UK- US Base Airshows

Hello All.
Well what a cracking site ive discovered here .
For my part I was a regular at various air shows at the US air bases in the late 80's and 90's and have great memories of the shows at Mildenhall, Lakenheath and Alconbury.

The Alconbury air field being a favourite of mine - But which is the airfield that holds fond memories for you guys ?

I only ever went to a Mildenhall show once and it was amazing, fond memories of the burgers there!!

I grew up with airshows at Biggin Hill and Shoreham.

Welcome to AiX too

deeppurple6;137948 wrote:

Hello All.
Well what a cracking site ive discovered here .
For my part I was a regular at various air shows at the US air bases in the late 80's and 90's and have great memories of the shows at Mildenhall, Lakenheath and Alconbury.

The Alconbury air field being a favourite of mine - But which is the airfield that holds fond memories for you guys ?

Rode over to the Alconbury show a few time, used to be free entry for pedestrians

Farnborough was one of my first large airshows i went to as a kid.

What sticks out of my mind that day was a F16 trying to break the sound barrier and being scared stiff when the big boom would happen. Luckily for me that day it never happen, but still remember the aircraft flying by at a rate of knots

Mildenhall airshows were always great ! we went to about five of them during the mid to late 80s. On one particular show it got very dark and cloudy, rain started everbody rushed back to their cars or took shelter under the various stalls. Four of us dashed for my car that was not too far away. We sat there for about 20 minutes while the Mad Rush went on to leave then it suddenly cleared as we walked back the show began but with half the madding-crowd !
An hour or-so later as the show was ending the four of us seemed to get seperated by two and two. Slowly walking back to my car in that lovely fresh smell of rain on newly cut grass one of the Burger chaps (Guys) said to us; ''Hey you Guys wanna burger, a beer''? ''Sorry, no mate'' I replied, no money left ! .... ''Well just take these, compliments of the US Airforce'' he said. ''Save's me throwing them away'' Two Double Burgers in that wonderful American sauce, and two cans of Budweiser's free of charge. American hospitality !! Never forgotten !!

Alconbury, Mildenhall and Upper Heyford were regular airshow visits back in the 80s.
I think I did Lakenheath once or twice too.

Oh yeah I'd forgot about the weather and the burgers - oh and the cans of Budweiser, if memory serves me right they were 50p each.
Also on the subject of those burgers, I remember at Alconbury asking for 2 burgers and the yank replied in what I seem to remember a southern drawl - "Wow what a strange accent you have" - priceless .
Must dig out some of my photos, I def have 2 of the SR71 at Mildenhall that I remember being as loud as hell

Somewhere I have some photos of one of the white 2-seater trainer TR-1Bs taxying out from the northern side of Alconbury and taking off in the middle of the airshow. (It'll be 80-1064 or 80-1065.)

i went to a few airshows at Bentwaters &Woodbridge in the late 80s . one memory was in the display tents seeing a 2ft square piece of very thick steel with a hole in it that had been shot thru by an A10 warthog .

I only attended one air show at Upper Heyford and that must have been in the early to mid 1970's.

My only recollections are that the ground staff ( armorers ? ) in our group had been trained on Phantoms and were being retrained on F1-11's and the part of the air show that impressed them the most had to been a tactical take off demonstration by an English Electric Lightening.