Fairford RIAT 2007 Thunderbirds 5

[Dave Whiley]

--
Dave

not-me should be djw401 and there's no need for any wossname

[HEMI-Powered[_2_]]

Dave Whiley added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

Nice pictures. Please excuse my ignorance, but what is "RIAT"? I
assume Fairford is the city or location for the airshow, but I'm
not up on the acronyms. Thanks.

--
HP, aka Jerry

[D. St-Sanvain]

Hi,

HEMI-Powered a écrit :
> Nice pictures. Please excuse my ignorance, but what is "RIAT"? I
> assume Fairford is the city or location for the airshow, but I'm
> not up on the acronyms. Thanks.
RIAT stands for "Royal International Air Tattoo" :
http://www.rafcte.com/

Bye

--
D520
Roundels of the World : http://cocardes.monde.online.fr

[Dave Whiley]

"D. St-Sanvain" > wrote in message
...

> Hi,
>
> HEMI-Powered a écrit :
>> Nice pictures. Please excuse my ignorance, but what is "RIAT"? I assume
>> Fairford is the city or location for the airshow, but I'm not up on the
>> acronyms. Thanks.

> RIAT stands for "Royal International Air Tattoo" :
> http://www.rafcte.com/

What he said.

To expand a little, the Royal International Air Tattoo is the big annual
airshow in the UK, held at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire (used by the USAF
to base B52s from time to time and also one of the designated emergency
landing strip for the Space Shuttle).

Fairford itself is a small town a couple of miles north of the airfield,
located here:

http://www.multimap.com/maps/#t=l&map=51.70736,-1.77548|7|4&loc=GB:51.70736:-1.77548:14|fairford|Fairford,%20GL7%204

Customarily the show has been held over the third weekend in July but this
year it was held on 14/15 July. Just as well it was a week earlier, since
there's a lot of flooding in the area at the moment, and a couple of hundred
thousand extra visitors wouldn't help matters at all.


--
Dave

not-me should be djw401 and there's no need for any wossname

[Dave Whiley]

"Dave Whiley" > wrote in message
...

> Customarily the show has been held over the third weekend in July but this
> year it was held on 14/15 July. Just as well it was a week earlier, since
> there's a lot of flooding in the area at the moment, and a couple of
> hundred thousand extra visitors wouldn't help matters at all.

.... and it looks as though the base itself has been affected, too:

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=47586


--
Dave

not-me should be djw401 and there's no need for any wossname

[Proton Fox]

Nice set, thanks for posting

[heavyhorses]

"Proton Fox" > wrote in message
...
> Nice set, thanks for posting

Fot a aeriel pic try
http://tinyurl.com/397ze7
or for the full url

http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=51.683333~-1.789184&style=a&lvl=14&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&encType=1

[HEMI-Powered[_2_]]

D. St-Sanvain added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

> Hi,
>
> HEMI-Powered a écrit :
>> Nice pictures. Please excuse my ignorance, but what is
>> "RIAT"? I assume Fairford is the city or location for the
>> airshow, but I'm not up on the acronyms. Thanks.
> RIAT stands for "Royal International Air Tattoo" :
> http://www.rafcte.com/
>
Wow! I'd have never guessed that one! Thanks. So, then I assume
that the Thunderbirds had come to Canada or the UK for this airshow
which would explain the Royal Air Force helicopters.

--
HP, aka Jerry

[HEMI-Powered[_2_]]

Dave Whiley added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

>
> "D. St-Sanvain" > wrote in
> message ...
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> HEMI-Powered a écrit :
>>> Nice pictures. Please excuse my ignorance, but what is
>>> "RIAT"? I assume Fairford is the city or location for the
>>> airshow, but I'm not up on the acronyms. Thanks.
>
>> RIAT stands for "Royal International Air Tattoo" :
>> http://www.rafcte.com/
>
> What he said.
>
> To expand a little, the Royal International Air Tattoo is the
> big annual airshow in the UK, held at RAF Fairford in
> Gloucestershire (used by the USAF to base B52s from time to
> time and also one of the designated emergency landing strip
> for the Space Shuttle).

Very interesting, thank you. I never knew that we parked B-52s in
the UK. I thought they were mainly based in the U.S., Turkey,
places like that. And, I have never heard that there is an
emergency Space Shuttle landing strip anywhere in the UK. I know
there are a number of them, several in the United States, but it
never occurred to me that in a real emergency they might not even
be able to hit something as large as the United States land mass
and would have to set down in another continent.

