Royal International Air Tattoo 2016

Lancebloke wrote:

halfwise wrote:Why was one of the F35s flying with the cockpit hatch open?

Hi halfy.

No, the top and bottom open up when it goes in to hover to keep the engine cool. You can see the same bits open in the picture of it on the ground.

Ah, I should have noticed the landing gear was down. If coming in to land the drag could serve to shorten the deceleration distance as well.

They were more expensive than the government told us at first... but then isn't everything. - Lance

{{{Are they still as 'twitchy' to fly as they were said to be back when they were making them? I seem to remember one of the problems was that the test ones were notoriously hard to fly}}}

From what I have heard they are very nice to fly. They look like a lot of fun.

Things like this seem to go through a similar cycle. Design, build, costs go up, people say they are broken and rubbish, delivered over price, people use them and find out what they can actually do, best thing ever, next thing goes in to development and everyone complains and wants to keep the thing before.

F35 is there at the moment. In 30 years time everyone will have forgotten about how 'bad' it is now as they will be busy complaining about the next one.

Great pics Lance ! You really got some good'uns there ! We have a show down here but its not as good as the one you saw. Its still good with a variety of planes, Red Arrows etc. Everyone would come for the Lancaster but last year was the last year of showing it, not sure if the Hurricane will show this year either ? I enjoy air shows but I dont enjoy all the crowds, it gets so packed out !

Great pictures, Lance! Thanks for posting them. The A-400M is a beast. Dunno if I've ever seen (a picture of) one of those before.

Nice to see the F-35 out and about too.

Az - thanks. The showground is spread out down the runway meaning the crowd line is about 2km or so long. There are about 250k people but it isn't packed like the public shows.

Eldo - it isn't as big as something like the C17 or C5 which might be more familiar to you... not sure if they fly at displays in the US. It is much more agile though and they proper throw it around.

This show looks fantastic, told a friend we'll have to go there next year if we can after looking at your pics

Hi Ringo.

I believe it is 14th-16th July 2017. Also think the USAF has an anniversary so may see some interesting things come over for that.

Thanks, lance