshow before it surpassed all expectations. We parked ourselves quite a way down the runway so planes were in the air long before they reached us, not that it mattered as the pilots did a great job of doing something above everyone's head. Next year I will endeavour to get a bit nearer the middle of the runway though!

As for traffic, we set off at half six from our B&B 6 miles away and had no problem getting in. Getting out was a bit of a pain but only took an hour too! I don't mind paying the money to get in as a lot of it goes to charity. We will definitely book next year too! one of the best short breaks you can take as a family in the UK I reckon...if the weather is nice!

[nheather]

the best short breaks you can take as a family in the UK I reckon...if the weather is nice!

That's the gamble. I heard saturday was pretty good but to be honest the weather on Sunday was pretty dire.

We spent most of our time huddled under big golfing umbrellas and by the time it got to 4pm we'd had enough. We were wet and cold and it didn't look like there was going to be any let up.

Real shame because normally I would stroll round the stalls and the static displays but this year didn't do anything like that because walking around in a see of umbrellas was such hard work.

Not sure about next year - I get a cheap deal from my employer but I think I may give it a miss and try out some of the shows I didn't do this year, like Biggen Hill and Duxford.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Indiana Jones]

Went on Sunday and this was the first RIAT for me in 6 years so even with the showers and the lack of USAF aircraft I still really enjoyed it, sure I came back soaked but I got to see some great aircraft/displays and compared to Yeovilton the week before this was a fantastic event, sure not as good as when I went in 2003 which has F-15's/B-2/F-117's but for someone who hasnt been for over half a decade it was great

[gunslinger]

No they waited on Sunday aswell - whilst we had to listen to RIAT FM - and they were quite early in the schedule then.

Did they .... LOL, typical italians... luckily, as you know from being there, the schedule had some flex in it because of the weather causing chaos for the smaller displays like the BBMF memorial flight and such like

The traffic is always bad but was worse than usual this year - at the time I left I would have normally been on site well before the flying but this year arrived about 45 minutes after flying had started.

Thats a shame, the organisers will be disappointed i think, as i know a lot of work was put into trying the on base parking.... i too got stuck for an hour, on the back roads that used to be nice and quiet, but are now labelled as the "red" route

As for the website, i'd guess everyone was maybe too busy to update it !!

Real shame because normally I would stroll round the stalls and the static displays but this year didn't do anything like that because walking around in a see of umbrellas was such hard work.

yup, i like wandering around that stuff too, but your right, you take your life (or at least eyesight) in your own hands as people just naturally arent watching where they are going, and umbrella's are a nightmare to dodge around !

Sunday's weather was a real shame, i was lucky in that i was there on saturday, but didnt have much choice as i was working on the sunday. Catching the sun on saturday was a bit of a surprise, as i didnt think it was so bright/hot/sunny but i had a bit of a red face on the sunday !! must have been that breeze on the saturday that lulled you into a false sense of it not being likely to cause you sunburn !

[Decadence]

Originally Posted by gunslinger

Catching the sun on saturday was a bit of a surprise, as i didnt think it was so bright/hot/sunny but i had a bit of a red face on the sunday !! must have been that breeze on the saturday that lulled you into a false sense of it not being likely to cause you sunburn !

Yeah, I got toasted too, it was definitely the wind that kept it cool enough not to worry but at around 2pm I was like "wow my face stings!"