International Air Fair, Biggin Hill (part 4)

The only jet display team of the day were the Breitling Jet Team from France (the Red Arrows were doing a tour of North America):

Next up was the RAF Role Demo, which is a new feature, introduced to airshows last year. It consists of a roleplay excercise performed by various aircraft including Tornadoes, Hawks, Chinook, Apache and Sentry, as well as some spectacular pyrotechnics.. Firstly a Tornado does a high-speed pass:

Several large explosions on the airfield simulated the bombing of enemy positions:

During the whole demo, a Boeing E-3 Sentry was circling above, relaying information to other aircraft below:

Another debut appearance was the Indian 'Sarangs' display team, using 4 HAL Dhruv helicopters painted in a peacock feather scheme. 3 of them are pictured here:

The final fast jet display was from the Eurofighter Typhoon, the latest of the RAF's aircraft, which will slowly replace the Tornadoes:

So, a good show on the whole, with several interesting aircraft and a lengthy display. Apparantly they had to close the gates at 2 pm to stop anymore people entering the airfield because it was full, the first time that's happened in the show's 40+ yr history. The queue out was very slow, which is standard procedure at airshows but wasn't any worse than expected. Maybe one to visit every other year or so due to the distance from home (about 120 miles).