> Fairford itself is a small town a couple of miles north of the
> airfield, located here:
>
> http://www.multimap.com/maps/#t=l&map=51.70736,-1.77548|7|4&loc
> =GB:51.70736:-1.77548:14|fairford|Fairford,%20GL7%204
>
> Customarily the show has been held over the third weekend in
> July but this year it was held on 14/15 July. Just as well it
> was a week earlier, since there's a lot of flooding in the
> area at the moment, and a couple of hundred thousand extra
> visitors wouldn't help matters at all.
>
Thanks for the info!

--
HP, aka Jerry

[Dave Whiley]

"HEMI-Powered" > wrote in message
...
> Dave Whiley added these comments in the current discussion du

> Very interesting, thank you. I never knew that we parked B-52s in
> the UK. I thought they were mainly based in the U.S., Turkey,
> places like that. And, I have never heard that there is an
> emergency Space Shuttle landing strip anywhere in the UK. I know
> there are a number of them, several in the United States, but it
> never occurred to me that in a real emergency they might not even
> be able to hit something as large as the United States land mass
> and would have to set down in another continent.
>

That was something I only found out myself a few weeks ago. My guess would
be that it's designated as a landing point for problems during launch that
prevent the Shuttle from reaching orbit, so the only way is down and you
don't get much choice as to the where. When you compare the Fairford runway
at (AFAIR) 10,000' with, say, Edwards AFB (25,000'?), you'd have to be
desperate to try to get in there.

(Answering another post)

The Thunderbirds were on a European tour in late June / early July, starting
in Ireland then going East to Turkey and the Balkans before coming back West
to the UK.

I think someone should have a word with the Blue Angels now. They can't
possibly let the Air Force steal a march on them like that :-)


--
Dave

not-me should be djw401 and there's no need for any wossname
> HP, aka Jerry

[HEMI-Powered[_2_]]

Dave Whiley added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

>> Very interesting, thank you. I never knew that we parked
>> B-52s in the UK. I thought they were mainly based in the
>> U.S., Turkey, places like that. And, I have never heard that
>> there is an emergency Space Shuttle landing strip anywhere in
>> the UK. I know there are a number of them, several in the
>> United States, but it never occurred to me that in a real
>> emergency they might not even be able to hit something as
>> large as the United States land mass and would have to set
>> down in another continent.
>
> That was something I only found out myself a few weeks ago.
> My guess would be that it's designated as a landing point for
> problems during launch that prevent the Shuttle from reaching
> orbit, so the only way is down and you don't get much choice
> as to the where. When you compare the Fairford runway at
> (AFAIR) 10,000' with, say, Edwards AFB (25,000'?), you'd have
> to be desperate to try to get in there.

You know, while (apparently) neither of us knew about this nor
thought about it, it makes eminent sense to have emergency
landing strips either for an aborted take-off or - maybe - when
it is absolutely crucial to get the astronauts down, e.g.,
they're out of air which happened in the TV show "West Wing", and
NASA cannot line up the proper re-entry trajectory and retro fire
point to ensure a landing where we do have a strip, without
risking multiple orbits until the proper math can be lined up.

As to desperate, a POSSIBLE run off the end of a short runway is
certainly preferable than CERTAIN death if there's been a fire,
batteries are low, the computer died and they have to do a manual
fire, the oxygen thing, anything at all that makes the benefits
in saving 8+ lives worth taking a much smaller risk of a minor,
even a major crash landing.

Your point is also well taken that if there's an abort, you can't
"go around", you literally have to land, or try the old ditching
at sea thing, inherently highly dangerous besides losing the
shuttle.

> (Answering another post)
>
> The Thunderbirds were on a European tour in late June / early
> July, starting in Ireland then going East to Turkey and the
> Balkans before coming back West to the UK.
>
> I think someone should have a word with the Blue Angels now.
> They can't possibly let the Air Force steal a march on them
> like that :-)
>
I think that international air shows and other military shows and
exhibitions are great. Besides the obvious interest in seeing the
fine aviators and other military folks from other countries, it
shows solidarity in our various alliances (I'm looking at this
from an American-centric view, but I would certainly invite our
UK friends to come here)

--
HP, aka Jerry