Air Expo '92

[Dave Homewood]

At least i think it was at Mangere I saw the 747. Has one displayed low and tight at Ardmore? I'm sure it was that Mangere Sunday show I saw it though.

[Peter Lewis]

Feb 18, 2012 12:53:46 GMT 12 vs said:

My father was the Flight Engineer on the Boeing 747 200 display. I think they got their max performance take off done and then the rest of the display had to be cancelled due to ATC

My memory says that the 747 took off, and then just stooged around in the far distance.

The best 747 display I ever saw was at the 1993 Ardmore show. That was low, for a big airliner, and they had a crew member aboard in the jump seat giving a commentary over the PA from the flightdeck.

[Dave Homewood]

Peter, is this the Saturday or Sunday show you refer to though? It was a two day event.

[spitfire14]

There was a 747-200 'classic' display at Air Expo '92 and a 747-400 display at the Ardmore International Airshow 2003.

[Dave Homewood]

I was at that 2003 Ardmore show I think (is that the one where the La-9 had its maiden flight/debut?).

But I'm still sure I saw the 747 flying at Mangere on the Sunday in 1992. I was not at Ardmore in 1993, I know that for certain.

[slackie]

Yeah.... Bruce Donelley was the captain in the 747 that displayed at Ardmore.... he also flew the LOTR 747 flight around NZ.

[Deleted]

I've just found that Ashley Stevenson, the pilot of the Harrier who on the video of the show was explained to have ejected twice from Harriers in the past year, is still in the RAF and has led quite the career! Take a look at his Wikipedia page if you like: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Stevenson

[11SQNLDR]

Nicely spotted thanks Zac!

[Deleted]

I've been on a real airshow research kick as of late, so it was a pleasant surprise! His story always stuck with me - Mum recorded the show off TV when I was a young'un and I pretty well wore it out from repeated viewings.

Ditto the Se5 - I had some little diecast biplane one Christmas that ended up on its nose once or thrice! ;-)

[nuuumannn]

Who remembers this then?

How could the Skyhawk pilots resist? "Bandit at 1 o'clock!" (For those of you not sure about this, the Bandeirante is nicknamed the Bandit).

[kiwithrottlejockey]

A group of us from Gisborne headed off to Auckland for the weekend for that airshow. We purchased Gold Passes and they had a complimentary bar which went with the gold passes, but we also carted a heap of beer from a boutique Gisborne brewery up there, then persuaded the caterers in the Gold Pass enclosure to store our beer in their chiller for us over the weekend and serve it up to us. They had hostesses distributing drinks from the bar, and the young ladies quickly got to know that we had our own unique beer supply in their chiller, so whenever they noticed we were getting low, they would stock up the supply at our table from our own personal stocks in the chiller. However, we did also avail ourselves of the caterer's beers supplies as well.

Anyway, a friend from Sydney popped over for the weekend. To attend the entire airshow, he had to play hookey from work for an afternoon (to fly over) and a day in order to attend all days of the airshow. He had a brunch meeting with a client the morning of his departure for Auckland, so he phoned his boss from Sydney Airport and told him he had got a bit tipsy at the meeting with the client, so he was going to knock off early, which his boss agreed to. The next morning, he phoned from Auckland and pulled a sickie, telling his boss he was sick-as-a-dog with the flu. His cunning plan was to catch the first flight back to Sydney the day after the airshow ended, which with the time difference would mean he could get to work on time and his boss would be none the wiser that he had pulled a fast one. Well that was the plan, but the weather gods brought him unstuck with his boss. You see, it pissed down in Sydney all weekend, whereas it was a gloriously fine weekend in Auckland and the result was that our friend got horribly sunburnt. He didn't think anything about it, but when he turned up at work in Sydney after that early morning flight across the ditch, his boss dragged up the fact that he was extremely sunburnt, even though it had pissed down in Sydney all weekend. SPRUNG!! We pissed ourselves laughing when we heard about it later.

It was a bloody good airshow, though, including the two oopses already mentioned in this thread.

[rbwannabe]

I managed to take off and land on the taxiway, runway and the grass in-between that weekend, and, no not at the same time!

[Dave Homewood]

At last here is the home video that Dad got of this near miss

[Deleted]

Wow, that was scary!

Always happy to see Kiwi Skyhawk footage, though :-P

[baz62]

Cripes, wonder if the passengers on the starboard side of the "Bandit" got an eyeful!

[kiwithrottlejockey]

We quite possibly flew up from Gisborne to Auckland in a Bandit for that airshow.

I know I did a few trips in Bandits between those two places over a period of a few years.

[harrysone]

I can't remember that close call at the time, looks like it could have had nasty consequences!

Change of topic (slightly) one of the highlights of that show...and also seen on the waterfront at Auckland a few days before

[Dave Homewood]

Great photos Harry, yes that was a very cool highlight.

[kiwithrottlejockey]

The group of us who flew up from Gisborne made sure we were on a flight which got us to Auckland in time to check-in to our accommodation, then get down to the waterfront before the Beriev alighted. We actually told the taxi-van driver to wait while we checked in to the accommodation, then got him to drop us off near the Parnell Rose Gardens, from where we watched the alighting, and later takeoff.

[Deleted]

For posterity, I transferred the official VHS to our laptop and thence to YouTube (this has additional footage not seen in the TV broadcast version also on YouTube):