One of my favourite shots from yesterday, VH-OJA descending into a sea of excited aviation fans - it could almost be a football match.

Their spontaneous applause after touchdown said it all.

http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/...150308-016.jpg

Fantastic shot Grahame!

Interestingly, it looks like people were allowed to stand close to the runway threshold, or was there a gap in the crowd there? With the shortness of the runway OJA would have been coming in very low. That must have been spectacular!

From what I can remember, the crowd continued right along the fence, including directly under the approach path. This image was taken with a long lens, so depth perception is a little difficult to gauge - also the touchdown point was when the nose of the aircraft as just on the left edge this image.

Full marks to the flight crew who did there homework on the shortish runway and did a perfect short field landing and got on the anchors straight away after touch down.
Congratulations also to HARS for being given the job of preserving our aviation heritage yet again with the B747.
See you all at Wings over Illawarra 2015.

Well, seeing as Grahame mentioned favourites, here's one of mine.

David and Goliath. The Jabiru looks almost the same size......
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...psquwxom6j.jpg

The light aircraft and crowd along the taxiway really sets the scene for the monster arrival.

Definitely deceptive Nigel, however at 49 inches, the wheels on OJA would be nearly as high as the Jabiru.

I should mention that whilst I couldn't get in the air for the arrival thanks to an overly cautious planning process, the good folk at Touchdown Helicopters (Josh and Rochelle) did allow me to use their portable rotor inspection stairs. That extra 8 feet of elevation over the crowd worked a treat for me and kept me over the heads of the crowds (and planes, cars etc) in all directions.

Nice to catch up and chat on Sunday morning Nigel, a big day for HARS. I picked up my coffee at Mascot on the way home.

Coffee at Mascot?!!? I'd have died if I had to wait that long!!!
It was great to catch up. I think we must average about one face-to-face chat per year?

OJA is having its engines swapped for expired engines today:

https://www.facebook.com/hars.gen/ph...type=1&theater