Airshow organisers are beginning to find it exceptionally hard to secure star acts these days as financial down-turn sees air forces carefully reviewing their spending and reducing participation in many areas which leads to an overall reduction of types seen at airshows. After another strong show in 2008 following the trouble of 2007 many were hoping the event could retain it's form and finally get a dry weekend into the bargain.

Steven Hadlow takes a look at this years RAF Waddington International Airshow. Photography by author unless otherwise credited. The event at the Lincolnshire airfield is organised with the primary goal of raising money for charities both from within and outside the Royal Air Force.

2009 proved to be a particularly tough year for the organisers. For several years now the show has clashed with the major airshow held at the Belgian Air Component base Koksijde and this continues to lead to difficulties attaining participation from foreign air arms as many opt for the mainland Europe option. Unfortunately accommodation needed at the nearby Lincoln University dictates that the event continues to be held on the first weekend of July. It wasn't all negativity on that front however. Despite many cancellations in the weeks leading up to the event the static line-up contained several foreign aircraft of note as part of the 60th anniversary celebration of NATO.

One aspect of the show that was down in numbers was support from the Royal Air Force itself. As budget cuts continue to bite deep into the organisation the public face of the service has vastly decreased. The Role Demonstration seen over the last two seasons went some way to plugging the gap but with the cancellation of that, and also a planned Harrier revival in the lead-up to the season the RAF were left a little short in making an impact with the general public. A great shame but with ever growing operational commitments and shrinking budgets this is a fact of the world we live in today. What RAF participants there were in the flying display at least put on polished routines and it was good to see in-demand heavies such as the VC-10, Hercules and Tristar represented, the latter of which performed a flythrough on both days.

Expected to go some way to boosting the show was the re-appearance of Vulcan XH558. After only managing to fly one day of the event last year TVOC were looking forward to making an impact under the watchful eye of resident Vulcan XM607. However as the morning of Saturday dawned warm and bright the dark news filtered through that the 'tin triangle' would not be flying at this years event due to problems with the re-issuing of the aircrafts permit to fly. A complicated affair which your author will not try and dissect that meant the show team and many of those attending were left disappointed. This also meant a planned formation of the Red Arrows and Vulcan on Sunday had to be shelved.

It seems that many factors were against the show this year. Yet, despite this there was still a solid line-up even if numbers were somewhat down in terms of aircraft. Perhaps the greatest relief for the team at Waddington was that the weather decided to finally have mercy on the event as two days of hot and mostly sunny weather blessed the Lincolnshire countryside, despite some rather foreboding forecasts in advance of the weekend.

Returning to the flying display was the traditional flypast of each of the resident squadrons as a 8/23 Squadron E-3D Sentry, 51 Squadron Nimrod R1 and 5(AC) Squadron Sentinel R1 all took to the air to open each days display and show the workhorses that operate out of Waddington on operations. Whilst the three didn't perform in formation each made a solo pass down the airfield. After the ill-fated attempt in 2007 the Sentinel finally got to make it's public flying debut and marked it with spirited take-offs and overshoots.

Despite the difficulties attaining foreign participants in general the numbers in the flying display were still relatively strong for a UK event. Making a welcome return to the UK scene were the French Air Force display team Patrouille de France, albeit on the Sunday only flying their Dassault Alpha Jets. It was a stylish return to the event for the team as they brought their usual flair and grace to the flying display.

It was something of an Alpha Jet meet at Waddington as the French Air Force Alpha Jet solo display also performed it's routine on both days of the show, perhaps just shading the competition against it's display counterpart from the RAF, the Hawk. An interesting participant was the planned 'flythrough' of four Belgian Air Force Alpha Jets out of RAF Marham. As it turned out this was more than a simple flythrough as the four three passes including one as a diamond four sporting display smoke, a very welcome and unusual item in the programme.

A team familiar to recent attendees of the show at Waddington are Team Orlik. The Polish Air Force team are named after their aircraft the PZL-130 'Orlik'. The Poles were as polished as ever as they delivered a display which seemed to have a little more impact than their previous visits. A team with a change in emphasis for this season are the Army Air Corps Blue Eagles. The four Gazelles have been withdrawn from the team and an Apache has replaced it to perform a pair routine with the traditional Lynx as was introduced last season. The routine certainly seemed more engaging as the Apache offered a larger presence and effect than the smaller Gazelle.

With a lack of military items this year civilian participation in the flying display was higher. Whilst it is a shame that an event the size of Waddington had such an emphasis on non-military items what was booked was, for the most part of a high standard. Taking the award for originality was the Antonov AN-2 display from John Calverley. The display of this versatile bi-plane, NATO codename 'Colt' was surprisingly dynamic as it performed swooping tight turns within the display datum and also performed an astounding short takeoff at crowd center. Also nice to see was the DH Vampire T11 from the Vampire Preservation Group. With the continuing financial struggles bookings for expensive classic jets are falling so it was good to see this rare De Havilland fly at the show.

Despite perhaps not being the strongest line-up in recent history Waddington still saw an exceptional attendance over the two days as the event saw a record crowd of 170,000 attend over the two days. It's a difficult time to organise a military airshow in this day and age and regardless of your opinion on this years line-up it is clear that the organising team as ever worked their very hardest and gave us a respectable show that was most enjoyable in that rarest of things, a hot summers weekend in the UK!

Airshow Website - www.waddingtonairshow.co.uk

AiA would like to thank the media team at Waddington for their excellent hospitality.

Aircraft In Action 2009