Coffin Dodger

Yep, I was there

Bit of a bonus too as as far as I understood it it wasn't flying yesterday, but one of the marshals told me to the contrary when I got there

Got some pics and vids, will try to upload them later.

Stefanie

yes it was out again yesterday as was the red arrows

BBC NEWS | Business | F22 Raptor wows Farnborough

a good shot in todays bbc site, F22 at 3:20min doing the 'vertical' not horizontal hover. Im sure most tail fins dont act like that, pivoting from the middle?

unclebuck

No mention of the USAF B-1B then? That was awesome, like something from a sci-fi movie.

Stefanie

oh is that what it was, thought it was a business exec jet, a footballers toy. didnt do a fast fly-by yesterday but the other day it really put the gas on, it flashed by then 7 or so seconds later you heard it

unclebuck

One of these:



It didn't hang aroung for long - I'm guessing that's about as slow as it could go. It turned for it's second pass right about where I was viewing from so I got a really good look at it - stunning!!

Stefanie

i think it must have done a mach the other day, i wasnt far away from it (fleet side)turned my head for a second and it was gone, just a boom. Yesterday i was much closer, at the north side of the runway and it glided by with no boom, i guess it did when out of sight of the show and off home

tmo

is that the thing they had at waddington about 3 - 4 years ago, he did a 'spirited' final run dogs chucking up children passing out etc etc

Markus

One of the past Toronto Air Shows had the B1-B, I was at Niagara Falls for the day, so missed the show, but the B1-B did a flyover at the falls, very impressive beasty.

Am looking at this years lineup, seems we've got an F18 and F16, hopefully we'll have an F22 as well.

finchyboy

I watched Vulcan XH558 display at Waddington with the BBMF Lancaster i can tell you there wasn't a dry eye in the House !!!

DaveD

iTrader: (2)

Les, I think the Vulcan is limited to pulling 1g - for the sake of the airframe and engines.

I was hoping to go to Farnborough tomorrow, but it looks like I'll be stuck at work now, due to a minor on-going panic

finchyboy

Some nice footage of the Vulcan

http://www.aintv.com/index.html

Leslie

Thanks for the video Finchyboy, interesting and enjoyable.

DaveD,

The amount of permitted G you mention has to be defined. If the aircraft is flying straight and level it has 1G acting on it. You only have to do a turn and the applied G will have to increase to keep it in level flight. If they say it is restricted to 1G over that then it would be permitted to pull a total of 2G. The total permitted was 2.5g and that would require an airframe check if equalled or exceeded. The lift available from the wings was so great that those sort of levels were rarely required. My display only required maybe just over 1.5G in the double reverse steep turns I did over the airfield opening and closing the bomb doors, and in the wing overs, even going fully inverted at the top of the wing over to bring the nose down never needed much more than 1.2 -1,3G. The vertical climb off the runway from a roller landing needed maybe 1.2G to get the nose up as required. The whole spectacle of a Vulcan display was to achieve all the extreme angles with the aircraft while floating it around the sky. I often used to do a full display with an observer standing on the ladder between the pilots so that he could see out. There was no need to rack it around the sky putting excessive loads on the airframe. 558 was one of the Vulcan fleet which had the maximum fatigue life left on the airframe probably because it had a high level role when on its Squadrons and also was used mainly for training at the OCU. The aircraft is also some 9 tons lighter than before with the removal of the operational equipment and cabling.

I know it is restricted as far as the engines are concerned because the Chief Engineer in that video, Andy Edmonson, is worried that every change in power setting will put extra strain on the engines, which are brand new by the way. I find this surprising since the engines never gave any trouble before and they were used regularly throughout the full power range. They do have spare engines too. They do hope to fly the aircraft for 15 years I understand though.

It is a great shame that the aircraft is so restricted now. The whole point of a full Vulcan display was to show the outstanding manoeuverability of such a large aircraft. The Soviet attache's who used to attend the Waddington displays were visibly impressed by what it could do and the Russians feared it's operational capabilities right up to the day it was taken out of service. it is still talked about in Russian flying circles today.

Les

Turbo2

To quote VTST Operations Manager and former pilot Mike Pollitt at Farnborough:

"It will be a gentle display as we are limited to 1.55g and we also don't want to overstretch the engines. The display is performed at heights of between 500ft and 900ft, and speeds of 135 knots and 180 knots. We'll be operating at a take-off weight of 140,000lb including 39,000lb of fuel. At the end of the display we'll do a power-climb to let the crowd hear the roar of the Vulcan's four Olympus engines."

It is also expected to appear at Dunsfold, Leuchars and Jersey Airshows as well as some seaside events.

