Royal International Air Tattoo

RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire

14 - 15 July 2007

The full time demonstration teams this year excluded the Patrouille de France, absent for reasons of Bastille Day celebrations. The Red Arrows played their home match one could say, lucky to have sufficient gaps in the clouds for their full display. The Red Arrows also found time to fly together with two Spitfires and a Hurricane flown by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.The team is now lead by a new CO, Wing Commander Jas Hawker. It never is easy to catch the opposing passes, but a place near the display datum and a fast Nikon D200 certainly helps!

The same is needed for the Gypo Break. Unfortunately, this happened during a rather cloudy spell during the display, however note the crossing tip vortices from the various jets.

2007 is the year in which the United States Air Force celebrate their 60th anniversary. This and the strong US-UK alliance helped to bring the Thunderbirds to Fairford. Like the US Navy's Blue Angels, the Thunderbirds fly front line fighters and thus, their display is tailored much more towards formation flying and demonstrating the F-16's power, rather than formation aerobatics in the case of their European counterparts. 

Formation aerobatics is something in which the Red Arrows and their Italian colleagues from the Frecce Tricolori excel. With typical Italian flair, the Frecce displayed on the Saturday against a partly cloudy sky, but had to content with less favourable conditions on the Sunday.

The Spanish Patrulla Aquila clearly did not have their day. They did not fly on the Saturday, but had one of the last display slots during the Sunday at a time when it was pooring down at times. Before they took off, the pilot of the jet in front of this CASA C.101 tested his jet's smoke system, only to find out that he momentarily couldn't shut the dye supply down. This left the unlucky numbers 6 and 7 covered in a thick layer of red dye.