Airbourne 2023 Preview!

 

I can't believe it's that time of year already, Airbourne is only days away and I'm really excited!

You guys all know that Airbourne is my favourite 4 days of the year and I begin petitioning the weather gods months prior (let's be honest it can't be any wetter than RIAT was this year 😅) and watching to see what's added to the line up.

Last year we were blessed by some absolutely gorgeous weather (you can read my blog about it here) and I hadn't seen the beaches as busy in years, possibly even busier than the times the Vulcan visited. It all combined to help raise the money for the show to run again this year so thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who dropped pennies in the boxes or made online donations (you can do that here) or bought merchandise it all helped to bring it back this year. 

So after all that gushing let's get down to the business in hand, previewing this year's show. Click on the titles for links to their websites to find out more about them.

Red Arrows 

Let's start with the headline display! We're lucky enough to have the Red Arrows closing the show each day. I'm super lucky to see them at airshows around the country each year but nothing beats them shooting over my head on the beach in my home town. 

Looking gorgeous against the blue sky last year

This was their arrival and display last year. 

Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight

The seafront will be treated to the rumble of the BBMF's Merlin engines all 4 days of the show with the Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster all in attendance. I'll never not have a tear in my eye watching them arrive and hearing the applause from the crowd.  

The Lancaster at Headcorn Airshow this year (there's a blog of the airshow here)

The Thursday of the show last year

Rolls Royce Heritage Trust Spitfire & Mustang

The Rolls Royce Heritage Trust are once more sending their Spitfire & Mustang to perform in formation. We're lucky enough to have had them practice along the seafront a couple of times already this year (typically I never have the camera handy 😂). Here they are at the show last year. 

Mustang

Spitfire

Here they are with the BBMF and other warbirds last year -

Tigers Parachute Team

The Tigers are coming all 4 days of the show and are always impressive, especially their 3 man 'stack'. Plus anyone who's prepared to throw themselves out of a perfectly serviceable plane deserves a round of applause!

Chinook

The Chinook display is a pretty rare sight at airshows this year so Airbourne have done well to secure it for the show on Friday. It's always a crowd pleaser with the way such a large craft is thrown around the sky as if it was a glider.

Flying with The Blades last year

Jett Pitts

Rich Goodwin's Jett Pitts is always fantastic, I never tire of watching his displays from literally sliding onto the display line to throwing his aircraft over and over into the air. You'll definitely need a sit down after his display and probably a strong cup of tea or coffee.

A patriotic paint job for last year's show

Strikemaster

The Strikemaster is the military version of the Jet Provost trainer (also seen at Airbourne over the years), don't be fooled by it being a relatively quiet jet it packs a real punch with it's rapid climb rate.

At Headcorn airshow this year, one of the two will be appearing at the weekend.

Norwegian Vampire

The Norwegian Historical Squadron have always been great supporters of Airbourne with visits from their MIG15 last year and T33 Shooting Star back in 2019. This year they're sending this beautiful Vampire. 

Taken against grey skies at Duxford last summer, hopefully it'll be greeted by blue skies to show it off nicely.

Here it is at the 2014 show -

Team Raven

Team Raven last appeared at the show in 2017 against blue skies. They're always really impressive and well worth a watch.

RAF Typhoon

Last but of course not least is the mighty Typhoon. The Typhoon will be disrupting everyone's peace and quiet on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I've seen the display at RIAT last month and it's fast, furious and most importantly noisy! I'm hoping that the 'Blackjack' union jack painted jet will be available for each of the days because it just adds a little something 'extra' to the display. And yes I am considering adding a tattoo of Blackjack to my Red Arrows tattoo ..... 

Kicking up vapour on Saturday

This year promises to be extra special as, after the success of last year's Typhoon/Spitfire formation with the BBMF's Spitfire, the Typhoon will be flying with the BBMF's Lancaster to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Dambusters Mission which promises to be a beautiful, emotional and noisy sight. 

With the BBMF Spitfire last year

I hope you guys enjoyed my preview of this year's show and my picks for the aircraft to look and listen out for (some being easier to hear than others - see above!). I actually have Grandstand Seating on Thursday, a birthday present from Mum and Dad so I'm hoping that will allow for some interesting photo angles, I'm in seat F18 so even I won't be able to forget that 😆

Keep your fingers crossed for the weather for me and I shall provide the highest possible quality of spam for you in my review blog.

Love Jen

XxxX

Halloween 2023 Chapter 1 - Code Orange! 🎃

Hello everyone and welcome to the first Halloween blog of 2023. Over the next few months I'll be investigating all the Halloween wares that shops and websites have to offer along with other spooky fun.

We're starting off the celebrations with good old TK Maxx who's store here in Eastbourne has quite a lot in already.

I won't be purchasing (Well trying not to anyway 😂) as much this year as I'll only have my room to decorate. Also as a witch Halloween/Samhain is an important spiritual celebration and I want to keep that in mind with my rituals this year.

So here's what TK Maxx had to offer!

Most people like Christmas snow globes, I like Halloween snow globes!

Amongst the snow globes there was a haunted house that I'd really like for my 'Haunted House Shelf' so I may go back for it (🤞it's still there). 

