Delta Jets Open Day 2003, Kemble, Glouscestershire - 28th September

After a gap of a year or two, it's good to have this event back on the calendar. Sadly, the fly-in was less well attended by other ex-military jets than previous years, with just Delta Jets own fleet joined by some special guests for a small flying display during the afternoon. The venue had moved across the airfield to the same place the Great Vintage Flying Weekend uses whenever it bases at Kemble. Unfortunatly, this location doesn't really suit the Open Day - there's simply too much space. Unlike when the Open Day was based around Delta Jets hangers and the display line was along the pan, there simply was not the atmosphere of previous events. Another slight problem confronted the photographers - not only were they shooting into the sun, but Kemble decided to park visiting aircraft right in front of the crowdline. This would have been OK if the aircraft themselves had been interesting, but in the end it was just general avaition. While we're not going to whinge about it or give the volunteer team that managed the event a hard time, we would like to point out that it did seem a bit pointless to hide the runway behing cessnas and tobagos at an airfield as large as Kemble! Right moans over....what can we say about the event? Well, it was really quite good...excellent even. In fact we did fear that the small flying display had a line-up very nearly as good as June's Classic Jet Airshow!!! Joining  the based Hunters were DHA's Sea Vixen returning to Bournemouth on it's last flight of the year, Classic Aviation Projects Canberra B2/6, Gower Jets Vampire T11 and Jet Provost T5 (The latter making it's UK display debut), Tom Moloney's Strikemaster and of course the Black Hunter T7A and Jonathon's Whaley's Hunter F58A Miss Demeanour. Infact we were treated to the Display Authorisation practice in the morning as well his afternoon flying display.

 copyright Flightline UK 2003