RAF Waddington International Air Show was held in the week preceding the Royal International Air Tattoo so I spent four days there from Friday's arrivals till Monday's departures and the weekend inbetween.  It was my first time back at Waddington since the 2009 airshow and with a line-up exceeding the most recent Waddington editions I was looking forward to the show.  Featuring the Swiss Air Force's dynamic F/A-18C Hornet and uncommon AS.332 Super Puma in the flying display, aswell as the Korean Black Eagles display team performing their UK debut.  The static was quality over quantity with a Royal Australian Air Force E-7A Wedgetail, Luftwaffe F-4F Phantom II, Czech Air Force JAS-39C Gripen and Algerian Air Force C-130H Hercules amongst many others.

Leading up to the show, the Qatar Emiri Air Force cancelled the participation of their C-17A Globemaster and C-130J-30 Hercules in the static park due to operational commitments, whereas the QinetiQ Andover and Alpha Jet were lost through insurance issues.  A great shame, but even with these cancellations the show had an excellent line-up which could rival many of the other European shows held this year.

The Friday spent in the Park And View Enclosure (PAVE) started off with cold, dismal weather but soon broke up and became a glorious day with little in the way of rain.  Arriving early I was treated to my first sighting of the Black Eagles which attempted a rehearsal only to be herded back in by the weather soon after.  The Luftwaffe Phantom (or rather, a plume of smoke) appeared on approach and it looked like a straight in approach but then it was noticed that his arrestor hook was down, he careered down the runway before putting the burners on and his gear away and entering the circuit.  The fun wasn't over yet, instead of slowing down he throttled up and sped out and turned onto the approach performing a fast pass down the runway with vapour cloaking the aircraft's shape before a smoky landing.  As the Luftwaffe withdraws their last F-4F Phantoms in June next year this was the last time the Germans would bring this type.  A big thanks needs to be issued to the guys in the tour and the crew of the Phantom for arranging this - it was much appreciated!

What the Phantom did, the Swiss Hornet did better and during its rehearsal when its fast pass was met by the air's moisture forming the iconic cone shape of approaching the sound barrier.  More surprises were in store when the Czech Gripen turned out to be their tiger schemed special aircraft and 3(F)sqn also sent their centenary marked aircraft.  The unusual SAAB340 AEW with Erieye radar arrived in superb light, another coup for the organisers!  One of the last few arrivals of the day were the UH-1H Huey and OH-6A Loach of the Huey Team, the UH-1H Huey is renowned for the 'slapping' of its rotary blades aswell as its Vietnam era history.

The two show days were completely opposite in terms of weather.  On Saturday we were hit with a large shower shortly before nine and after it had passed the weather cleared up for the majority of the day.  On the Sunday however it was clear and sunny until half ten when it became overcast for the whole remainder of the day with a few showers thrown into the mix.  It was luck that two of the aircraft - the E-3D and Typhoon - that I missed sunny photos of on the Saturday were the aircraft which caught the sun on the Sunday morning before the clouds took over.

The display started each day with the home team's Boeing E-3D Sentry AEW.1 of 8sqn and Astor Sentinel R.1 of 5sqn - the future of RAF Waddington, the RC-135V Rivet Joint was also flown past later in the day.  Both aircraft flew a flypast before the E-3D broke into a brief display consisting of a couple of tight turns and flypasts - it wasn't anything major, but it was refreshing to see an E-3 being thrown about!  The RAF Falcons parachute team then jumped from a C-130K Hercules.

The RAF trainer displays Grob Tutor T.1, Shorts Tucano T.1, King Air T.1 and Hawk T.1 were displayed too.  Scott Loughran in the 6sqn Typhoon FGR.4 from RAF Leuchars then provided plenty of noise as he threw the Typhoon around the sky, a much more dynamic display than in previous years with an excellent finale - the Typhoon approaches the crowd from a dive before pulling up into a minimum radius turn and then going vertical to many thousand feet.  As if that wasn't enough noise from the RAF, the Tornado GR4 role demo team from my local, RAF Lossiemouth, were also present with the two Tornados of XV(R)sqn and their accompanying pyros presenting to the public their role in Afghanistan.

