Hi guys last weekend I went off to the sunny climes of Bournemouth Airshow on a hot, sunny day. My day started with a taxi pick up at 6.30am in the morning (I was supposed to go up on the Saturday, stay over and come back on the Sunday but the train strikes put paid to that ... cheers guys ...) where I was treated to a beautiful sunrise.
It was a fairly easy but very long train journey from Eastbourne to Bournemouth (Eastbourne - Brighton - Southampton - Bournemouth) about 3 and a half hours each way. There were some beautiful Autumn mists on the way, this was the bridge at Shoreham.
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| The airport is hidden behind the mist |
When I arrived at Bournemouth it was a short, direct walk from the station to the seafront. I had a walk around the RAF village and of course had to pose for a selfie in front of the Chinook.
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| The Chair-o-plane on the seafront |
Those of you who read my blog from the first time I went to Bournemouth back in 2021 will remember Corney's and my confusion about the beach having sand as opposed to Eastbourne's pebbles (or as I prefer to call it - very young sand), this time we were prepared even if it still left Corney a little perplexed ...
Thankfully he recovered and got into the beach spirit.
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| So much sand 😨 |
Whilst we were waiting for the show to start we watched the boats moor-ing up off the beach. One of which The Waverley was one of the boats that took park in the Dunkirk evacuations it also apparently used to visit Eastbourne of a summer time.
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| The Waverley |
The show was opened by the Tigers Parachute Team dropping onto the beach with their trio formation and gigantic 'Army' flag.
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| No mistaking who The Tigers belong to! |
The bright sunshine was perfect for the arrival of the Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight with the sunshine glinting off the Spitfire, Hurricane & Lancaster.
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| The Lancaster over The Waverley |
The 'glinting warbirds' theme continued with the Rolls Royce Heritage Flight Spitfire and Mustang.
The RAF were well represented with displays from the Tutor, Chinook, Red Arrows and Typhoon.
The Tutor Display used a pretty yellow variant of the aircraft (once again thanks for the 'likes' on my Instagram photos guys 💓)
The Red Arrows were able to do their full, high display, at Eastbourne we're right under the Gatwick flightpath so they can only do their 'rolling' display (they have 3 varieties - flat for low cloud/bad weather, rolling and full) and painted the sky with their smoke trails.
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| One even tried to hitch a ride on the Chair-o-plane |
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| The lack of breeze meant that the colours lasted in the sky |
The Chinook Display kindly thank the Red Arrows for being their 'warm up act' as they went into their display which was as dynamic as ever with them throwing the gigantic helicopter around as if it weighed nothing.
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| We all love waving to the red hands! |
You can check out my video of the display here -
The Chinook wasn't the only rotary guest at the show, the other came in the form of the Navy Wings Westland Wasp with it's Swordfish companion.
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| When they came in it looked like the Wasp was hiding behind the Swordfish 😆 |
One display I'd not seen before was the OV10 Bronco (I'd seen it as an arrival at RIAT and from a distance at Airbourne one year) and it was really good. They demonstrated the kind of strafing runs it would have carried out in Vietnam (probably quite intimidating for the boats moored off of the beach).
The final display of the day came from the Typhoon. I've been lucky enough to catch various RAF Typhoon displays over the years but I genuinely believe this year's routine is the best I've ever seen (the consensus from the other geeks in the plane geek world seems to be the same).
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| My favourite photo of the day |
After the Typhoon roared off into the distance it was time for the long trek home.
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| South West trains have tons of leg room! |
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| A much needed cup of tea |
On the train home we had an absolutely stunning sunset. These 'through the train window' photos don't do it any justice at all.
I finally got home just before 11pm which by my calculations made it a 16 hour day 😅 it was worth it but I think next time I'd definitely want to stay over as had been my original plan before the train strikes were announced.
You can check out my highlights video here -
Next up I have Duxford's Battle Of Britain Airshow at the weekend so expect a blog about that soon.
Love Jen
XxxX
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