Just Flight & Just Trains blogs

OK, well alright I know this is not exactly an up-to-to-the-minute report but I thought you may wish to know how Just Flight and our mate Bob TB got on at this year RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo) at RAF Fairford (no idea why its ‘RAF’ Fairford as its run and used by the USAF (and painted in USAF d.a.f. beige and brown everywhere), but I guess calling it ‘RAF’ as its based in the UK keeps the peace…) held over the weekend of 18-19th July 2009.

We decided to exhibit at this years show even after the total washout and cancellation of last year. See my previous blog “A right RIAT” for full soggy details. Last years cancellation literal cost us thousands of pounds that could not be recovered so we had to be sure that attending would be the ‘right thing’ and with RIAT saying they could now cope with the same weather this year as last year and us really seeing the potential to show Just Flight to many thousands of visitors the die was set for Martyn, Richard, Scott and I to do our best and attend! Pitch was booked, van was hired, as was the ultra heavy AC generator needed to give us clean 240Volt power for the PC’s and screens as well as a quite spiffing Marque supplied by a much better bunch than the cowboys of last year who drove off before the job was done! (see previous RIAT blog for full details!).

After much organising and loading of the van by Richard and Martyn they set off from the office in Huntingdon, Scott set off from darkest Birmingham and I from around the Oxford area for Fairford. Around Witney this was the weather that I encountered!

Heavy torrential rain! I thought OH NO! not again! This was appalling.. just the same as last year :-(, but thankfully the weather did improve..

Martyn and Richard did arrive around 15:00 as did I but of course we had the obligatory call from Scott saying he was stuck in traffic and was hours away. We of course expect this now anyway as its just a way to get out of having to help to set up the stand,arrive late and start off the conversation along the lines of “well if I had been here I would have done it this way..” at which point he gets severe verbal abuse from us who actually did the work…

We got through the normal security checks an we shown to our pitch - we were very pleasantly surprised - a nice marquee:

Our rather spiffing Marque - it even had windows! - Very posh..

Of course the vast majority of exhibitors there have absolutely nothing to do with aviation - its a family event and one with a captive audience in effect so all kinds of stuff is hurled at you from Dyson hand dryers (very effective and useful next to the toilets though!) to wild west photography studios to Gillette shavers - more of which later on. We were the only non real-world multi-million pound flight sim company exhibiting there which was good. The stand was set up including a pod for a Bob the Builder game for the Wii (developed by another part of our business group) which did attract some visitors over the weekend. Of course just as we were about to call it a wrap Scott turned up..

It had rained on an off during the Friday afternoon but Saturday turned out to be pretty rain free as far as I recall. As soon as the stand was open we have visitors and this continued through both days - we had Saitek hardware on sale and it was very popular. We were showing the Tornado and Vulcan as well as the C-130 Hercules to our visitors as they were at a military airshow and they attracted lots of viewers.

Lots of visitors. 

And more…

Even some with Bob…

The generator gave Stirling service until it ran out of petrol at the end of day one at which point Richard ‘Inferno’ Slater and I, Scotty ‘Scorcheo’ Ford refilled it with fuel. That was fun…  

Saturday night was spent tracking down a curry in a local town after Richard and I had popped into the local Tescos to buy some essential items..

Sunday morning dawned and it rained on and off through the day - light and very heavy - great for getting visitors inside our rainproof shelter! Airshow-wise the Vulcan and the New Zealand Air Force Boeing 757 were my stars, both with distinctive sounds that could be identified without even seeing the aircraft much to the amazement of my fellow crew! Vulcan was a bit tame flying wise, but great to see it flying again for sure.

Scott pretending he knows what he is doing.

And Martyn, knowing what he is doing.. 

And Richard reading up about liquids under heat and pressure.

Some of the heavy rain in Sunday - KC10 tanker in the background.  (look at the near-bottom right of the picture and you can actually see some ducks - it was that wet!)

The show finished around 19:00 on the Sunday and we dismantled the stand and all drove off home - it had been a long weekend and were all back at work the next morning. The show was deemed a success and we are intending to be there next year - we hope to see you there and thanks for all those who said hello to us there.

Oh! Yes - Margret Thacher naked - that was the comment from Richard after he had had a free shave on the Gillette stand by one of the ‘Asian looking woman’ as he described them. “I had to think of Margret Thatcher naked as she shaved me” he said. Yes - it was his facial hair…     

’till the next time,

Keep safe.

Scotty