Farnborough Public Weekend Axed
 

A shame but I don't think the spectacle would ever justify the ticket prices again.

Really?
That's an absolute tragedy.
I'd be interested to know how much of it was due to lack of $$$ because of dwindling numbers.
And as to the bleating - the whinging of anti-war lentil munchers and NIMBY snowflakes with sensitive hearing (or a desire to eliminate any risk from life) wins out again.
Fond memories of the Bona-jet deafeningly bowing to us in the stands are now just memories.

I haven't been to Farnborough for a while now. On the last 2 occasions I had to queue up for some security check - first time I'd ever seen that at an air show. Last time the grass was so wet that everyone advised that the car parks were seas of mud, so to go by train as there was a free bus to the show from the station. So that's what I did - except that when queuing to come out there was no bus shelter of any kind and everyone got soaked - very poor organisation.

As for the show itself, the pavilions were virtually empty (this wasn't on a 'public' day) with people manning the stands hanging around looking bored. A few aircraft flew, but nothing very impressive.

Expensive too. But the fat cats in the chalets were no doubt wooed by the bigger manufacturers as ever....

Farnborough is in the middle of a densely-populated area. The post-shorham display regs make almost impossible to legally do an interesting display in anything much bigger than a Pitts S1*, so I can see the argument for not even trying, frankly.

PDR

* I exaggerate, but only a little

Ahh not like the old days when Roly Falk used to have lunch with customers in the chalets, then pop out, get into a Vulcan fully suited and booted in his finest pinstripe suit, and fly it like a fighter.

Wish I'd been there to see that.....

Farnborough on the TV, Raymond Baxter giving the commentary.
Theres my childhood, right there!

They are opening up the Friday trade day to the public though, so they will now have access to the stands.

And mine too!

TV show
 

And mine, silence in the house, as my dad watched in awe, no video recorders in those days, so any interruption would have been fatal !

So that just really leaves Cosford, or Duxford and bar the 100th anniversary, Cosford has been pitiful over the last few years, the only real advantage is the punters have the museum to fall back on, but once you've done that a couple of times then the content is miminal, Duxford flying legends however is superb.

My first experience was as a young sprog in 1960. I visited both trade and public shows throughout my childhood with my father and then with the Air Training Corps. Those shows gave me my love of aviation in its many guises, so much so that at the age of 20 I moved from ATC to ATC!

The shows in those days were spectacular, in '60 the Black Arrows displayed with sixteen Hunters. But now money and health and safety have turned it into a safe, expensive shadow of those noisy, pioneering shows. Very sad!

My lasting memories of trade days was watching a bunch of well dressed, suited and booted older gentlemen fighting like children to get to the free cheap pens Boeing would put out occasionally.... It always struck me as both childish and pathetic.

Has scampton airshow been binned now as well?

They're confusing cause and effect here. You give folks less and less to watch you will get fewer and fewer showing up to watch it, not the other way around.

Correct, look at Flying Legends, it sells out in a heartbeat.

Not surprised TBH given the response to the last show, also the rise of RIAT as a (primarily mil) trade show. End of an era though

Airshows are on borrowed time in the UK, at least anything that resembles an "air" show. The combination of Shoreham and rampant development of, and around, airfields is a pretty fatal one. If RIAT ever do get the push from Fairford that will be the end of that one as well, as there is literally nowhere else suitable left in the whole country for a sizeable airshow to take place.

Sad times and its all happened on our watch....

SwanFIS

Lighting op Heathrow?

Ewan, your last was correct but citing Russian and American air shows was not. As they were not in UK all that would happen Is a check if our procedures to see if there were lessons to be learnt.

I live around 6 miles by road from the main gate at Culdrose. When I first came to live here in 1977 I went to Culdrose Air Day. I drove down my drive and immediately joined the end of the queue to get into the show. I think the last one was held in 2016, and now it has been "combined" with the one at Yeovilton, which is "only" about 150 miles away, so that's ok! Nothing to do with Shoreham, I think the writing was on the wall for years as attendance dwindled. The navy blames manpower shortages for cancelling the show, which I can well believe, but in any case once the big noisy jets have gone off the programme, what have you got left to impress Joe Public?

The last couple of shows at the "other" Trade Show, Paris, have been disappointing too...how long before that goes the same way?

So I suppose there will be even more spectators outside the fence in the nearby streets?
mmitch.

Me also.
At the time I were a little ignorant oik in shorts in UnZud.
But I always absolutely Ioved the bit near the end when the commentator chap went for the ride in the Harrier or the Jag - they kept a live feed of his voice - and he sounded funny when they pulled the sharp turns.
How was a young fella to know the commentator was a former WW2 Spitfire pilot.

I didn't realise putting on airshows was a priority task for defence.

...agree to a point but I think the taxpayer ought to be able to see what they are paying for occassionally, and maybe meet the folks doing the business on their behalf.

And also thus encourage the next generations into wanting to join as well.......

The ever shrinking understanding of the services by Joe Public is entirely coincidental with the ever shrinking size of the forces and hand-on exposure to the forces.

Be that RAF At Home Days, Navy Dockyard Days, or general military Tattoo's such as the Royal Tournament..............all pretty much gone now, and its almost as if the forces are almost hidden from public view!

I watched it avidly on TV in the '50s, not knowing that from 1976 onwards I would be put 'in charge' of writing the daily display programme, a task which I continued until 'Farnborough International' took it over from 2006 onwards.

From Flanders and Swann:

Brian 48nav

Nope, my name says it all! :rolleyes:

Good, because now they have more time to put in to organising the trade show and it gives me something to look forward to. I think for most people with a serious interest in aviation, the technology is just as cool as flying.
After RIAT, very few shows actually tick my boxes. I think Flying Legends/BoB Air Show and Jersey's air day (Swedish jets) are really the only ones I'd consider. Yeovilton for flares would be cool if I had the time.

That could be misconstrued.

It always was a trade show, going under the name of the Society of British Aerospace Constructors, back in the day we had rather more Aerospace Construction going on in Blighty, hence the diverse military types. However, the past 2 shows have basically been the Airbus vs Boeing show, with a few hangers on that have largely departed by the mid-week, leaving the weekend shows to be gap filled with whatever could be had. Then the Shoreham effect meant most fj displays were happening well out over Laffans Plain, and nearly to Odiham. The final nail, was lack of display by the Red Arrows, pretty much the only reason parents allowed themselves to be dragged along there by their offspring.

Ttfn

As a local resident this in sad news but the last show was dire and far too expensive .

OK FNB is hardly an ideal location being literally in the middle of the town even though the western end is fairly open but it iconic and very popular with local people . OK they have built a housing estate right on the airfield but people clearly saw what they were getting into there.

Move it to Blackbushe just up the road for the display-nice and remote but no facilities .It brings a huge amount of business to local hotels pubs bnbs taxi firms etc and will be seen as very serious news by the business community. As for the silly snowflake stereotype -after all a snowflake is one of the worlds most beautiful shapes- in my experience it is the Xenophobic hang em and flog em characters who object to most developments and activities as they focus much of their life on property values.