diginagain said:

Well, there's a four-foot high fence separating it from Middle Wallop airfield, which makes all the difference.

If you want to be picky, there's little more than a chainlink fence separating the A343 from the AACC, and three strands of rusty barbed-wire on the southern perimeter, but the MAF still isn't on a military establishment, and hasn't been since the early 1980s.

Just slap a couple of these up, that should do the trick...

http://www.signhub.com/stock/design/maximum/7719.jpg

They must work or no one would buy them. Come to think of it, that's what Hungary could do with at the moment.

Don't underestimate the importance of these events. We already have a leader of the opposition who has said that he'd like to disband the armed forces altogether. You can't take for granted the public (not just spotters!) know what the RAF does unless they're shown.

Only on one condition . . .

Demonstration Drone strike on a collection of Abusive Mullahs, guest appearance by Hellfire ?

Failing that, let people have a lie in on Sunday morning instead of the Working Weekend.

aye-up
 

many folk here keep indicating that certain bases in the South should hold the shows instead - so what about us Northerners?
One fond memory of an airshow was one of one poor tourist at Brawdy who had his car carried away because he left it on double-yellow lines and a big yellow helicopter accidently dropped it and it hurt the car and the pilot git into trouble and the Fat Controller's face was red and everything.......

He must have had ADD because I remember him doing it at Abingdon! :E

The car looked like a flat pack afterwards.

He must have been a retired German policeman - at the 1975 RAF Wildenrath air show, he and his colleague had their Bundespolizei VW beetle nabbed by a Wessex, which then dropped it from a significant height into the wooded area to the south of the runway. Unfortunately the smoke grenade in a coffee jar did rather a better job than planned when the jar smashed in the impact - it set the woods on fire!

The Germans loved it as it was an excuse to laugh at 'Polizei' - a couple of groundcrew lads in borrowed uniforms chasing the scrap VW they'd painted to resemble a police car, firing blanks and shouting oaths at the helicopter and its crew, followed by the farce of the entire fire section charging across the runway to put out the fire!

MtM, fixed or moving displays.

Moving spreads the pain.

Fixed fits in with everyone's calendar. Ensures continuity and expertise. You can spend on infrastructure - Finningley installed sceptic tanks - Waddo improved access roads etc.

Bringing in reinforcements happens, often from the training establishments. Main airfields are too lean to provide much. Reinforcement comes a huge cost in T&S as bases don't have spare accommodation. Gone are the days of busing willing recruits from Swinderby for the day.

God knows what they were like before then.

(Not that I recall much change between my first - '92, and last - '12, postings there).

.
Its interesting how times change, not too long ago the idea of holding an airshow on an operational, or certainly an active, RAF Base wasn't seen as quite so outrageous, indeed, it seemed the thing to do each summer/September.

There is clearly less of an appreciation for such an advantage in prestige for the one service which has an advantage in this area, even now after the decimation of years of cuts. With the RN managing to utilize both its two remaining operational airbases each year for this very purpose and with us seeing the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain pass without a single RAF station holding an At Home day in September to mark the event. Not to mention comments on here from those serving today about how difficult it is to manage such an extraordinary proposition, once regarded as another routine exercise, perhaps the day has come when we see the Armed Forces become far less visible, clandetine, obscure and ever fewer in number? I wonder if the Army were glad to see the back of the Royal Tournament.:hmm:

FB:)

Government: We need to cut the budgets again.

MoD: We guessed.

Staish: Let's have an air show.

Beancounter: Costs too much, no funds available.

Staish: We'll use our own people, charge for attendance and it will be good for PR, recruiting and Service charities.

Beancounter: If you have people spare to do non-core business you have too many. PR is not my budget. We need to downsize, not recruit. Service charities are outside Public Funds.

Public: We never see the Armed Forces doing anything these days, might as well get rid of them.

Government: Ooh, good. More cuts then.

Oh, and I couldn't give a hoot if station personnel have to work the weekend for an air show or anything else. I did it frequently throughout my 30 years; it's part of the deal.

Cant help but agree with CM there - want all your weekends to yourself, become an accountant.

From Nick Carter's book Meteor Eject!:

Not a bad day's Hunter flying! He was displaying an F Mk 4 of No 229 OCU.

Those MUST have been the days....:ok:

Wander:

Sorry to be a naysayer but how is giving the girlfriends of the cadets in anyway showing them what they do?
Presumably bring girlfriends of the cadets they had a pretty good idea anyway.
Would have hoped they arranged similar jollies for students around the country to get them interested.
Sounds to me a bit like 'Look how cool your boyfriend is' instead of a real program.

Yes the RAF must have been a lot of fun when it was a 100000+ strong flying club...:ugh:

as opposed to the very lean highly operational force it is now.

Camel, surely the RAF is so Operational because it is so lean?

And don't knock it if you weren't there. I vividly recall getting really annoyed when some joker wanted to do a run through Spade after 20:00.

And if it was a Thursday I was doubly pissed off because that was Volleyball night.

Bloody 617, always wanted the late slots.

I was there too, and it was great.

