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2010 Air Shows |
Farnborough, July 19-25, 2010
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Location: Farnborough
International Air show is located on the A325 road in Farnborough,
Hampshire, accessible from the M3 and A31 Southwest of London, UK. |
Admission: Varies, £30
on public days per person |
Parking: Best
to use public transport |
| Value: Excellent
if the weather is cooperating! |
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The
Farnborough International Air show is held every 2 years in Hampshire,
England. This year’s
event took place between July 19 and 25. The first five days are
reserved for members of the industry and the weekend is open to the
public. During this year’s show totalled $47 billion in orders.
There were 1450 exhibiting companies. There were 77 delegations from
44 countries. 120,000 visitors the trade days and about 160,000 visitors
the public days on the weekend.
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Since the weather in the
UK this time of the year is very unpredictable, it was a nice surprise
to spend 4 days in Farnborough without rain! The stars of the show
were the Boeing 787, which went back to Seattle to continue its certification
work on Tuesday, and the Airbus A400M which did not fly on the public
days. The ideal is to attend all 7 days of the show if one can get
a pass to come in during the trade only days because there are aircraft
that are present and / or will display during the trade days but
not in the public days and vice versa. |
As expected many more people attend the public days
than the trade days, which caused bottlenecks at the exits at the
end of the show. Public transportation to and from the show is straight
forward. They offer several buses to the train station in town and
to central London. If one is driving it is better to park at the
Queens Parade parking lot and take a free bus form there. The buses
were fast and efficient. Except on Saturday, the first public day
where there were no dedicated bus lanes and the buses got stuck with
regular car traffic going to the show. On Sunday the organizers had
resolved the problem by rerouting the buses and the trip from the
train station to the show grounds was much faster. Going through
security is fast and efficient with airport style scanners for large
bags, avoiding the need to have these bags being hand searched, which
speeds time.
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There are plenty of food vendors and bathroom facilities throughout
the grounds. On the weekend children attend the show for free and
many amusement type rides are available to keep them busy during
the day.
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The Vulcan
to the Sky Trust raised enough funds to complete the 2010 air show
season. It is always impressive to see it in the static line and
on flying display. This year XH558 turned 50. Unfortunately there
were some mechanical problems on Sunday and it could not fly. On
the ground the highlight was 2 JF-17 Thunder from Pakistan making
its debut appearance at the show. Also Airbus brought its newest
freighter the A330F with its redesigned nose that accommodates the
landing gear and keeps the plane level when loading and unloading.
All in all this is a great show worth attending.
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Major Aircraft/Performers
Presented:
- Red Arrows Display Team
- USAF F/A-18E/F Super Hornet Demo Team
- USAF F-16C
- Battle of Britain fly-by
- Avro Vulcan XH558 bomber
- B-52H fly-by
- Aermacchi M346
- Boeing 787
- and too many others to list.
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Rating:
9.8 out of 10 |
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Review and photography by
Ricardo von Puttkammer for AIRSHOWSREVIEW LLC.
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© 2010
AIRSHOWSTEVIEW LLC. All
Rights Reserved. |
All trade names, trademarks and manufacturer names are the property of their respective owners. |
