Midlands Air Festival 2019

[Adam]

Show debrief #2 of the year.

Yesterday I attended the final day of the Midlands Air Festival. It's a three-day event featuring day and evening air displays and mass hot air balloon launches featuring around 100 balloons. Unfortunately I was only able to watch the Sunday daytime flying display, arriving ten minutes before it started and leaving immediately after.

The event was first held last year at Ragley Hall, and this year moved to Arbury Hall, another stately home. As before, some aircraft flew from the gardens of the home, others used nearby airports. The new venue is facing into the sun, like the old one, but isn't quite so charming - the long crowdline made the audience look quite thinly-spread, and you're looking up a hill at some trees, rather than down into a hilly valley. It definitely feels more like standing in an ordinary field than in the gardens of a country house. The weather also wasn't ideal - mostly grey and overcast, which never makes an airshow look its best.

The flying display was very 'gappy' with five minute gaps between most acts, sometimes as much as 15 minutes. Most of what we saw were smaller aircraft, especially in the first half of the programme, like a Chipmunk pair, SA180 Twister, Piper Cub, Marchetti SF260, Auster AOP6 and so on. Perhaps as a result, it seemed to me that a lot of spectators actually left quite early in the day. Having said that, there were some fantastic displays, especially in the second half of the flying display. The Westland Wasp put on a nice (if rather distant) show and then landed just a few metres in front of the crowd, Bob Grimstead performed a lovely routine in his RF-4 motorglider and I also enjoyed the Sea Fury/Mustang pair, who flew plenty of formation topside passes. Hats off, too, to the crew of the An-2 that dropped the Red Devils, who did a lovely low flypast after take-off, below treetop height.

There were two big formation teams, both of which were fantastic. The hugely-underrated Stampe Formation Flying Team staged a nice four-ship routine followed by an enjoyable solo display from Chris Jessons - those things do moves a 1930s biplane shouldn't be capable of! Then we had the five RV-8s of Team Raven, probably the stars of the show. While most RV teams just do non-aerobatic flypasts and turns in different formations, Team Raven do a proper jet team-style aerobatic show with a seamless routine of formation loops, rolls, bomb bursts, an opposition pass and more. I particularly loved 'The Twizzles' - the aircraft climb in Echelon and rapidly roll under the formation at one-second intervals.

Neither of the two jet displays flew on Sunday. The Strikemaster pair (sadly downgraded to a Jet Provost solo in the days before the show) and a rare air display from the Folland Gnat, but neither displayed with no explanation given that I heard. I was in front of the barriers all day so it's possible it was mentioned while I was out of earshot of the speakers.

Overall the show didn't seem to have the magic of last year (having said that, I was only there for five hours, so who am I to comment?) but I do hope it continues to grow. It's a nice event, and with a slightly faster-paced flying display, a bigger crowd and perhaps a move back to Ragley Hall, it will become a much-loved event, I am sure.

Video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bkm8aFKcM8

[Flightline Uk]

From the footage posted online from the Catalina, the event didn't look that well attended but certainly better than the Ragley event. In fact the busiest area looks like it is a camping/social area for the Balloonists!

I totally get the style of the event the MAF organiser is trying to (re-)create and it should work well in theory. The Barnstormers events held around the UK at big country houses were tremendously popular in their day and the kind of 'hybrid' event that would work well today as well. Sat between the cities of Birmingham, Coventry and the town of Nuneaton there's a big potential audience too so the low turnout is puzzling. You only have to look at what Cosford gets (50-60,000) to see there's an lot of local interest in aviation events. MAF won't attract Cosford figures, but it could easily attract more. Poor publicity (sorry, social media posts made late on Saturday nights just won't work well on their own), lack of household names in the flying display (No Spitfire, Hurricane - really?) and odd issues with ticketing perhaps didn't count in the events favour this year.

Strange to hear about the cancellations too and certainly about the lack of explanation. Sadly its the kind of thing that leaves a negative impression which seems to be reflected in the visitor facebook posts on the MAF page.

Is there any reason why the Twister, Grob, Piper Cub etc didn't feature in your video?

[Adam]

From the footage posted online from the Catalina, the event didn't look that well attended but certainly better than the Ragley event. In fact the busiest area looks like it is a camping/social area for the Balloonists!

I totally get the style of the event the MAF organiser is trying to (re-)create and it should work well in theory. The Barnstormers events held around the UK at big country houses were tremendously popular in their day and the kind of 'hybrid' event that would work well today as well. Sat between the cities of Birmingham, Coventry and the town of Nuneaton there's a big potential audience too so the low turnout is puzzling. You only have to look at what Cosford gets (50-60,000) to see there's an lot of local interest in aviation events. MAF won't attract Cosford figures, but it could easily attract more. Poor publicity (sorry, social media posts made late on Saturday nights just won't work well on their own), lack of household names in the flying display (No Spitfire, Hurricane - really?) and odd issues with ticketing perhaps didn't count in the events favour this year.

Strange to hear about the cancellations too and certainly about the lack of explanation. Sadly its the kind of thing that leaves a negative impression which seems to be reflected in the visitor facebook posts on the MAF page.

Is there any reason why the Twister, Grob, Piper Cub etc didn't feature in your video?

I was shooting handheld. I wasn't expecting to go at all, but suddenly an opportunity arose to rush down by plane that morning from another event and catch the final afternoon. In my haste, I remembered a tripod, but not the quick release plate! I don't like handheld shooting and it made some of the lighter aircraft very hard to catch. I decided to miss a few things out rather than put wobbly clips in (even the Catalina clip isn't really as good as I'd like).

I love the country house format and I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend at Ragley last year, which was one of the most enjoyable weekends I've spent at an airshow. A combination of the weather, drop-outs and the new venue just meant this year didn't feel quite so special to me. Being in and out in a few hours also made a big difference, I'd have loved to have taken my time and stayed the whole weekend again, I'd probably have enjoyed it more.

Attendance was definitely up on last year but with the long crowdline, it did look sparse. There were areas of empty fenceline not far from show centre. Last year I knew someone who lived just a couple of miles from the show siteand had heard no promotion at all, I wonder if this year was similar. The crew bus driver also told me they'd had some problems wth people turning up on the day to find there were no tickets on the gate. Some then parked outside the venue, blocking the access roads in a few cases.

I can't vouch for certain that there was no explanation for the missing jets but I certainly didn't hear one. About an hour before they were due I talked briefly to the organising team and mentioned that I'd be leaving after the Gnat - they didn't say anything about it cancelling then, but come to think of it I don't think the commentary team mentioned any jets all day. I'd be interested to know whether it was there on Saturday, if anybody knows.

I do hope to go back next year, where ever it is held.

[Adam]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bXddvdbkGo