Tiggs

For any off you that applied for tickets and missed out.......dont worry, you didnt miss much!

To be fair the RB they are trying hard with it and planes wizzing round with a dance soundtrack pumping out is pretty cool.....but only for a while.

I was one of many that left after round 1 to beat the ques out having seen enough...we were not alone!

In summary 7/10...not bad for a day out that was free......they need to sort a few things:

Location - LONG walk from the car down a long hill - not miles but not great in the heat with a picnic and kids.

Location - Longleat is very undulating and i would say 60-75% of people got fed up walking and ended up with a view that only showed them 40% of the race. We walked all the way to the pit lane and saw 99% of it right in front of us.

They need a HUGE FLAT area.....not sure why they didnt use an airfield?

Race - Bit like F1....see it for the first time and its stunning....after lap 200 its a bit boring. They need to get the planes actually racing each other!

Fat People - When a fat person takes of their shirt (or women with kimpy clothes) are they not embarrassed? Almost vomited on some of them.......not sure why these sort cant be banned in public?


ohh...and biggest **** of the day....bloke near us - over the mic they tell the crowd that one of the planes has 300bhp...."3 x the power of the car you drove here in"......bloke then has a 20 min conversation with his girlfriend to explain that his Supra had been tested at 380bhp and that, when allowing for the weight of it V the plane, he was pushing 10g in a corner and so a better pilot than the bloke in the plane???????? Good job the ex-USAF and mutiple world stunt plane champion never heard him...he may have retired right there!

JackClark

>In summary 7/10...not bad for a day out that was free......

That's a bit rich coming from a tout.

In some ways I'm glad you didn't enjoy in and very pleased that I had - according to your write up - better things to do.

Gutmann pug

Here's another view on the day.

Arrived about 11am with a big mo fo picnic. Picked our spot near a big screen and a gate on the track. Got settled in, had some cheese and bickies, a couple of beers, watched the aerobatics which was great, watched the parachutes which was good too.

The big race was superb. From where we stood we had a view of I would say 60% of the cicuit. You're never going to see it all now are you? You dont go to Silverstone and expect to see the whole track....... I thought it was an excellent buzz, those guys really knew what they were doing and its a must see IMHO.

The downside was the fact that it was a long slow trudge back to the car at the end of the racing. But hey being as most of the 60,000 people there hadn't payed you're not going to complain now are you?
I would also have started the racing a little earlier and had a longer gap between sessions. That would have given me more time to get a couple of beers down me and munch on my chicken Fajita's.

So in my oppion an excellent day out in glorious sunshine. Longleat is a superb place even without the flying so big thumbs up from me. A great day.

Tiggs, I assume you weren't sitting near a big screen? It was cool to watch the in-flight footage and pro pics between runs.
A huge flat area would have detracted from my enjoyment.

Gary

Gutmann pug

Awful pics but they are hard to get the damned things wouldnt stay still long enough.







Gary

Deep Singh

Eh? Is Tiggs a ticket tout in his spare time?

JackClark

He was for this occasion, not that I'm bitter or anything

Clarebabes

Well, I enjoyed it too

I thought the racing was exciting as the British guy could've won! He didn't though, but great effort, especially when he hit a gate!

Jayne Middlemiss's voice is reverberating around my head tonight though Talk about shrill!

davyboy

Never have I found it so hard to take pics of something, I do have some video footage too, but here are the best pics I have.......and nearly all of them were shot in to the sun.

Jamo

iTrader: (23)

some nice pics there mate

davyboy

It was actually eaiser to video the screen to show others what it was like.

When you see this on Ch 5 in a month or so I reckon it will look awesome.

http://www.northloop.co.uk/videos_airrace_2005.htm

Dave

RON

Well, I thought it was awesome, and i paid for my ticket! off a guy on here who couldn't make it....

Got a reasonable spot on the lawn, and enjoyed the views not only in the sky.. but the ladies all around me aswell...

Why didn't they use an airfield....???? well, cos that would be totally boring, i don't think it would anywhere near as drmatic if it was a flat course.... and the trees and natural 'bowl' at Longleat only went to increase the spectical.........

I had a great day.....

JamieMacdonald

I went to this too. I saw the parachutes then slept for a bit in the sunshine (hangover) with my shirt off... and I've really caught the sun! Because I was such a state this morning I forgot to put any suncream on .

There was some cracking totty on display and the planes were pretty cool. We were on the hill about as far away from the action as you can get, but near a TV screen so could see everything fine. I found the racing impressive but started to get a bit bored towards the end, but for a free event it was great. The funny thing was, for some reason I assumed it was the 'bird man' thing so was expecting to see loads of nutters jumping off a platform into the lake!!

Unfortunately, the people I was with wanted to hang around for quite a bit and we headed back to the car park at about 17:15 there was a massive queue just to get IN to the car park, And it we didn't get out of the car park until nearly 7pm. I'd jokingly said on the way back to the car park that it could take us 4 hours to get home (live about an hour away) - that'll learn me - we didn't get home until 10pm because of the traffic. Still a good day though and like I said, lots of eye candy with not a lot of clothes on

Tiggs

dont get me wrong...i didnt "not enjoy" it........it could have been better though.

Cant belive some of you stayed on the hill?? Down by pit lane was the best spot with a good view of the screen and the panes in front of you.....lazy lot!

