Shoreham '05
“You’re too early; you’ll have to wait, of course.” It was with these words we were greeted to Shoreham Airport, and after a 2½ hour drive from Colchester starting at stupid-o-clock I just knew we were in for an interesting morning.
The day had started in darkness. We set off in plenty of time to allow for the expected traffic jams and other unforseen circumstances, but the journey was plain sailing all the way. What with this and the fact we’re still not used to having a Land Rover that can overtake things meant we were at the airport over an hour before we should have been. There was a man at the gate, though, and after giving us a thorough telling-off for the disgraceful display of earliness he let us in. First obstacle cleared; you have now progressed to level two of the Get-into-Shoreham game.
Level two’s guardian was a fearsome looking, bearded giant with one eye and a club (OK, he wasn’t that bad: he was driving a Disco) who told us there was nobody to show us where to park so we would have to wait by the mysterious “gate six”. He then gave us a series of coded clues as to where this gate of destiny could be found. Needless to say we couldn’t find it. Just when we thought it was “game over” one of the marshals on the public gate spied us and, thinking we were marshals ourselves, waved us past the queue of public waiting to get in (they’re keen, these airshow crowds) and we’d made it!
We caused great confusion amongst the men on the gate then; we asked them where we should go, the reply was: “er, don’t you know?” It began to sink in that we weren’t on the staff, and as they’d let us in they didn’t really want to look stupid by telling us to go back out again (holding up the traffic again). We were waved off in the general direction of the centre of the airport and off we bounced. “How did you get in?” It was the giant from level two (named Pluto, so I’m informed). We tried to explain but he was having none of it. We were instructed to wait by the inside of gate six, pointing inwards (as if we’d driven through and closed it behind us). Yeah, OK. Kettle on.
All was calm over by the twilight zone, er I mean gate six. The only aerial activity was a mad Frenchman in a microlight being chased by a gaggle of marauding geese. I dread to think what they would have done to him had they caught him...
Some people appeared: perhaps they’re the officials who can show us where to park. After asking us if we could give them a lift to their hot dog van we concluded this was not the case. We were too frightened to take them; Pluto might have been watching us from his eyrie. The next person to appear was a chap on a motorbike. He apologised for the delay and said if we’d like to follow him, he would take us to our spot – lovely! We were taken back to where Pluto has chased us off earlier, and then down to the arena. Lots of muttering and arm waving with another official-looking bod, a bit of head scratching and the biker left. Official number four came over and told us we were in the wrong place, but there was no one available to take us to the right place so we’d have to wait there.
Another long wait.
Official number four came back and said “follow me” so we did. Back the way we came again, and finally made it to our designated area. [sound effect: loud applause, fireworks] Up went the EMLRA banner and we put the kettle on again.
Even though it was an airshow, we had a nice little collection of military vehicles on display: Heidi (of course), Greg and Katrina’s 109 CL and Robin (who was marshalling for the airshow) in his off-roader. We had two 101 ambulances and a 110, and keeping the Solihull crew company were a Ferret, Reo (complete with astroturf lawn and picket fence), Champ and two Jeeps. Out came the folding chairs, out came the sun, out came the aeroplanes.
The airshow itself was brilliant. Lots of varied flying over two days of glorious weather. Static aircraft, stalls, funfair (not in the way of the flight-line) military vehicles (mmm), classic cars, etc etc. Highlight of the show was the Catalina, now looking absolutely gorgeous in her new paint scheme. Coming a close second was probably the geese – formation flying at its best! The BBMF was there, warbirds, stunt planes, jets and helicopters – a great mix. Believe me: if you weren’t there, you missed out.
The show rules stated nobody was allowed to leave without a Land Rover escort, so I offered to escort Greg and he offered to escort me. But we didn’t need to resort to such Pluto-evading tactics: Robin very kindly escorted us out through the quiet side of the airport and away we went. A big thank you to everyone involved for making this a great weekend. See you next year!
