My thoughts on the 2010 Defence Forces Air Show-
Participation- the show lost little with the absence of International visitors(A warm welcome to the crew of 63-8022, I trust you enjoyed your weekend a long way from Kansas), It would have been nice to see the Army participate, A Tiger or MRH-90.. even a Blackhawk would have been nice to see though the disdain the Army show for thee events is pretty well known. Good to see the Navy there.
Display- Static, Hard to complain about that the RAAF, Navy, and private hstoric stuff was pretty impressive, seems anything that was available was there(Oh, I already said my piece about the Army)
Display- Flying, damn fine except for the weather(Sunday was problematic for photography) sure there were some gaps but there was a fair bit to see with some novelties, the Porsche/Hawk Challenges were, if a little contrived certainly a touch of fun. The "Blue Cobras"(or is it Purple?) dogfight was an interesting touch and rarely seen before... if not as savage as I would expect a head on guns range knife fight to be in reality.
Commentary was good, I thought for a while the British guy was an import for the show until he spoke later about his day job, His presence on the microphone etc led me to believe he was a professional like Bob Constondurous that does the PA at the Grand prix.
Summing up the display, I got the impression that the participants were enjoying themselves rather than just carrying out an assignment.
Organisation-I have trouble finding much fault.
Catering, I read all the doomsayers on Sat and took my own so can't comment but admit the queues looked longish although no worse than other major events I have been to.
Parking and Access, I arrived at Cabbage Tree Road "Swamp Road" Car park entrance at about 7:15 so was parked in front row approx 200mtrs West of Tacan ant, bought ticket and waited to cross RWY at 8:00... crossed RWY about 8:20.
Leaving- I photographed solo Hornet taxying past at 15:58, then followed crowd across RWY wandered up to car, looked around, joined queue for Terminal exit of car park, heard there was an incident that had blocked that exit and turned back for "Swamp Road" by this time a path had been beaten across the rapidly emptying field and I followed it, was out on the road and well on the way to Hexham 20min after last photo, somewhere abeam Wyong at the benchmark 90 minutes and having coffee with my parents in Toongabbie at 18:43, less than 3 hrs after the last landing of the display.
My final thoughts, I, somewhat stupidly nearly let the doomsayers talk me out of going, I never got to read the books or consume the supplies that were part of my .. just pull over and chill out plan!
And why did I write this rant??
Whilst I accept that some may have had less luck with the parking etc, I just got tired of the complaints about what was a pretty well run event and one I am glad our troops put on for us.
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