I do think they need to work on the concept more though...... i think having them race in twos could work......so they have two mirrored slaloms at either end of the airfileds then you can see two planes fly the same course. I just think it needs work.........and for me the best bit looked like the left right kink after the knife edge pass.....but it was behind trees - i'd like to see more low level turns like that in plain view................and when you go to F1 you are right - you dont see the whole race - and its crap!



know....what to spend my left over cash from ebay ticket sales on....hmmmmmmm

106rallye

I have been to far worse things and paid lots of money for the privilidge!

LOTS of nice ladies around, lots of sunshine and Longleat which is a cool place to spend the day. - I would have enjoyed it without the planes!

I agree that when I first heard about it I imagined a Reno pylon race with all planes racing at the same time but seeing them flying fast and very close to trees was amazing, as was the opening display.

Couldn't really have asked for more, and as for the walk I can't believe people were complaining! it warned you in advance and to be honest it probably doubled the yearly excercise participation of a lot of the people there

Seeing Dougie Lampkin was also
Andy

InvisibleMan

nice pics there DavyBoy my camera (or me ) was abit slow so missed all the planes - just got the trails of smoke also got flat battery & memory card full :Rolleyes:
We walked back up the hill and looked down from there. usual queues'n'crowds which is expected but hey not a bad day out for free. feeling abit burned today!

TaviaRS

Well, I enjoyed it. Good as a one off, for the novelty value. Thought the location was good so basically, I disagree with Tiggs. Oh, apart from the bit about the "lardies" What he forgot to mention were the people for whom bathing is obviously very much an option.

Anyway, piccies....

davyboy

Some nice ones there!

I think this is the pick of the bunch



Dave

mark1234

Another who stayed on the hill, very much a mistake, view wasn't great. The other 'scenery' was uniformly unimpressive too But there we go!

That said, by 11am the stuff down by the house looked absolutely jammed.

But.. enjoyed it a lot.. worth seeing just for the sheer bonkersness of seeing them that close to the ground. Am I the only one thinking it's a matter of time before someone misjudges it? Nasty thought but flippin eck!

Tiggs

Staying on the hill was lazy.........what got me was the people that left the hill, got as far as half way to the house (from the hill) and stopped there! They were basically in a little valley the other side of the flight path!!!

When we left after round 1 we walked past them.......LOTS of people in that area that hadnt moved the whole time. I stood and watched the show from where they were (bear in mind im tall and they are sat on the floor).......all i could see was the plane come in from the right and vanish (as it went through gate 1) then the it pops up for the vertical roll and vanishes again!

those folks were lazy AND stupid!

could you hear the sound system on the hill...it was a good addition (we were in front of it and got shook by the bass!) again, was odd to see people sat down the OTHER side of the screen and speakers when a 2 min walk would have doubled their fun?

T

ps- i still think it needs work and if they just run it like that it wont last as an event. I wont bother applying for tickets next year if its the same format (well......a few for ebay maybe )

carl

So this isn't like proper pylon racing then? From what I can see (a) the pylons are inflatable (they're certainly not in Nevada...) and (b) the aircraft go round one at a time (in the US, it's a proper race)

Tiggs

no....pylon racing it aint!

the planes take it in turms to go through a number of inflatable gates...between a few of those gates they also to have to complete a set "stunt"..........all under the clock.

The problem with it is that you have a number of planes doing EXACTLY the same thing......what they do is stunning, but even stunning is boring over and over!

Good example was my kids.....first plane they went nuts and loved it........by the last one neither wanted to be picked up for a better view and were looking for more interesting stuff elsewhere! and that was the last one of round 1!

davyboy

We were amused by "people" too.

We placed our picnic blanket and table cloth to mark our "territory" near the front of the natually forming "path" that people did not use for picnics etc as it was a nice wide walkway.

We were suprised at one family who wanted their picnic right in the "path", that made the family behind them move as they were nearly getting walked on in avoidence. Then as they made way, the family behind them wanted to move forward, and they put their blanket on out table cloth! The looks of disbelief on our faces have been a picture, as they looked up and thought they should move a little further away!

Getting out was also interesting.

A fence with just a small gap, then the path that went narrow, then 10,000 cars getting out of 2 gates. However I was still eating the remains of the monster picnic, and drinking beer at 6.15.

Tiggs

we started to walk back after round 1...........by the time we got to the car the last of round 2 was happening. Was surprised how many people did the same but it was clearly not MOST people.....as we drove out we qued for about 5 mins...i did wonder what it would be like 45 mins later!

555-Shaggy

We left after round 2 and walked straight to the car, drove straight out of the car park and straight back towards Bath.. only traffic we had was in Bath itself and on the M5

When people say "hill" are they talking about the right hand side of the house as you look at it (opposite side to the pit lane)?

davyboy

Just watched the 52min webcast - looked stunning!

It's on again tomorrow at 6.30pm.

Dave

Tiggs

The "hill" is the open space up to the path to the upper car park.

As the planes flew in to the first gate the area left of that gate was prime area...........go away from the house and you went up a little (not bad area but no decent screen) then it dropped down (where only retards and stevie wonder watched from then back up the hill where the lazy watched from

InvisibleMan

The Hungarian pilot