Maureen, Martin and I decided to fly in on Sunday due to availability of the club's Cessna 172. This was my first airshow ever and I was particularly happy to be able to fly in. It was only 20 flying hours since getting my PPL, so I was a little bit worried too. 

It was a short and uneventful flight from Elstree Airfield which is only 18 Nm away from North Weald. We followed published procedures to join the airfield which worked very well and were no. 3 for landing. I didn't do a 'greaser', but it wasn't a bad landing at all (no screams heard from Martin or Maureen).

After taxiing and parking we were offered a shuttle service to the fair. At the entrance we were given our aircrew badges, and then started viewing the stands and static aircraft displays. I particularly liked  the huge Cessna Caravan, PZL-104M Wilga and Antonov AN-2. Other highlights included Yak 18, Cessna 206, "Breitling Fighter" L39 Albatross and many others. There was also a Shell stand with a Ferrari F1 car exhibited.

The airfield was closed for an hour during the air display. And, what an air display it was! All the participants were really good especially Xavier de Lapparent in Sukhoi 26 and Brian Lecomber in Extra 300. I was amazed by the Sukhoi 26 display. Xavier was spending lots of time keeping the plane vertically in hover, 6 or 7 seconds at a time. Landing was equally impressive,  stalling 300-400 hundred feet above the threshold and coming down vertically like in a lift. All together, it was definitely a world class air display.

After browsing through more stands and having a meal it was then time to go home. We were driven to our Cessna and after pre-take off checks we were ready for taxi - a very long taxi. Marshals were directing the planes to the hold so there were no problems finding the way. We were no. 6 at take off hold, but it didn't take too long to take off. Tower did everything to ensure a smooth departure, especially with large numbers of airplanes crossing the active runway. 

It was definitely a day to remember and I hope you will be reading about Aerofair 2001 on this site next year.