ADF Airshow 2010 - Williamtown

[Chris Griffiths]

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.

[Tony P]

Well said Chris.

Plus it's the Purple Cobras.

[Mike S]

The funniest moment on the day for me was when the PA had an FA-18 pilot on. I made i joke about Top Gun earlier and i laughed so hard when i heard this pilot's callsign....

ICEMAN.


Im glad the Sunday turned out to be better for you mate. I still think it could of been organised better, but oh well. It beats doing the household chores i guess

[Dan Hammond]

Hi Guys,

I found it to be an awesome weekend. The waiting time for food was around 30mins for me but i was not fussed as i had time to kill before the flying displays.

I went both days and found Saturday to be the better day mainly because of the weather but thats just my opinion.

As for getting out, we parked on the rugby field on the airshow side of the airfield and on both days we had no issue getting out. Time from hopping in the car to being well on our way out the gate and off to Nelson Bay was literally 5 mins.

When i went on the C130 i spoke to a member of the crew and asked why they did not fly on Saturday. He said they were all ready to go everything was running smoothly but because there was a series of airshow aircraft taking off ahead of them they missed their slot and had to cancel their display. He also said the organiser of the airshow got his **** kicked on Sunday morning for not getting the C130 in the air on Saturday. The crew were a bit annoyed that they did not get up on Saturday.

In my opinion it truly was a great weekend. Bring on the next ADF Airshow

[Lee G]

I don't know about the carparking ... it only took me 2 minutes to exit the car park - I know I did better than a few people I was meeting later.. but hey, it's a public event .....

My only complaints about the day were that a 6' 3" German guys head kept appearing in my shots and the main one - for photography, the car park on the opposite side of the runway would have been better later in the day.

Apart from that, a great show and will definately be going to Amberley for the next one.

I was also talking this morning to a work collegue who used to work on the F-111's at Richmond. He said that the aerial wheels down dump and burn photos are close on to a collectors item as when the gear is extended. the gear door/airbrake creates an area of low pressure and has the ability to suck the dumped fuel back towards the aircraft and as such it was not permitted, not when he was working on them anyway.

Here are a couple of my better shots from the day - the head on of the Rhino is THAT aircraft that blew everyones eardrums out!

[Danny Rizk]

So does anyone have an idea about the next Defence Force Air Show and where it may be?

[Ossian N]

here are my craptacular photos from the airshow if anyone is interested
http://picasaweb.google.com/ossianne...eat=directlink

and some good ones from one of my friends
http://gallery.me.com/nathanpiper#100071

[Mike_S]

Originally Posted by Danny Rizk

So does anyone have an idea about the next Defence Force Air Show and where it may be?

Edinburgh (Adelaide) is what i've heard. No date yet but more than likely around the same time frame (Sept/Oct)

[Tony P]

Where did you hear that Mike?

Would've thought Pearce or East Sale would be next on the list.

[Greg McDonald]

I know there's a farewell for the pig at Amberley in December but not sure if there is any display involved (except for the pig that is!).