FlightMan

My whole house is reverberating with the roar of reheat!

Leslie

It is carrying a lot of fuel for a display with a takeoff from and landing at the display airfield. The normal minimum landing fuel allowing for it being concentrated in the fuselage tanks was 12,000 lbs. I used to take off with approx 21,000 lbs total of fuel for a 9 minute display using the display field as an emergency diversion as long as the runway was kept clear throughout. That meant appreciably less stress on the airframe too. Mind you it starts off at a very much lighter basic weight as I explained above. If he has to take off to hold off somewhere before the display starts of course he will need more fuel on board.

Les

FlightMan

Reheats been replaced by Merlins.

I've just been overflown at 300ft by the Lancaster.

DCI Gene Hunt

It flies over my garden (usually with the spits) when attending airshows etc. around 300ft as well

finchyboy

Just glad to see 558 back in the air but the display does seem a little bit pedestrian compared to those that we saw from the Vulcan Display Flight in year's gone by. Here's a video of what the Vulcan is really capable of !!!

YouTube - Avro Vulcan Roll

No wonder the Russian's were scared of it !!

FlightMan

Les, here is Wednesdays display:

YouTube - Vulcan XH558 at Farnborough 16 July 2008##

Kuohu

Does anyone have the schedule for sat and sun's flying displays please?

CrisPDuk

The tails of all fast jets are like that. It was discovered quite early on in the development of supersonic aircraft (usually the hard way)) that traditional split type tails cease to work at speeds approaching mach 1

FlightMan

Saturday 19 July approx 12.30 – 17.30

• Aero Sekur Skydiving Team
• The Red Devils
• Airbus A380
• HAL Helicopter
• Great War Display Team
• Vickers Vimy
• Swordfish
• Spitfire
• The Red Arrows
• Kestrel JP10
• Eurofighter Typhoon
• Sea Hawk
• F 16
• F 18
• B1B
• IAF Helicopter display team
• Guy Westgate Glider Display
• Avro Vulcan
• 111 Sqn Tribute
• M 346
• BA 609
• C-27J
• DC6
• The Aerostars
• BBMF
• Catalina
• Apache
• The Blades
• RR Spitfire PRXIX

Sunday 20 July approx 12.30 – 17.30

• Aero Sekur Skydiving Team
• The Red Devils
• Airbus A380
• HAL Helicopter
• Great War Display Team
• Vickers Vimy
• Swordfish
• Spitfire
• The Blades
• Sea Hawk
• Eurofighter Typhoon
• F 16
• F 18
• B1B
• IAF Helicopter display team
• Guy Westgate Glider Display
• Avro Vulcan
• 111 Sqn Tribute
• M 346
• BA 609
• C-27J
• Apache
• DC6
• The Aerostars
• BBMF
• Catalina
• RR Spitfire PRXIX

The Red Arrows – Show Close for 2008

Leslie

Thanks very much for that Flightman. It is so disappointing that they are so restricted in what they can do. Its a shadow of the old type of display as Finchyboy obviously remembers. Not a wingover to be seen and all fairly gentle turns with a pretty wide final turn. No steep takeoff either. We used to take off and start turning as the wheels left the ground and climb into a steep wingover. Just had to make sure the inside wing tip did not touch the ground. Must be very frustrating for the display pilot.

You probably saw me displaying then Finchyboy, I did most of the Waddington ones before the Vulcan left service as well as the Finningley Battle of Britain ones.

I am sure you know it does not have reheat Flightman.

Les

BooSH

I was at RIAT and although it was called off i was still working and was one of only a few people to get up close to the Raptor, it's an amazing bit of kit they had it parked up net to a typhoon and it made that look like it was from the dark ages the security around it was unreal and any pictures of the rear end were not allowed. I was talking to the pilot and it doesn't hover in mid air as it looks like, it's actually an optical illusion, when it looks like it's hovering it's actually moving forwards at the same same, if it were to hover it could cause an engine stall with catasrophic results.
Someone asking earlier why there was no Harrer display, it's due to operational commitments as they carn't spare any aircraft, they are due to be pulled out of Afghanistan ext year so they may start a display team up again.

Iwan

Here are the 3 F-22's that the USAF brought over for Fairford / Farnborough, parked up at Fairford last week.

BooSH

But did you get as close as this, it was taken with my phone so not the best quality, i'm no spotter but it was an amazing looking aircraft.

FlightMan

Hi Les, yes, I know they saved the reheat for Concorde.

I was talking about the F18/A.

Stefanie

If there were 3 F22's at Fairford last week why arent they here sat/sun?

BooSH

I would imagine they've gone off to other airshows. in Europe.