This convention booth was setup by Northwest Florida - our area.
Keith seldom poses with signs - cars - planes - etc. But this Land Rover Defender really caught his eye. It cost $45,000 fully equipped and looked awesome. Unfortunately you cannot import it into the USA because it has no airbags. Surprisingly - it got 22 mpg in town and 29 mpg on the highway.
Just north of Tallahassee they make the Osprey helicopter/STOL plane. They were selling them at this Georgia USA booth.
Wanna buy a drone? These aircraft are doing the heavy lifting in Iraq and Afghanistan. They can stay in the air for days - use their cameras to call in air strikes - or do the dirty work themselves. They are piloted by hotshots that sit in Vegas at a computer screen. Physical pilots and drone pilots compete for supremacy in our military now. It brings a new meaning to "flying by the seat of your pants."
I got to talk with two Red Arrow Pilots - Britain's equivalent to the Blue Angels. The pilots (men and women) seemed so young. They are also so skinny and did not have much hair.
Keith and I were equally impressed with the Airbus 380. It is gigantic yet handled so gracefully and quietly. Imagine flying 600 people at once in this big double decker bus.
Back in the 1950s - my Dad and I used to love to go to the air shows. After WWII - there were plenty of captured planes left over from the war - and flight was truly in its Golden Era. Usually our old air show visits included a flight demonstration by the Navy's Blue Angels or the Air Force's Thunderbirds.
Yesterday - I had a bit of the deja vu. Keith and I enjoyed an air show Euro style. This one was different - $65 billion of aircraft sales were going on around us in the acres of pavilions. Outside there were tons of planes to look at and photograph.
The USA had a chance to do a bit of saber rattling - both the FA-18 and the F-16 performed robust routines that had the 70,000 plus crowd entranced.
Several WWI and WWII warbirds did a few routines - Messerschmidts - Spitfires - Lancaster Bombers - Sopwith Camels - Curtis Jennys - and many more.
For the finale - the Brits have their Red Arrows - a group of 9 bright red fighter aircraft that zoom across the sky and perform precision maneuvers. From their initial takeoff in formation - to the variety of loops and rolls - these young men (and women) pilots held the crowd spellbound.
One of our favorites of the day was the beautiful routine of one Airbus A380 - the new giant European airliner. The jet is a double decker that easily holds 600 people. It has 4 giant jet engines under its wings - but was remarkably quiet. The pilot took it through a series of close passes - wingovers - and steep vertical climbs. This aircraft has a cruising range of 8000 miles - one could take a group of 600 friends almost anywhere in the world non-stop in about 16 hours.
Keith and I took the subway to Waterloo Station - then caught an express train to Farnsborough. At the train station - they had free double decker buses ferrying people to the Aeroport. In seconds we purchased tickets for 30 pounds each - and were inside with the giant crowd of maybe 70,000 people. There were plenty of upscale food concession stands - and a very civilized crowd of families lounging on their blankets watching the planes do their performances. It was a beautiful sunny and breezy day that kept temperatures mild. I did come home with a British sunburn - imagine that.
We did wander the convention booths - this is where the big money action was - Saudi Arabia bought 60 Eurofighter Typhoons (at about $74 million a pop) - other countries were snapping up the latest military drone aircraft. Even as a retired science teacher - a lot of static equipment displays were Greek to me.
After the Red Arrows performance - we were first in line for the bus and the first train back to London. We were home by 7.
I took a few pictures and a lot of video - the videos are a bit slow to loan today so you will see them later.
