The Royal International Air Tattoo prides itself in being the world's greatest military airshow. I visited it at RAF Fairford, UK this year; following the links on this page you can find some of the pictures I took.
The weather was looking grim on the morning of July 17, with very low-hanging grey clouds visible from the train when travelling to the site. Fortunately at the base the clouds did not prohibit flying, and over the course of the day the weather started to clear. I don't mind puffy cumulus clouds, or even dramatic storm clouds -- they add depth to an aircraft picture -- but an even grey wash on the background is no fun, especially as colours are quite muted in such a light. Still, you have to deal with what you got...
All of the pictures are given a quick treatment of level correction and unsharp masking, and the more gray ones have saturation slightly boosted so that the planes' colours would be more visible. A ton of British soil which entered the sensor surface on one of my first lens changes (sigh -- I was careful!) has been cloned away. Otherwise the pictures are unedited; no cropping was done as I'm a firm believer in framing with the viewfinder.
One day was in the end not enough for the visit. I spent all my time photographing flying displays and managing storage, and had no time for visiting the static displays. If I go again next year, it's clear that both days of the event are needed!
Teams
- Patrouille Suisse (CH)
- Red Arrows (GB)
- Royal Jordanian Falcons (JO)
- Midnight Hawks (FI)
- Patrouille France (FR)
Group displays
Single Aircraft
UK
- Sepecat Jaguar
- Harrier
- Sea Harrier
- Panavia Tornado (1)
- Panavia Tornado (2)
- Eurofighter Typhoon
- C-130
- BAE Hawk