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Post by JW on Mar 31, 2012 19:56:12 GMT 12
At least the weather was good for the day.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Mar 31, 2012 19:57:37 GMT 12
Forgot to mention....at one of the intersections with Speedy Road where it was total gridlock with traffic from the other road merging, things were starting to degenerate into road rage about the time we reached that point. A couple of members of the public took it upon themselves to start directing traffic at that intersection, which appeared to be a huge help. I heard a lot of comments from disgruntled motorists all around us questioning why the RNZAF or Police hadn't organised people to direct traffic at that and other intersections.
And I've got about a thousand photographs (after culling out the obvious rubbish ones on the way back to Wellington). Most of them were taken by my friend's 14-year-old daughter. I handed my camera to her as she takes bloody good photographs and is 6ft 3in tall, so is better at getting photos over the top of other people than me due to her height.
She took most of my photographs at Classic Fighters at Omaka last year too, when she was 13, which meant I could just kick-back and enjoy the airshow, yet still end up with a huge number of awesome photos.
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Post by phil82 on Mar 31, 2012 20:02:51 GMT 12
That's a bit odd about the 757, it did a great display practice last week, I wonder why it didn't display at the air show. It did. I watched it! I left Wellington at 0600, arrived at the turn-off to Ohakea gate about 0750 to find a queue. Then we were directed to do a u-turn on SH1 to return to a previously unmarked turn off, and detoured all the way around Ohakea until we arrived........back at the main gate, some 400 meters from where we had been advised to U-turn because we couldn't enter through the main gate! There were people still trying to gain entry at 1300!. Otherwise, an excellent show in perfect weather. I've seen the Hornet display before at Avalon and it is indeed impressive, but the star of the show for me was the Hunter, 'blue note' and all! His first run was FAST! Moment of the day was while observing the ANZ 777, I suddenly turned to walk away and almost flattened a tiny blonde girl in USAF uniform carrying a ginormous camera. I picked her up, and apologized and she smiled and said she was sorry for getting in my way, all in a lovely deep southern accent Y'all have a nice day. |
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Post by beagle on Mar 31, 2012 20:21:07 GMT 12
Goddam, Phil you big bully
Did the 777 have it's doors open to the public and also land and take off during the display hours. ?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 31, 2012 20:44:11 GMT 12
So you ignored the signs to turn onto Fagan Road Dave? Perhaps the rest of us should have done the same  No, we were in the right place because we went for breakfast in Bulls first, then back to the show and had to turn into the Main Gate. |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 31, 2012 20:46:39 GMT 12
Did the Avenger fly? How was it seeing her flying at a New Zealand airshow again? Yes, frigging AWESOME!!! Loved it, even if I couldn't see some of the lower display because of all the camper buses parked in the way on the flightline. What the hell was with that? |
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Post by beagle on Mar 31, 2012 20:50:31 GMT 12
must have been the gold pass area. hehe
Just slightly off topic, but I remember the 50th and we all got a certificate plus special functions in the bars etc then for the 60th they put out a quite good publication, so what have they done this time.
Charged serving members to attend their own airshow. good one Pete Stockwell
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 31, 2012 20:56:44 GMT 12
Did the 777 have it's doors open to the public and also land and take off during the display hours. ? It landed just before the display commenced, and was open most of the day till 2.00pm. Loads seemed to stream through, looking from a distance. The Boeing 757 display was great. I loved the TVAL types too. And the Vampire and Mustang and Strikemaster displays were all perfect too, especially in the bright sun and blue sky. And it was neat to see the Historic Flight's Tiger Moth and Harvard and a modern Airtrainer flying together too. |
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Mar 31, 2012 21:05:38 GMT 12
Warbirds over Wanaka next weekend will be much better.
There will be far superior traffic control and it will mean a considerably easier and smoother trip to and from the airshow.
Perhaps the RNZAF should have asked the organisers of Warbirds over Wanaka and Classic Fighters to show them how to do it?
