Blue Eagles

Associated sites:
Army Historic Aircraft Flight | The Museum of Army Flying | Army Air Corps Recruiting

Sunday 02 and Monday 03 June 2002 – Southend Air Show

The Team flew two displays over the Bank Holiday weekend, quite different in the conditions they encountered, even though they were at the same venue! The Sunday dawned bright an clear, with a light wind blowing along the seafront from the east. The Monday however was quite a different matter, with an overcast and a blustery 20 knots coming from the west, but on both occassions, the Team flew a well rounded display keeping the action in front of the large crowd. Southend attracts one of the biggest airshow crowds in the world, regularly topping the 1.2 million mark over the two days, which fills the seafront area and gives any display a unique problem, the sheer length of the display line! The photographs below were taken on the Monday display.

The crowd was enormous and densely packed…..	….as the Team began to fill the sky with their bright coloured smoke.

Here Julie passes through the gate formed by Lea and Keith….	….before Lea and Keith cross at extremely close range while breaking away.

During his solo, Ray Turner takes the Gazelle to the vertical….	….and beyond!

As Ray runs out on the B axis, the other three Gazelles run toward the crowd….	….before pulling up into the Prince of Wales Feathers….

….which spread evenly across the sky even in the strong wind.	The display ends with the team coming to the hover in front of the crowd, before Ray leads them away to land.

All this time, the display stand was knee deep in customers….	….much to Jennie’s delight as can be seen by the welcoming grin!
The Gazelle cockpit proved a real draw all day, with Ben and the rest of the ground crew taking people through the controls and systems.	Having landed at Southend Airport, the Team dashed back to the stand on the seafront to begin a marathon poster and brochure signing session for their fans.
Other highlights at the Southend Show were the new 2002 Red Arrows….	….and the excellent civilian amateur team, the Aerostars.

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