Airshow Programme: US style

[LotusOmega375D]

My Dad just dropped off an old brochure for the Nellis AFB airshow dated November 2005. Does RIAT have this sort of "colourful" front cover?



NB: it even included a full list of all the USAF's inventory from space rockets and satellites, through aircraft and right down to the various types of bombs, guns and hand grenades.

[Eric Mc]

Slightly misleading front cover.

[speedtwelve]

A lot of the UK military airshows had posters/programme covers painted by a chap named Wilf Hardy, RIAT included. They were usually pretty over-the-top. Here's one for Wallop in the 80s, depicting a selection of RAF fast-jets bombing their own airshow with live 1000lbers.

[Eric Mc]

Pah - they did that at Farnborough this year,

I always liked Wilf Hardy's paintings. I think he provided the front covers of the old Air Enthusiast magazine in the 1970s.

[dr_gn]

Eric Mc said:

Pah - they did that at Farnborough this year,

I always liked Wilf Hardy's paintings. I think he provided the front covers of the old Air Enthusiast magazine in the 1970s.

And a lot of Royal Air Force Yearbooks from the 1980's

[Yertis]

Just because I can:

Edited by Yertis on Monday 30th July 22:04

[Eric Mc]

Lovely selection. I own a few of those programmes (1979 and 1985).

Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 31st July 08:48

[LotusOmega375D]

speedtwelve said:

A lot of the UK military airshows had posters/programme covers painted by a chap named Wilf Hardy, RIAT included. They were usually pretty over-the-top. Here's one for Wallop in the 80s, depicting a selection of RAF fast-jets bombing their own airshow with live 1000lbers.

I attended that one. The RAF carried out pretend bombing and strafing runs with staged pyrotechnics, as well as dropping vehicles out of Hercs and having helicopters carrying artillery, which was very impressive for me as a kid. Do any UK airshows still do that?

On a related topic, when the Army Air Corps decided to retire their Beavers (fnarr), my Dad suggested that I write to the Commanding Officer at Middle Wallop and ask them if we could have one to put in our school playground (I hadn't actually asked the school if this would be OK and work how we would get it there of course!). Anyway the chap sent me a nice letter back saying that this would not be possible, but enclosed a lovely signed A4 black and white photo of a Beaver in flight. I wonder if I've still got it anywhere. I also had a large signed/framed in-flight photo of the Red Arrows from the 1970s, which must be kicking about somewhere.

[Eric Mc]

Two Tornados beat up and bombed Farnborough a couple of weeks ago.

[anonymous-user]

Same thing at Cosford.

[speedtwelve]

LotusOmega

A pity you didn't get any Beaver. The AAC Historic Flight still has one which flies regularly from Wallop; it's very efficient at converting fuel into noise.