| Blackpool With Altitude, 2000 |
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23 July 2000
A day of air displays on the Prom. The young chap is strapped into an ejector seat.
Luckily someone at the top of the Tower caught him... |
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A Hawk jet and a few missiles add to the fun!
There was a steady queue of people waiting for the chance to peek into the cockpit of the Hawk, whilst the missile launcher was programmed to keep raising and lowering its bank of surface to air missiles. |
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Career information in the Hercules fuselage and radio controlled models to the right. We saw two of the models flying in the morning.
The huge Hercules fuselage was really a trailer. The back of it had an excellent photograph of paratroops jumping from the tail of a real Hercules, taken from inside the aircraft. |
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The Avro Vulcan model in the foreground had a tiny Jetex motor underneath.
Right: we bought a couple of mountain bikes in June and this was the first time we had taken them as far as Blackpool, without first bundling them in the back of the car! |
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Mum and Dad joined us with our neice, Heather, who sneaked a quick donkey ride before the Red Arrows aerobatic team gave a display at 12:30.
By then a lot of people were waiting! They crowded the Promenade and even lined up on the roofs of buildings. We went down onto the beach where there was plenty of room, and just kept a wary eye on the tide! |
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Huge kites were flying over Central Beach and paragliders from the Fire Brigade dropped in for the afternoon...
Actually I'm not exactly sure why the Fire Brigade should have paragliders... seems a strange method of fire fighting to me! |
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A slight delay, waiting for an air ambulance to land at Blackpool Airport and then the Red Arrows arrived!
Low cloud meant that they were forced to perform a low level display but no one seemed to mind!
As always they put on a superb display of close formation flying. |
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Crowds lining the North Pier's decking got a close up view as the Red Arrows fly overhead in a pyramid formation.
I put the digital camera away and stuck the telephoto zoom on the Canon for a few close up shots. |
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After the Red Arrows we went off again down to the South Pier. Fran went into Woolworths leaving me with the two bikes.
Before long a party of women stopped. "Aw... do you want a friend for your bike, love? Julie! He wants a friend!"
It was extremely pleasant riding along the Prom and the sun came out later, turning my arms a deep tanned red. |
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