Now it's different, but it's still great.

[QUOTE]Yes the RAF must have been a lot of fun when it was a 100000+ strong flying club...

as opposed to the very lean highly operational force it is now.[/QUOTE

Camelspyyder,

The RAF has always maintained an operational tempo somewhere. I appreciate the gripe about being much smaller now, but not that much surely that everyone everywhere is on a war footing? If indeed that is what you're suggesting. When you joined up did they give any lectures on Malaya, Borneo, Aden, Cyprus? Not to mention the high tempo of readiness of the V-Force, the Tactical Strike force in North West Germany? Add to that, the number of live intercepts consuming mostly Leuchars interceptor crews, albeit from around 1965 forward. I'll wager that the level of QRA activity involving the two Squadrons at Leuchars was significantly higher than at Lossiemouth or Coningsby today. I do sense, with respect, a degree of self over dramatised posturing here. Plus, we had the constant and far more active threat of the IRA.

FB

Finningley,

Without wishing to speak for Camelspyder, we're not far off everyone being operational everywhere. So many of the 'non-operational' posts have either been contractorised, civilianised or just cut, meaning that those that are left are pretty much engaged full time in the business of killing people and breaking their toys or providing direct support to those that are. And given the increasingly Joint nature of things, that could well extend to RAF personnel being operational alongside its sister services in circumstances where the RAF isn't deployed in a major capacity.Add to that the fact that reach back ops are also increaasing, now you don't even need to deploy to kill people and break their toys.

As a set up its lean, almost too lean and there's no fat in the system when you take other commitments like guard, exercises etc on top of ops in to consideration. I started my current job in the spring on the back of a 7 month OOA. What I didn't find out until I'd been there for 2 weeks was that my new boss had to draft a pain & grief statement whilst I was OOA to stop me being deployed again once I got back. And I've had to do similar for some of my juniors since I've been in post, so I don't appear to have been an unusual case.

There's a large element of the RAF that knows nothing other than ops, so I can see why some might be less than enthusiastic about air shows and the likes of Armed Forces Day parade duties.

Well Melchett01, I'd best yank my foot free of my jaws! Just one question, purely observational, I expect I'm correct in imagining the Fleet Air Arm to be similarly involved, if so, how do they manage to still hold their annual events at Culdrose and Yeovilton, unlike the RAF, these are their only two airfields? Don't get me wrong I fully understand how priorities work and of course if the idea of staging anymore airshows, or even participating in others is now generating the same feeling as coming home from a day's work only to be told by your wife that you still haven't cleared the guttering etc, then say no more, but I'm sure you understand the point about the FAA.

FB:)

FB,

It's definitely a valid question if from an external perspective one wishes to compare the 2 organisations, but my understanding of the FAA - how their stations run and their current tasking and structures - is shall we say, rather slender. I'm sure someone that has better visibility of the FAA can provide a sensible answer!

WW, the access improvement at Waddo was for air show access through a farmer's field and track.

One aspect of leaning, fewer people, fewer air shows, has also meant less work believe it or not.

At Cottesmore and Coningsby, 20 years apart, we did all the work including the fod pl.od.

At Finningley, while we did some litter collection, the bulk of the work, fod propellers, tents, barriers was all contracted out.

I know that many old folks on here (myself included) are rightly very proud of what we achieved 30-odd years ago. Even back then I worked in one of the few parts of the RAF that flew 24/7 ops. However, at the time, the majority of the Service didn't. Now though, the Op commitment is far more widespread and harmony guides are often broken; it is probably not such a good time to take on extra work which impacts our Operational output - such as taking huge amounts of manpower to run (and secure) airshows.

CS:D

While it may only be a lost weekend for everyone a very large number are inevitably mis-employed the preceding week setting up and some the following week.

Then for a fair number their primary job goes on the back burner for days, weeks and even longer.

If you are established at 100%, manned at some level below that, then your effective manning will drop below operationally effective levels. We had one air show at Waddo cancelled (while Finningley was still going) when operations intruded.

It was cancelled sufficiently early that we didn't incur a big loss but if there is a late cancellation who picks up the bill?

The Air Show picks up the bill and as an organisation they are both insured against total loss and sit on nest eggs sufficiently large to cope.

The worst scenario outside of a flying or indeed other accident, is that aircraft have pre positioned and all is in place before cancellation. This means that the positioning elements of display fees have to be paid, fuel issues completed and HotAc paid for. In other words almost all the overheads of the event without any of the expected income due to refunding. Any event has its business model and Risk Assesment which is why it is an all year round job not a month before and can-do.

Working a weekend was never a problem. I was based at Lyneham for over a decade, there was almost no such thing as a weekend, even when at home. I remember having to program 3 OCU circuit training sorties over a long Easter weekend to guarantee getting a 'frame.

But having to work a weekend, which came round each year with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season, with an 8-day leave ban in place in order to prevent people taking part in something exponentially more satisfying, was another matter. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if one were given the chance to take every other year's airshow off as leave.