Both Austria and the Czech Republic were also present at the show in the flying display, the former with their SAAB J105OE, a Swedish-built training aircraft with a tiger themed scheme seen at RIAT the previous year.  The small trainer was anything but quiet during its display with its two fairly powerful engines powering it around the blue skies.  The Czech Republic's Aero L159 ALCA (Advanced Light Combat Aircraft) is a home-built light attack aircraft, out of the 28 currently used 24 are single seat L-159A and the other four are twin-seat L-159T1 conversions with the other 44 owned currently in cold storage.

The foreign fast jet displays came from the Netherlands F-16AM and the Swiss F/A-18C.  The Netherlands F-16 was wearing its 'Orange Lion' display colours used since 2008, going by the current trend there should be a new display scheme in 2013 as they seem to change every four years.  The Swiss F/A-18 was remarked by some enthusiasts as the best European fast jet display, a big name to live up to but certainly not inaccurate!  Especially impressive was the 360 degrees high alpha turn and fast pass - if you've ever seen the Patrouille Suisse display team you'll understand that the Swiss seem to specialise in their fast passes!

There were no shortage of helicopter displays with the British tri-services all being well represented;  the Royal Air Force with the Boeing Chinook HC.2, Royal Navy with their Black Cats Lynx pair and the Army Air Corps with their own Lynx solo.  Joined by the Swiss AS.332 Cougar there was clearly a lot of quality amongst the rotary element.  The Chinook's sheer manoeuvrability is always incredible and the Army Lynx's backflip never gets old!

No less than six national display teams performed over Lincolnshire including the debutant Korean Black Eagles and adored Red Arrows.  The Black Eagles turned out to be a major highlight with their eight home built T-50B Golden Eagles as could be seen from Waddington's official Twitter feed which retweeted many of the comments tweeted to them, most containing praise for the Korean team.  One of the keys to their success lay within their eternal presence, it never felt like very long between formations and there was so much variety, all of which was flown with incredible precision and skill.  The Red Arrows, two aircraft lighter in 2012 due to the unfortunate happenings of last season but still produced an excellent display as always.  The Frecce Tricolori from Italy are the largest national display team with ten MB-339PANs and are highly acclaimed for their display of large formations and the 'crazy fly! solo', not to mention their fantastic commentator who excels in the enthusiasm department!  The Red Arrows' Saudi counterparts, the Saudi Hawks were also present and were down from six to five due to pilot illness.  Sadly, this meant the formation looked constantly odd because it was one of the outer aircraft missing, further to this the wait between formations was far too long and the display was not very fluent.  Their colour scheme is superb and their efforts too get to the UK for the second season in a row is worthy of commendation.  The Polish Team Orlik also flew their own aircraft, the PZL-130 Orlik turboprop trainer and flew a neat display in great weather on the Saturday.  The final team, the Belgian Red Devils with their four SF260 Marchetti aircraft were skilled but lacked the pace and energy of the other teams.

The only warbird display of the weekend came from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) from nearby RAF Coningsby with their Avro Lancaster and two iconic Spitfires.  They fly a formation display followed by a Spitfire synchro pair and Lancaster solo before joining up for the final pass.  The other Avro design usually seen at the show, the Avro Vulcan B.2 XH558 was unable to perform as it had only just had new engines installed due to problems with them a few weeks prior.

The final element of the display were the larger foreign aircraft which included the New Zealand's Boeing 757-200 which was adorned with celebratory markings to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Royal New Zealand Air Force's service to their country.  The display was well performed as always, I really enjoy watching such a large aircraft being thrown around as much as it was!  The other heavy aircraft was the Netherlands' KDC-10, originally meant to be in static, which performed a fly through on the Saturday only - a first for me!

Overall I have to congratulate Waddington on such a superb line-up of aircraft, I went back to the PAVE on the Monday to catch the departures where we were treated to another fast pass from the Luftwaffe F-4F Phantom II crew which brightened up a cloudy day.

My spirits were never dampened though, I really enjoyed my four days at RAF Waddington and I'm already looking forward to my next visit!

One of the highlighted items for Waddington Airshow and the Royal International Air Tattoo this year were the Black Eagles display team.  They are the national display team of the Republic Of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) and fly eight of their Korean Air Industries (KAI) T-50B Golden Eagle afterburning trainer.  The aircraft are based at Wonju Air Base with the 239th Special Squadron of the 8th Fighter Wing.  The team have a scattered history dating back to 1953 when they first formed with four North American P-51D Mustangs and have since operated Lockheed T-33As, North American F-86Fs, Northrop F-5As and Cessna A-37Bs before reforming on the now current KAI T-50Bs.

