Is the Farnborough air show open to the public on "trade" days?
 

I see the tickets are being sold for £30 but it should be a helluva less crowded, the toilets might not have 10mm of ***** on the floor (aaaah, the memories of the show from the heyday of the 1980s :yuk: ) and there should be more to see because many exhibitors more or less pack up before the normal public days.

Is it necessary to wear a white blanket and a scarf?

Wear a suit and take a pocket full of business cards, but basically yes. The air display will be less impressive, but the overall experience is much more civilised.

G

Are you serious about the suit?

Maybe it's just me - I grew up at the Royal Aircraft Establishment where it was clearly understood that if you wanted to be taken seriously, you wore a suit, and that is generally still the view in the aerospace engineering industry that the SBAC show is all about.

So me, I'd wear a suit, yes. I'm not going this year, but that has always been my custom and practice there, at Helitech, and at Paris. The same view seems to be taken by most of the other aviation grown-ups.

Corporate polo shirts are probably the next best thing if you don't mind being taken for a lab-tech or scientist.

A quick google only found one photograph of people going into the trade show. It does seem to support my opinion, the only person I can see in the shot not wearing a suit is selling programmes...

http://www.ursulasweeklywanders.com/...3433-Edit1.jpg

G

I don't have a suit anymore :eek:

Own a suit, versus queue 2 hours for a pee or a hotdog. Tough call.

G :p

Hatches, Matches, Dispatches and ....er....corporate events!

(And a good suit carrier for those long periods inbetween! :ok:)

Tie, or open neck shirt? Please God tell me the Safari suit has been binned:cool:

To be fair, I think that you can get away with not wearing a tie if you must nowadays.

G

Hi!

As long as you don't want to sell anything, you can go to Farnborough and Le Bourget on any day wearing whatever you like. Been there at least ten times since 1982 (more often to Paris than to F'boro) as engineering student, pilot and co-owner of an air taxi outfit. I never have worn a suit in all my life, never owned one. They want to sell you aeoplanes, not fashion!

When I first started work, it was as a Duty Clerk/Management trainee with a large Spirits company.This circa 1973. 1800 quid per annum, and that was a pretty good salary. We had to wear full suit, three piece.

The office manager, a particular type of creature, ruled the office like a Sergeant Major. Every afternoon, he used to go through to the Managing Directors office, come back, and state that the Managing Director had decreed it was warm, and we may loosen our ties:hmm:

Oh my God how times have changed............

For the worse I reckon, never did any of us any harm, binned the suits a while ago though, Ghengis

I'm quite happy in jeans and a t-shirt in the right place, but I really cannot grasp why so many people object nowadays to putting in a little effort to look smart?

G

Gosh at this rate you will be expecting them to be able to write more than one line without making several grammatical errors ;)

If I wanted to improve society I would ban

- smartphones
- f a c e b o o k
- t w i t t e r

and then today's youngsters would have a chance of making some real friends.

The reason I don't wear a suit is because it is so damn uncomfortable.

Which implies to me that you had very cheap or poorly fitting suits.

G

Why spend good flying money on a tailored suit when you can get some old rags from Tesco? Most of us, I bet, would rather spend more time in an aeroplane than in a suit? ;)

I'm a pilot and am visiting on the Friday (I'm working Saturday and Sunday). If it's sunny I'll be wearing shorts and a t-shirt, if it's not so sunny I'll be wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

I'm not there to sell or buy anything - just to look around, watch the show, chat to some people, etc.! Suit not required in my case.

Plus it's 'Enthusiasts Day' so I imagine some fairly nerdily-attired spotters will be in attendance! ;)

Because it's uncomfortable (quite apart from the cost)?

I can only second GtE's point of view: a welldone suit, even three piece, can be quite comfortable. Especially if one is past one's prime youth and no more exactly slim. And no, it isn't always cheap, but good quality lasts a long while, to make up for that.

Must also admit I enjoy dressing old-style since I found a good deal of appreciation for it in the fair sex... Not when I go flying, admittedly, but all the more at the office. Ties are over the top though, I am already embarrassed by the amount of first-time visitors who take ME for the team-lead or even for the manager, on behalf of my occasional smart suit.

One can dress "smartly" without wearing a suit. The most welcome visitors at the Farnborough air show/trade fair usually don't wear suits and ties ;) :

http://www.selectfactoring.co.uk/wp-...5/branson2.jpg

or

http://www.luxuo.com/wp-content/uplo...-bin-Talal.jpg

and another one who enjoys shopping trips to Farnborough (but refuses to even wear a uniform when at the controls...):

http://www.flyniki.com/site/affiliat...da_Cockpit.jpg

Dress aside, what will there be to interest a member of the public who can't stretch to a private A380? Not to mention my girlfriend. We've both got tickets for the Friday already.

I was assuming, rightly or wrongly, that there wouldn't be much in the way of GA specific stands, which is fine. I guess I'm worrying about wasting my time and the time of exhibitors, who at the end of the day are there to sell stuff to people with money - not to not sell stuff to people who don't have money.

I shall probably not wear a suit, to avoid giving out misleading signals.