For an organisation such as Finningley/Waddington/Leuchars they usually held back a portion of takings as nest eggs as you say. For a new venue, Waddington/Coningsby the issue was to raise as much revenue for charity through minimizing costs and creative accounting. Insurance, if any, was minimal.

Fuel was often diverted. We had a P51 that arrived with empty drops, refuelled, did a display somewhere else, returned, dropped the tanks, displayed, and then refitted tanks and departed full.

I refused John Watt's Catalina for the same reason - arrive empty, depart full.

My staish also flatly refused to pay Binbrook for T&S, the Reds and Falcons for smokes and refused free entry to their families. TB!

Think there is a big difference today folks!
PS. I don't think a pathetic "I used to work (some) weekends" holds any credit with the important parts of the RAF.

OAP

Having worked many an airshow it's not so much the day itself but all the faff that goes with the runup, too many sticking their oar in to change something just for the sake of it. The worst part is the practice bleeding.

Putting airshows aside for now, I can appreciate the level of manning might not have a s much slack as it once did, I seem to recall on occasion, during summer in particular, the ops flight at Portreath had just me and one other when we were suppose to have no fewer than three of us on shift. Mind that was as much to do with annual leave but there were deployments as well. What I find difficult to imagine is; what would happen if one or more of our Typhoon Squadrons had to deploy next? Everything is UK based today!? accepted there is the eight aircraft Tornado detachment to Akrotiri, a sovereign airbase, but I undertant that's all? The transport aircraft numbers we have now are surely greater in proportion to the ratio of 1965 and certainly 1985! But with Afghanistan no longer a serious concern, what keeps the rest of the RAF on a war footing? Where are the Chinooks and Pumas going that the Navy's Sea Kings, Merlins, Lynx and Wildcats aren't?

Are training units on a war footing? Or is the RAF simply seriously short of established man power!? I was under the impression that the new established level was 35,000 while it has dropped below 32,000, so maybe that's it!

Again, sorry to sound like an old rambling idiot, but in 1965, Transport command were very busy re-supplying Aden and many other places, which, locally, were on a war footing with troops on the ground. Khormaksar looked like Heathrow at times with Argosies, Beverlies, Britannias, Comets and all. But they weren't regarded as being at war, nor the rest of HM Forces not deployed in theatre.

FB:confused:

I think if you check RAF News, Page 2 normally has a map showing where the Service is deployed.

It's a damn sight more locations than Akrotiri holiday village I can tell you.

As an occasional airshow performer (not in a P-51 unfortunately), with the best will in the world, you will not get the "acts" unless you pay for them. A WW2 fighter costs around £3500 per hour to operate so it will require some (a lot of) fuel to tempt it to your show with likely a commensurate fixed rate. I charge a different rate depending on whether the organiser includes fuel or not. Overall, I break even. The organiser may benefit if he is able to get fuel cheaper than I can.

Camelspyder,

The RAF as with the other services has always had various less visible deployment locations strewn across the Globe; from Goosebay to Borneo.

But how many of the deployment locations are actually on a 'war footing' and the Baltic states don't count. I'll stick my neck out here, routine deployments to all manner of curious locations across the atlas have always been there, Squadrons have always deployed overseas either on exercises, armaments practice camps, shows of force or just to pop in to say hello but even outside of WWII and Korea, nothing was seen as being at war even if the deployment had a series nature to it. 25 squadron spent most of its being based at leuchars in 1962 over in Germany ready to escort transport aircraft down the Berlin air corridor with all that might result in, the fact we're all still here is because the Soviets who were routinely threatening to close off all access to Berlin, luckily didn't.

FB

Tay, indeed. I got a number of Spitfires and they all came free but with full fuel on arrival for the display and on departure. I can say this now, but Nick Grace flying from Southampton said he would be out of pocket using all his 'free' fuel to get home again. He asked and we gave him is fee - £190!

G-FIRE OTOH was transiting north so was able to come to us on minimums and continue north on free fuel, win-win.

Of course free fuel only works if you have Avgas. For one participant MT had to take a Jerry Can to the local garage for some low octane stuff. I guess unleaded has grounded him.

Don't bother with an airshow, just host the Antiques Roadshow to help promote the RAF (and possibly Army and RN).

It also depends on the show. I am at the wedding/barmitzvah/village fete level rather than RIAT but to be invited to one of the bigger shows would probably result in a lot more flexibility of charging from my point of view. Ahoy, RIAT - I'll do it for fuel only! ;)

Squawk, and have rent-a-crowd gathered around wotsername in grow bags. Seeing them once, fine, on every shot, bet they were pressed - your flying suit looks clean, pop over to BBMF for a bit.

I wonder if wotsername got to keep her growbag and gloves. Now that had been at ISK in the old days, knockers would have been all over it trying to buy it.

Okay Dokay,

To answer the question the thread asks, I wouldn't necessarily like to see the Waddington Airshow per se return. But I would like to see a properly comprehensive RAF airshow, perhaps two or a two day event, of a similar standing to Waddington, or indeed better still, the Belgian Air Force Days as an example, held each September, on the week in which the 15th September falls. I'd be absolutely over the orbiting lump of soil with that!:ok:

FB:)