Fly Me Friendly

The last official day of the Airshow and I left home early to arrive at 7am. I would have been on time, except I forgot to set my clocks back 1 hour before I went to bed (daylight savings ended last night). So, I wound up opening up the Green Room tent at 6:10am – no wonder there weren’t any other people on around. Oh well – the sunrise was great and the peace & quiet on the airfield was wonderful.

Soon enough the warbirds started to arrive and I put a few of them in on my own until some of the others arrived to help. A QANTAS 737 (painted in aboriginal designs) and 747 arrived and were squeezed into the keyhole. Not long after a BAe 146 from National Jet arrived and I wound up batting it into a tight space at Green-5. Lots of fun.

By now the whole team was on site and we were gearing up for another day much like yesterday. There were some slight changes to the schedule and a few additional shows, but otherwise it ran very well and everyone was happy. Early in the day we moved the majority of the light aircraft who wanted to leave at the end of the show down to modified holding areas near the Bravo holding point.

Kitt and Nykolai came down with UK Balloon Pilot Chris and his family in time to see the Super Hornet, B-52, RAAF F-18, F-111, USAF F-15 and the RAAF formation F-18s. They were all very happy to come on down and hang out – I even managed to get some time to join them when we had some quiet moments on the warbird tarmac.

All too soon the show was over and we had a mass exodus of lighties crossing over 18-Center to 18-Right, all the while charters were taking off from further down the runway (at Charlie or Foxtrot intersections). We slotted a number of warbirds in that were leaving and then just worked through the remaining lighties. It all went very well.

At the end of the day, Chuck Yeager came out to meet the F-15 and F-16 pilots so I managed to get some photos of him during these sessions. After this it was off to AGO for a couple of beers (light, unfortunately) then ASDU for dinner and home.

I’m back tomorrow to help remaining aircraft leave, then it’s all over for me.

As yesterday was hot n windy, today was cold n windy with rain. What a change. The carparks were a sea of mud, as were the public areas around the airfield. It dried quickly but it took until the afternoon to settle down.

With the wind came FOD (Foreign Object Damage – bits of garbage blowing around the place) – a small plastic bag was seen being sucked into the right-hand engine intake of one of the RAAF F18s as it taxied back to its parking spot. Fingers crossed it’s not done any damage as this aircraft is part of the Lion formation aerobatic team (also known as the Green Lemons). They put on a very spirited demo in tight formation and with flares, earning them 10 from those of us judging the shows.

The day started off with a flurry of warbirds coming in, then settled down until about 11am when we had to get the Mustangs, Yak 9 and Kittyhawk into starting positions. Once they were started and had moved out to the warm up area, we pushed the A-37 Dragonfly into place so he could start up his jets then move out. About then it started to rain so we headed for the tents, coming out again to retrieve the first lot and then the Dragonfly.

After that it was “time off” for lunch as we had no more work on the warbird tarmac until the Southern Knights formation team went out in their Harvards. A quick push out to start up and they were off. We all headed down to the crowd line to get photos of the RAAF F-18 & F-111, USAF F-15, the F-18F Super Hornet and a fly by by a B-52 (including one pass at high speed at 500′ – wooo :)

Somewhere in there the Super Constellation came out (with brakes squealing) along with the Catalina and three Dakotas. They did a streamed take-off and then a few fly bys although Connie had to pull out and just land as they’d been forced to shut down #2 engine due to some problems (gotta love those big old radials :)

After all that, I wound up working the intersection (where Bravo meets Charlie’s loop section), handling aircraft coming back and going out. Eventually it all settled down and we closed up our tent (known as “The Green Room” ‘cos we’re section Green on the map).

One more public day then I’m back again on Monday to help get everything out that hasn’t managed to get out on the Sunday night.

Today can best be summed up as 40 degrees on the tarmac, 40+ knots wind and dust everywhere. We had dust sticking to our sunscreen, dust on our food, dust in our mouths, dust in our eyes – crazy.

The high winds kept many of the lighties from flying into Avalon, so we had a few moments of peace & quiet, then the warbirds came in and suddenly Green 2 was full. With the Roulettes, RAAF Museum heritage flight & Mustang, Bob’s Mustang, the Yak 9 and a Harvard, we had a warbirds tarmac that was almost full. Yay :)

During the day, we had a chance to go and see Chuck Yeager – he was checking out the cockpit of an F-18 so we hung out near by and took pix (a few at a time, so we didn’t crowd the place out :) Word is he may be near a P-51 Mustang later during the show, which would be great (‘cos hey, that’s the tarmac I’m on – can you say “Full Access”? :)

Not long after, one of the Super Hornets went up with the RAAF Chief on board – it was only a quick flight due to the airshow starting around 2:30, but it seemed to go OK. I was sheparding a RAAF photographer around – he was using a mega-lens but finding it a bit hard due to the wind – he gave me the camera to see what “fun” it was to keep steady in the 40+ knot winds. Ouch!

With the warbird tarmac full and things going quiet, I took some time to get a few photos of the warbirds, then we headed back to the tent to relax. The guys from FightPath TV came by and I escorted them around the warbirds area. They were due to interview the Roulettes so, after they came back from their show, the guys did their interview while I organised a few sessions tomorrow with the warbirds pilots.

Most of us were pretty amazed that the Roulettes went up given the 40+ knot winds over the site. The Airvan and Caribou both looked like they were hovering during their low speed passes due to the high winds.

Chopper 2, the Rescue Helicopter that’s always around when the Roulettes do a show, came in and dropped off the Roulettes ground crew. There was dust everywhere thanks to their prop-wash then it left. Meanwhile, the Roulettes crew took down their tents before they were blown away. Chopper 2 came back a while later with the Roulettes pilots, again kicking up some dust and wind that knocked us about.

A USAF B-52 did a low fly-by down the runway at around 1,000′ then turned around and came by at high speed at 1,000′. It was pretty amazing.

The rest of the day was spent trying to avoid the dust and doing what we could to help aircraft coming in, going around the loop and so on. Eventually the RAAF Heritage Flight and the Mustangs left, doing a quick beat up of the field and a bit of a show from the Mustang.

Later in the afternoon, the winds shifted around from northerly to westerly and then, shortly after, southerly. With this came a drop in temperature of about 5 degrees and all new dust being blown back at us. Rain was on the horizon and a few drops were coming in. If we get the rain as predicted, at least it’ll end the dust :)

Around 6pm a few of us went to dinner at AGO (a BBQ dinner of sausage and hamburger :) then I headed for home. I have to start early tomorrow morning and I’ve seen a few “night shows” already, so I figured it was better to head home, relax and come in very early.