An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir September 2015 www.dfmagazine.ie 20 | by LT COL KEVIN ByRNE PhOTOS by PAUL KOLBE T he bray Air Spectacular 2015 took place on Sunday, 19th July and proved itself worthy of the title as Ireland's most popular outdoor event. Now in its tenth year, the weather gods smiled on the show yet again, despite the forecast of high winds and blustery showers. In the end, no rain fell and the cloudbase was sufficiently high to permit all of the display participants to operate at their requested altitude: indeed, from time to time the sun made a welcome ap- pearance and the requisite suntan lotion was applied liberally by many of the 90,000 strong crowd. Down to earth there was much to amuse and entertain the vast crowd, especially the younger ones, including a healthy assortment of fairground attractions, food and craft markets, a wide variety of food and beverage outlets, including ice cream parlours, not forgetting the vehicles, weapons and equipment of the Defence Forces arrayed along the seafront. The major airlines were well represented this year, including the RJ85 of Cityjet, the ATR72 of Air Stobart in Aer Lingus co- lours and, to the surprise of many, and the first appearance of a Ryanair Boeing 737. Having declined the urge to participate in the previous decade, the airline sent its rarest aircraft, the newly acquired 737-700, which is appreciably shorter than the rest of the fleet, and is generally reserved for training purposes. The Chief Pilot put on a spirited display, which was very well received by the appreciative audience. This may have been Ryanair's greatest secret, as many of the senior spotters present had never known of its existence, let alone seen this aircraft since its arrival just two months earlier. Rumour had it that the demand for the airline's services were such that this particular aircraft would be made ready for passenger service at Dublin Airport immediately after the Bray display. Aer Lingus' appearance was much anticipated but the actual arrival caught many by surprise, even the commentary team, such was the secrecy surrounding the A319 operation, more of which later. Parachutists have almost always opened the Bray display and 2015 was no different: the Black Knights, comprising four members of the Defence Forces, jumped from an Air Corps EC135 at about 4,500 feet and made light work of their final approach to the beach where they landed in the vertical position, formed up and saluted the crowd in military fashion; the latter appeared to love the theatricality of it all. Earlier, the civilian Irish Parachute Club group had jumped onto the beach as a precursor to the show proper from their attractive Pilatus PC-6 aircraft but sadly it departed at high altitude before it was noticed. No less than three historical military jets appeared as solo acts during the afternoon: the diminutive but spectacularly noisy Strikemaster, smoking impressively at all times it seemed, the highly manoeuvrable Mig-15 trainer replete with Soviet stars and, my own personal favourite, the Hawker Hunter two-seater in proper military grey-green camouflage paint. Let's have no more of this psychedelic technicolor paint- work on genuine air force jets please! In contrast to the fast jet brigade, the stealthy arrival of the Irish Historic Flight was a welcome sight and sound; the DH84 Iolar in original Aer Lingus markings was flanked by no less than three DHC Chipmunks, all of them in Irish Air Corps colours dating from the 1950s. The distinctive low-pitched hum of five Gypsy Major piston engines was a nice background with which to show the distinctive silvery shapes in the welcome sunshine. The solo Chipmunk aerobatic display was exemplary and illustrated why this type became so popular as a primary trainer with so many air arms over the years and why it remains common in myriad flying clubs even today. The piece de theatre was certainly the unexpected formation arrival of the Aer Lingus A319 and the F-5 Tigers of the Patrouille Suisse.

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