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Post by Peter Lewis on Mar 31, 2012 21:07:53 GMT 12
Worked out well for me: Left home 5.40am Arrived Ardmore 6.20am Airborne Ardmore 7.10am Landed Ohakea 8.35am Left Ohakea 4.25pm Landed Ardmore 5.57pm Arrived home 7pm. On finals for Ohakea we could certainly see the road traffic was very heavy.  |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 31, 2012 21:15:43 GMT 12
Just a note I received by email tonight from Brendon Deere, he says there were no issues with his Spitfire, just that the airshow co-ordinators considered the show was running too long and so cut the Spitfire two-ship flypast and Sean's display.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 31, 2012 21:22:16 GMT 12
seriously though I'd really like to know why big bus camper vans were allowed to line up in rows by the flightline? We were by the west fence near the Tiger Moth and Harvard from the beginning, till the TVAL biplanes were placed there and our forward vision totally disappeared and by that time every inch of crowdline fence was gone. No worried, we went back from the fence into the open field, but between us and the fence now was a big row of buses parked up in the middle of the crowdline. They blocked a lot of the low stuff for many thousands of people all day. There were others further round the crowdline at display centre too. in one the old lady sitting in the drivers' seat was embroidering and not even watching the show at all!! We stood there ages and I was taking note.
Did the buses get parked there by some error by the traffic management? It seemed completely daft. Or was this some plan to block the expected but in the end not-eventuating wind?
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Post by fyl on Mar 31, 2012 21:27:54 GMT 12
Glad to hear there are no issues with the Spitfire...
but chopping a Spitfire display is not a nice thing to do!!
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Post by corsair67 on Mar 31, 2012 21:40:09 GMT 12
Just a note I received by email tonight from Brendon Deere, he says there were no issues with his Spitfire, just that the airshow co-ordinators considered the show was running too long and so cut the Spitfire two-ship flypast and Sean's display. Well, I am just speechless.......... Maybe this also explains the non-display of the RAAF C-130J? |
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Post by Freighter5910 on Mar 31, 2012 21:51:07 GMT 12
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Post by mcmaster on Mar 31, 2012 21:55:30 GMT 12
Shame traffic management let down what looks like a good show. My last airshow was at RAAF Williytown in 2010 with 50k plus attending. Similar roads there to ohakea ie single lane roads with only 1 or 2 access points.
What the organisers did well was to recognise where sydney traffic and local traffic would converge and jam..they then got the RAAF engineers to knock out a new gravel access road thru a farm and swamp so each main traffic flow got its own parking area on the fringe of the base. Also, all the leadin roads mangaged by police and on base by MPs. Maybe something for organisers next time.
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Post by eieio on Mar 31, 2012 21:59:10 GMT 12
Perhaps our 10 km in 2 hours was not so bad. An RNZAF member said a Wellington outfit did the traffic management plan. Obviously the plan dont have to work. How the hell can there be any sense in trying to jam so much traffic thru a single point. One Fly-in orbited Marton for 1 hr. AS long as one heard the noise of the Hornet all was not lost. [Are traffic planners failed engineers?]
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Post by ErrolC on Apr 1, 2012 5:41:10 GMT 12
Just a note I received by email tonight from Brendon Deere, he says there were no issues with his Spitfire, just that the airshow co-ordinators considered the show was running too long and so cut the Spitfire two-ship flypast and Sean's display. Well, I am just speechless.......... Maybe this also explains the non-display of the RAAF C-130J? No, I never saw it on the list to display, and it was parked in the wrong area. A RNZAF Herc was meant to drop the paras, then display, but wasn't available -worn out after exercising all week? They used ZK-DAK to drop the team. I just noticed that there is a 90% right schedule on the website, wish I had known they updated it! www.airforce.mil.nz/operations/whats-on/75th-anniversary/air-show-information.htm |
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Post by phil82 on Apr 1, 2012 7:51:43 GMT 12
The traffic problems were front page on the Sunday Star-Times, but the guy who wrote the article on the show described the "F19" display, and the "USAF C130".
I've written the following letter to the Editor.
"With regard to your article on the RNZAF Air Show at Ohakea, perhaps the numbers quoted [70,000] who tried to attend are indicative of the New Zealand public wanting to see a substantial air display after Helen Clark's 2001 vindictive rampage through the strength of the air force. There has to be a message there that the majority of the aircraft displayed came from other countries! When reporting on such events, it might pay to have a reporter who can actually tell one aircraft from another as Michael Field evidently cannot. The RAAF aircraft were F18 Hornets, and not "F19", and there was no USAF C130 Hercules attending. There was, however, a US Marine Corp KC130!"
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Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 1, 2012 8:14:00 GMT 12
Among all the wrong things that they did at the Rowing World Cup at Karapiro in 2010, the one right thing they did was the traffic management. I think Ohakea and other airshows can learn from it. They arranged for neighbouring paddocks and parks in all directions about 3-4 km away to become car parks and they had a fleet of buses running people to the event.
I'm told they did the same thing for the 1992 Auckland International Airshow too.
Ohakea is surrounded by big flat paddocks, surely they could arrange this. A gold coin for the bus ride rather than 3 hours in the queue.
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