The UK tour was partly funded by KAI who were hoping to showcase their capable new aircraft to potential buyers, part of this was done when a solo aircraft flew a routine at Farnborough trade show using one of the Black Eagles aircraft.

It was not an easy task however, with the ROKAF having little in the ways of heavy-lift transport aircraft an alternative needed to be sourced.  It was Korean Air Cargo who came to the rescue and the ten T-50Bs (eight display aircraft and two spare) were disassembled and flown by Korean Air Cargo's Boeing 747 freighters into Manchester International Airport.  Subsequently the aircraft components were delivered by road to RAF Leeming where they were to be re-assembled and then would fly test flights.  After the final aircraft had performed a test flight the aircraft were flown to RAF Waddington ahead of their UK air show debut that weekend.

In the week before the show they did a practice over nearby RAF Scampton before undertaking a few practices over RAF Waddington.  Their attempted rehearsal in the claggy weather of Friday morning before the show was my first sight of them, the sound of their engines started up was very unique.  Sadly before I really got to really see just how good their demo was they were called in - presumably because of the bad weather.

On the Saturday however we got some good conditions and saw the full display.  Not really knowing what to expect I was amazed at some of the fresh new manoeuvres performed aswell as the slick formation changes!  One of the most important aspects of their display was that the spectators were always kept attentive with a very fluent and exciting display.

The routine itself consisted of the standard formation loops and turns before splitting off into sections.  Unlike the Red Arrows where it is a definitive five and four split the Black Eagles manoeuvres in the second half of their display sequence changed all the time.  My favourite part of the display is when two aircraft come in from the right in high alpha and a third runs in between the two before looping them and running between them again, the high alpha pair then put on the burners and one levels off while the other pulls up.  They also perform the Taegeuk symbol with two aircraft during the high display which is fascinating to watch!  Also during the display, one of the T-50Bs performs a short solo display featuring a max rate turn and loop.

It was at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) that I realised the true brilliance of the team in a real perspective.  At an airshow with a flying MiG-29 aswell as a static B-2, the Korean team remained my favourite item of the entire show.

And it wasn't only me who found their display mesmerising, many other attendees of the Waddington Airshow and Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) during 2012 have expressed a great admiration for these talented aviators.  The team were awarded the Boeing trophy for best overall display at the RAF Waddington Airshow 2012.  They added to this the King Hussein Memorial Sword for Best Overall Flying Display aswell as the As The Crow Flies trophy awarded by members of FRIAT.

So for a UK debut, they did a superb job.  An excellent display with an extremely friendly crew who acted as great ambassadors for their countries.  With three awards under their belt too, I really hope I get the chance to see them again.

For almost two weeks, me and my Dad went to England for a couple of airshows and mixed in a day at RAF Coningsby first.  It was a great couple of weeks with very unsettled weather and great company.  I'm not going to say to much as I don't want to tell the stories before I post the blog!  So here's a small selection of the 12 days or so.

As Rockness approached I had mixed feelings, I was looking forward to photographing a variety of bands in different environments but was well aware that it was a bit more wild compared to Belladrum which I had been too a couple of times.  It was also the first time I was covering at a festival and I wasn't sure how well I would cope, thankfully with there being two in our photographer team at InvernessGiGs for Rockness there was a sense of flexibility on offer.

Weather forecasts were looking brutal in the days leading up with a lot of rain forecast over the weekend so the camping which I was too enjoy was seemingly going to be less enjoyable.  Also, my inability to construct tents led to the purchase of a pop-up tent which I hoped would be as easy as it leads on (well it was, sort of, but I'll explain that in detail later.)

So Friday arrived and as I looked out my window I could - unsurprisingly - see grim weather, low cloud and, hang on, the ground isn't wet?  Bullet dodged.  Somehow on the Friday in which most was forecast there was none until later on in the day in which it drizzled very lightly on and off.  Saturday had a few showers in the morning but dried up quickly and Sunday was another tale of low cloud, fairly windy and the odd shower.  Much better.