The haunted shelf last year

Unfortunately the Halloween gonks are back for 2023 .......

Give me the er Halloween sparrow any day

I have the 'big' version of these little Pumpkins

I really like the book of spells cushion and may have to go back for it ... cushions are always practical right? .....

I have however definitely banned myself from any more Autumn/Halloween candles as I do have 100s 😬

I could of course buy lots of cooking accessories and terrify everyone!

Ironically I actually only came away with a lovely crystal. This gorgeous slice of Agate was on the shelf with the garden accessories (as you do) so at least I managed to get some witchiness into my day! 

Love Jen

XxxX

RIAT 2023 Review

 

Hello! After over 2000 photos to edit and multiple videos to review I'm finally here with a blog about our slightly er muddy experience at The Royal International Air Tattoo this year. 

The drive to RIAT takes about 3-4 hours depending on traffic and arguments with the sat nav, bridge closures you get the idea. You can always tell when we're close as you start to see buildings made from the distinctive Cotswold stone.

As we do every year we stayed on Townsend Farm which gives some really great views of the aircraft (more on that in a minute). We'd also travelled up on Wednesday rather than our usual Thursday to see more aircraft.

Rocking my RAF Display Teams hat - that's a parachute on it not a mushroom as Helen thought

All set up

As we parked up I heard the unmistakable sound of jets getting airborne and  was over the moon when I realised that it was my favourite ever aircraft Tornados in formation with an A400M. These were from the Luftwaffe and were part of the 'Skytanker 23' theme celebrating 100 years of air-to-air refueling. 

Thank you Germany!

Currently my phone background

Throughout the day there were more arrivals and practice displays (PDAs).

As is tradition we went up to the bar in the evening, they have a lovely converted barn with a covered area and outdoor seating.

We loved this table

A G&T to round off the day

Our campsite by night

The next day was the perfect lazy day of sitting around the campsite waiting for the aircraft to come to us 😆 from 9am until about 7pm we saw almost 90 (yes I just grabbed my notebook and counted) arrivals and PDAs! Absolute heaven!

It was absolutely brilliant to see Harriers again. The UK retired ours for some unknown reason back in 2010 and they were always such an airshow favourite of ours. So thank you to Spain and Italy for sending us some!

Spanish Harrier in action

One very notable arrival and PDA came from the ME262. The ME262 was the world's first operational jet fighter right at the end of WW2 and there's only one flying example in the world.

A few more arrivals and PDAs -

Italian Master

Luftwaffe A400M

USAF KC135 Tanker

PC21

RAF A400M

USAF F35

One of the final arrivals of the day was the Greek F4 Phantom, unfortunately it arrived as we were queuing for food and we only saw a flash of it. So please enjoy this photo of the air space just after the Phantom passed by ....

 

The day ended with a lovely sunset and unfortunately that was the last of the decent weather .......

The next morning we awoke to the sound of heavy rain and it DID.NOT.STOP for the rest of the day. Seriously fuck the British weather! Unfortunately it was also the day we were due to go into the show itself. I decided to leave my camera at the caravan so as not to risk damaging it in monsoon conditions. 

My thoughts on the sodding weather

Here are some soggy static participants -

RAF Poseidon

RAF A400M

RAF F35

RAF Hawk T2

RAF Typhoon & F35

Seafire

USAF F15

USAF F35 & Globemaster

I was also pleased to discover an F1 crossover with this mock up of this season's Williams car. 

I do love the look of the new generation of cars

Shockingly some aircraft did fly, a massive round of applause to the organisers and air crew for getting the planes into the air and displaying.

We left after a couple of hours (especially when the rain started to soak through our waterproofs) but stopped at the end of the runway to watch the Danish F16 and were treated to it landing right over our heads!

Our view for the rest of the day from inside the awning

Even our lights had lakes

The next day dawned drizzly with low cloud and with scenes reminiscent of the famous Glastonbury mud baths (guys when I said I missed Glastonbury I meant the town and Chalice Well not the festival!).

Red Ted enjoying his breakfast cuppa

The weather was thankfully a bit better for those headed into the base, we had showers but not the whole day and even had some sunshine 😨. The main issue facing the organisers was the strong wind which put paid to any warbirds flying and some of the jets like the ME262 (thank god we saw it on Thursday), Czech Gripen and B52. But obviously safety must come first for everyone involved.

We did get plenty of action over the top of us (in between moving our chairs in and out of the awning dodging showers) here are some of the highlights. 

The French Rafale put on a great display -

Gripen

This beautiful SAAB SK60

Colour was the name of the game with the great coloured smoke from the Saudi Hawks and Fursan Al Emarat.

Swedish Gripen

The Finnish F18 bringing some Top Gun vibes

Belgian F16 'Dream Viper'

A flypast from an RAF Voyager Tanker and the Finnish F18 celebrating Finland joining NATO -

The USAF contribution to the tanker theme, a CV22 Osprey and Hercules

The RAF Typhoon looking mean and moody

Another international display team were the Spanish Patrulla Aguila -

Last but not least is this RAF F35 in the hover -

It was another fantastic year despite the vile weather on Friday (once again fuck you British weather!!!) and I can't wait until next year.

Love Jen

XxxX