I enjoyed the day yesterday. Met a bunch of people I haven't seen for a while on the trade displays and in the chalets. Enjoyed the show. But not much of my interest was in the GA stands.
Frankly, I would have gone to just see the Meteor fly. And the Raptor display was breathtaking. I don't understand how areoplanes can do some of the things it does. No matter how many times I see the Catalina & Connie I enjoy it and its good to leave some money behind with HARS. The surprise enjoyment was from that silly little Schweizer 300. That was a very clever act. I even was impressed with the Breitling Wing Walkers.
Its interesting, however, to reflect that all the really good acts were from the US. I suspect a large part of the reason is that you just couldn't legally develop and practice an act like that in Australia.
So, I'm glad I spent the day there and would go again. However, I'll be driving.
Seriously the CASA ramp checks were officious, tedious, meddling, pedantic with punitive intent and no regard to courtesy to the passengers. I reckon we spent more time with the CASA guy than we spent in the air flying there. He had every piece of paper and document spread out over the wing. He went through the flight manual page by page and took glee in finding what he thought was an error. Many photos of documents and recording of names and other filling out of sheets was done. Turns out the CASA guy was completely wrong. The Airshows Downunder guys are saying that CASA is twice as difficult this year as any other year and (at least yesterday) were ramp checking every single aircraft. As bad as CASA was, the Airshows Downunder officials were magnificent.
Last edited by Old Akro; 2nd Mar 2013 at 02:52.