For the 6th time, I attended the Royal International Air Tattoo in 2018 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Royal Air Force with many fellow aircraft enthusiasts from all over the world. Expectations were high for this event, especially due to the the fact that RIAT was selected to be the centre stage for this great event in the history of the Royal Air Force. Furthermore, the fact that the organisers changed the venue to a full three day show, together with an extra day of arrivals and the organisers stating that extra car parks outside the airfield would be needed to free space inside the airfield for the large amounts of aircraft expected, all gave us hope that this airshow would be truly one to remember.
Despite all the hype though, as the event got closer, we slowly realised that the exotic participants that all aviation enthusiasts were expecting and hoping for were not going to materialise, a sign that unfortunately current world events have severely affected air arms participation at airshows. Furthermore, the cancellation of star items before the show did not help either, even though some of the cancellations were understandable and were beyond control of the airshow organisers.
Despite the lack of exotic participants and the cancellation of some star items such as the Canadian Aurora, french pumas, B-52 stratofortress among others, the event was a success and was classified as a classic RIAT that reminded me closely of the first RIAT I ever attended, also classified as a classic, i.e. RIAT 2012.
The first day of my RIAT started on Tuesday as I located myself in a field to catch the first arrivals for the show. In the morning one of my personal highlights of this year’s RIAT i.e. the French Navy Atlantique, came in to perform a run in an break in glorious sunny conditions. Its participation at RIAT 2018 was short-lived since it was called back to operational duty just two days later before the show actually started, gave us a taste of what a great display it is capable of producing. At least, it performed a practice demo a few hours after its arrival, giving us a great view of the majestic contours of this iconic maritime patrol aircraft that still serves with the French Navy and will still serve for some years to come.
Tuesday arrivals also brought other star attractions to the show, such as the first ever appearance to RIAT of the Japanese Kawasaki C-2, the Canadian armed force CF-18 hornet demo and Canadian C-130J-30 Hercules, the USAF B-1 Lancer, the Czech gripen, the Italian air force contingent from the Reparto Sperimentale Volo, the French Navy Rafale and Hellenic Air Force F-16 Demo Teams, and several RAF assets that returned to Fairford following the 100th anniversary flypast over London. Furthermore, various support aircraft turned up for the show, namely a Spanish Air Force Casa 295, a Swedish Air Force C-130 Hercules and a brand new French Air Force C-130J-30 Hercules. Despite being a relatively quiet day, it turned out to be quite successful, especially as the weather played ball.
Wednesday started quiet hectically due to the changing wind conditions that resulted in us frantically changing runway ends to be in the best spot to catch the arrivals, eventually resulting in 27 runway being in use for the rest of the day. The day started quite slowly, with the arrival of a Beech 350 King Air belonging to the shadow squadron of the Royal Air Force. Similarly to Tuesday, Wednesday saw an even larger amount of aircraft arrivals with the main highlights including the US Navy Boeing P-8 Poseidon and E-6 Mercury, the RAF Sentinel, Pakistan C-130 Hercules, Brazilian Air Force KC-390, French Air Force Couteau Delta and Rafale Demo Teams, Polish F-16 Demo Team, Swedish Gripen Demo Team, Solo turk demo and many others. The day ended with a pair of Italian Air Force Typhoons from 37 Stormo, together with the arrival of another highlight of the show, the USAF HC-130H on a non stop flight from the USA.
Thursday was quite an unexpected day, since at first I was planning to continue witnessing the arrivals for the show but some friends offered me a ride to go and photograph Air Force One Landing at Stansted Airport, due to the visit of President Trump to the United Kingdom. This resulted in only staying for aircraft arrivals till until 10am which still enabled me to see quite a variety of arrivals, including two USAF F-35A from Luke AFB together with a USAF C-17 & KC-10 Extender from McGuire AFB acting as support aircraft. In addition, many of the remaining fast jet demo teams arrived this morning, such as the swiss F-18 demo, the RAF Typhoon demo & the Belgian F-16 demo. F-16s from Norway and Denmark also arrived this morning, albeit to participate in the static display.
Friday was the first full show day of RIAT. The weather was quite gloomy in the morning making photography of the static aircraft quite difficult. As the day progressed, the weather got better by the minute, despite rumours of showers expected later in the day that would persist until late afternoon. Everyone was quite excited for the flying display as Friday was the only day where the main RAF flypast was programmed to take place above the skies of RAF Fairford. However, the rain got heavier and heavier towards the beginning of the afternoon which eventually led to the whole cancellation of the RAF flypast. Due to the weather, instead of waiting for the rest of the flying display, we decided to leave the show and travel to Stansted Airport because President Trump was planned to leave the UK this evening. It was the best decision we could have ever made, since we managed to capture most of the US contingent in beautiful light conditions.
The weather conditions proved to be much better on Saturday, with glorious sunshine allowing for excellent pictures to be made of the static display and the flying display. The light conditions were beautiful towards the end of the day, so I made my utmost to clear the static display pictures today as the light was perfect. My main highlights for the day included displays by the Chinook (a personal favourite), the Canadian air force CF-18 demo, the Ukrainian Su-27 demo, Couteau Delta, and the surprise visit by a USAF B-2 Spirit flanked on each side by an F-15 from nearby RAF Lakenheath, despite being quite hard to photograph due to it being very high during its flypast. Other personal favourites included the Battle of Britain Memorial displays, especially the trenchard formation which was quite a sight to behold.
Sunday was pretty much a relaxed day, since I had taken mostly all the images I wanted and I was going to quietly enjoy the day without the usual chaos of running around taking pictures making sure that pictures are of good standard without poles or people in the way. Despite this, in the morning a group of friends including myself went to RAF Northolt since we got to know that the USMC ospreys supporting the visit of the US President in the UK were planning to leave in the morning. After successfully photographing these olive green beauties, we returned to RAF Fairford where we enjoyed the last show day of the show in glorious sunny conditions.
Monday, was the last day of my RIAT 2018, and as usual it is my favourite day as we get to see all the aircraft departing in a few hours, something incredible for the aviation enthusiast. Despite the difficult weather conditions, with clouds present pretty much all day, decent shots could be made of all departing aircraft, especially of those aircraft that decided to entertain us with spirited departures. Following the last departures we then travelled to London Heathrow Airport for our flight back to Malta.
It was a great RIAT 2018, despite not living up to its expectations and hype. It will probably be my last RIAT for a while, since the show has become too expensive lately, and finding accommodation close to the show ground is getting harder year after year. Hopefully I’ll be back in the future, and I also hope that RIAT will continue to work to bring more gems to this amazing airshow, that still remains by far the best airshow on the globe in terms of aircraft participation and organisation.
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