Scampton Airshow 2017

[Kevin Farnell]

Pre-booking started at Fairford if I remember right and a good few years ago too. Didn't bother going from then on

ATB
DaveB

Pre-booking has also been introduced at Duxford, along with closure of the 'tank bank' on preview and airshow days. I have therefore not renewed my 'Friends of Duxford' membership.

Kevin

[Hot_Charlie]

Pre-booking started at Fairford if I remember right and a good few years ago too. Didn't bother going from then on

ATB
DaveB

Pre-booking has also been introduced at Duxford, along with closure of the 'tank bank' on preview and airshow days. I have therefore not renewed my 'Friends of Duxford' membership.

Kevin

The tank bank was awesome, but when they use the whole of the grass area for take offs (and landing) was always a potential disaster waiting to happen. Exciting? Yes. A reasonable risk? Probably not.

[Paul K]

With pre-booking at Duxford, you can do it online up until midnight the day before, so you don't have to take a gamble with the weather. The same may be true for the other air shows mentioned in this thread.

[Vc Ten]

Hi Paul
Cosford tickets have been sold out at least a week before the show for the past few years they have been selling them online. whether the lack of the Vulcan effect will have any effect of sales, time will tell
Atb
Dale

[Paul K]

Thanks for that Dale. I wondered if it was the same everywhere - obviously not.

The tank bank was awesome...

No HC, it wasn't. It's a little bank of earth. The Grand Canyon is awesome - the tank bank isn't. Sorry, but I'm a member of the global fight back against the word 'awesome'.

[Hot_Charlie]

Thanks for that Dale. I wondered if it was the same everywhere - obviously not.

The tank bank was awesome...

No HC, it wasn't. It's a little bank of earth. The Grand Canyon is awesome - the tank bank isn't. Sorry, but I'm a member of the global fight back against the word 'awesome'.

Ok, the view from the tank bank during a stream warbird takeoff from the grass was awesome.

Awesome.

[Kevin Farnell]

The tank bank was awesome, but when they use the whole of the grass area for take offs (and landing) was always a potential disaster waiting to happen.

That's incorrect. Duxford has a designated grass runway, that runs parallel to the hard surface runway. The runways are listed as -

06/24 Paved TORA/TODA/ASDA/LDA 1,199m
06/24 Grass TORA/TODA/ASDA/LDA 880m
No lighting or navigation aids.

The airfield is under CAA regulation and only the designated runways can be used for take off or landing. As for the potential of disaster, I have often had Spitfires and Hurricanes much lower than 100ft above me when standing on the 'Tank Bank'. Did that scare me? not at all!. Regularly driving on the A14 and M11, puts the fear of God into me. The number of horrific accidents that I've seen, caused by idiots who think they can drive however they want, cutting straight across two lanes of traffic at high speed to get into the right hand lane, or exit the motorway, terrifies me. Sitting below a flight path, flown by professional pilots, who do everything 'by the book', no worries at all.

Kevin

[Hot_Charlie]

The tank bank was awesome, but when they use the whole of the grass area for take offs (and landing) was always a potential disaster waiting to happen.

That's incorrect. Duxford has a designated grass runway, that runs parallel to the hard surface runway. The runways are listed as -

06/24 Paved TORA/TODA/ASDA/LDA 1,199m
06/24 Grass TORA/TODA/ASDA/LDA 880m
No lighting or navigation aids.

The airfield is under CAA regulation and only the designated runways can be used for take off or landing. As for the potential of disaster, I have often had Spitfires and Hurricanes much lower than 100ft above me when standing on the 'Tank Bank'. Did that scare me? not at all!. Regularly driving on the A14 and M11, puts the fear of God into me. The number of horrific accidents that I've seen, caused by idiots who think they can drive however they want, cutting straight across two lanes of traffic at high speed to get into the right hand lane, or exit the motorway, terrifies me. Sitting below a flight path, flown by professional pilots, who do everything 'by the book', no worries at all.

Kevin

But it isn't incorrect. As you can see there is no width specified on the grass and it isn't the single small marked out grass runway which is far closer to the flight line.

I've regularly use the marked grass runway at Duxford. I doubt it's that that suitable for fragile geared warbirds (due to the sunken marking) and I doubt the many stream take offs I've witnessed over the years came off completey off that single strip, and I don't recall ever seeing a warbird use it. If you look at google maps you can see the area between the marked grass and the tarmac runway is apparently mown to the same length.

Just to illustrate that I'm not talking out of my posterior I submit the following evidence:





My previous post should be taken in the context of Shoreham. However good a pilot it, taking off west in a formation from the grass could have been a disaster waiting to happen. Yes it may have been a suitable distance from the display line, but being almost in the undershoot for take off and landing could be disastrous. A similar accident to Shoreham could have happened when the PR.XI Spitfire crashed in France at the turn of the century. On that occasion the bystanders were saved by the pilot sacrificing his own life.