Air shows are great and while there are so many reasons to sit in the spectator area mid-airfield at a show like RAF Waddington’s “The Show” in eastern England. However, a few dedicated enthusiasts parked themselves at the north end of Waddington’s runway to watch the departing and arriving airplanes from close up. The runway’s “piano keys” lay only a few yards beyond Sleaforth road so the approach for most planes is only a hundred feet or so above the road. Even with the massive turbine engines at idle, the sound must be properly loud.
A super-low approach by a Eurofighter Typhoon starts the video and a variety of military birds, including an English Electric Canberra and a brand-new Airbus A400, making low runs over the gathered onlookers. In addition, a ladder and a peek over the barrier allows the cameraman, YouTube user bobsurgranny, to look down the hot end of a Saab J-37 Viggen and a Saab J-35 Draken among others. The highlight is almost certainly the huge avian-looking Avro Vulcan at the video’s end.
The Vulcan is so cool words can’t describe how loud that thing is . When it used to come to the Abbotsford airshow Bob Singleton used to say it was so loud that the chicken farms near the airport would produce triangular eggs .