So I arrived at Rockness to meet a bunch of friends who were already there to set up my pitch and the pop up tent worked as hoped (in this respect anyway!)  It was then off to start the photography, Mystery Jets first as I got to grips with the new surroundings.  Having photographed from the press pit in the Ironworks a few times it really didn't feel much different and I adapted fairly quickly.  The full team all met up and I met Robbie and Shaun of Nut Productions who had a few interviews/acoustic sessions planned and invited me to get a few photos of the process - excellent!

The Friday was quite a good way to ease into the weekend, not a lot that I needed to photograph but enough to get me used to everything and there were to be a few surprises.  The acoustic session with local Whisky River Band was one as I really enjoy their music, so I really enjoyed that!  Later in the day the Nut Productions team were chasing up an interview with Ed Sheeran which seemed more of a dream than a realistic target at first thought but soon became more and more real when progress was made and after covering both Noah & The Whale and Mumford & Sons the interview was carried out very late in the day.

The Saturday was the busiest day of the lot, with the bands starting a bit earlier and plenty of them aswell as acoustic sessions and interviews too it was rush around time, but this felt more of a challenge to me than something that would put me off and whilst I crashed in my tent very tired that night it was worth it.

Sunday tested the endurance, it started off fairly busy but it calmed down towards the end of the day and fatigue from the whole weekend was setting in, the weekend was well and truly rounded off with a superb set from Biffy Clyro who I had been looking forward to both photographing and enjoying the fireworks dazzled the sky and day punters retreated home whilst campers returned to their tents for one more night.

On Monday I woke up early to tackle my tent, but pop-up really was a one way system and so I had to carry a tent folded down as much as possible back home.  It lies, still popped up, in a spare bedroom.  Fortunately on return I was whisked off to a buffet to make up for an unhealthy snacking weekend.

It was an enjoyable weekend, as soon as I had arrived my doubts were erased and I had a superb time.  I met a lot of fantastic people and worked with a great team, everything wet well.

A big thanks to the InvernessGiGs team for travel and company and to the Nut Productions team for getting me involved in their work and also to the artists I met who were all a great laugh and very friendly.  And finally, of course, to my friends for their camping banter throughout the weekend!

Connel Flying Club based at Oban Airport organised a fly-in on Saturday 2nd of June which saw dozens of light aircraft congregate to the scenic airport.  I imagine a lot of the traffic was caused by the fantastic weather we had, with very scattered clouds and warm air with a cool breeze.

I also ended up at the fly-in, with my Uncle and his other friend who is a pilot took the aircraft they own shares in, a Jabiru J400 - G-CCID.  We arrived at Easterton airfield around half nine and helped the gliding club get a few gliders out for their busy day of flying to take place before readying the Jabiru for a departure around 1100L.  We were off the ground not long after 1100 and made our way towards Oban flying down a sky which had plenty of clouds to the south and very little to the north.  The further west we made the clouds got furthermore scattered and it made for a stunning trip visually with the deep blue waters of Loch Ness as part of our route.  There were also plenty of mountains including Ben Nevis shortly before arriving at Oban roughly eighty minutes after departure.  Because of a hill on the approach you have to curve in the approach path, before backtracking and in our case turning on a pan with the HM Coastguard Sikorsky S-92 sitting at the end.

We were then ferried off to the main pan with the terminal and barbeque on the other side free to have a look round the other aircraft that had landed which included a Pitts special, an authentically painted ex-RAF Chipmunk, two Grob G109s and plenty of other light aircraft.

After a couple of hours at Oban we departed off to Glenforsa airfield on Mull which, like Oban Airport, was beautiful.  Again, another curved approach between a hill and an occupied town was necessary.  We joined a few other aircraft which had done the same trip as us from Oban Airport and went off to the hotel for a cold drink and sat outside on the benches.  We were then treated to a spectacular small aerial display from the Pitts after it departed.

We then organised with a Robin DR400 crew (G-ELUN) to do a small air-to-air photo sortie as we were both heading back the same way.  They were off to Dalcross (Inverness) Airport whilst we continued on to Easterton where a couple of gliders were still airborne and soaring in the fantastic weather.  It was an excellent day, with great weather, great company and fantastic flying.

A big thanks to my Uncle and his friend for taking me up in the Jabiru, and also to the crew of G-ELUN and our Jabiru crew for giving me a great opportunity to try out some air-to-air photography!