Smiles, Steam and Sparkle

Today was the Biggin Hill Festival of Flight and my first air show of the season. After recovering from a rotten headache this morning I drove up to the show for early afternoon to join my fellow volunteers on the fly2help charity stand.

Within a couple of hours the stress of the past 36 hours started to fade away. I was very excited to finally see my aviation pal's steam engine in the flesh along with some cute miniature versions. I'm looking forward to attending the Steam Rally in Kent 1-2 August (which incidentally will have some great air displays too).

The air show display today included Spitfires, Typhoon, Red Arrows, Messerschmitt, Yaks and Lynx helicopters with some very moving performances. As a Spitfire duo flew low level along the runway the crowd was almost silent. It was a real goosebumps moment. Sadly low cloud earlier in the day saw several acts cancelled including the Wingwalkers and Sally B but so often is the case with British summertime.

We chatted to lots of aviation friends at the fly2help stand and I hope we've got some new volunteers as a result. The commentators gave us a few plugs and we sold a few Douglas teddy bears too.

I made three new friends today: Titan the cockapoo (very licky and smiley), Ross the steam engine driver (who gave me a lift on his engine to the pilot's tent so I turned up with black hands like a chimney sweep) and the lovely Alex another one of the fly2helpers (who let me try on his rather gorgeous flying jacket and told me about flying a Mustang in the US - lucky devil).

All in all an afternoon full of smiles, steam, Spitfires and sparkle. More of the same tomorrow at Redhill Aviation Festival...