On Sunday Jan and I drove down to Wollongong for the Wings Over Illawarra air show. We arrived early – 9am – because we were helping at the glider exhibit. My gliding club – Southern Cross – had taken a DG-1000 two-seat glider there to put on display to help encourage more people into the sport.
The airshow was big – more than 30,000 people went. We both spent lots of time helping kids climb in and out of the glider and telling them about gliding. There were also quite a few potential glider pilots who seemed very keen. The club had some good leaflets to hand out and some new banners.
We also took a Pawnee tow plane down to the airport to launch an aerobatic glider flown by Nigel Arnot, a former national aerobatic champion I knew well from my years competing with my Pitts Special. We had a chat with him and with Paul Goard, another aviation person who we knew well years back. He was just a kid back then, now he’s got an international business building light aircraft – and his own aerobatic team.
Jan at work during the Wings over Illawarra air show.
There were some amazing displays of aerobatics from all types of aircraft, including a rare 1944-
The Focke-Wulf
built Focke-Wulf FW190 which had been recently restored. That was an impressive – and scary – beast. The glider aerobatics were also impressive.
Airshow food has improved over the years – we had gozleme for lunch and some half-decent coffee. Having done our duty we left just before the show ended to beat the usual traffic jam. We made it home in an hour-and-a-half, not bad for a Sunday drive.
