I've never been to this event before, although it's in it's tenth year now. It clashes with the Rudgewick steam fair, which I really enjoy & is only about 5 miles away, (just outside Guildford in Surrey), so I've seen the queues of traffic heading to it. This year though, I went to Rudgewick on the Saturday, then had a surprise invitation from a friend at work to spend the day with her at Dunsfold Park for the Wings & Wheels show on the Sunday. It'd be most ungallant to refuse a lady, so off we went.
She belongs to the "Vulcan to the Sky" group, which raises money to keep the Avro Vulcan bomber flying. As part of her membership, she gets entry to the Vulcan VIP viewing area, right by the side of the runway, so we literally had ringside seats for the day.
Dunsfold's the airfield where the BBC film "Top Gear" & was also the site for this year's ill fated Wheels Day show. Interesting to see the other side of the coin after the very public battering that the guys from The Surrey Street Rodders received on social media sites for that. Wings & Wheels suffered exactly the same problems-
3 mile queues to get in, (took us about 45 minutes, but we were expecting it, so arrived in plenty of time).
Long queues for food & loos.
45 minutes to get off site afterwards.
At 1pm it was announced that the Park had reached capacity & they'd have to shut the gates, only allowing in those with pre-paid tickets. The show had it's own dedicated radio station, so at least some of those in the queues outside would have had some warning before they got to the entrance.
The difference was though that no-one complained about it. Maybe it was a more mature audience, but everyone accepted there would be queues, especially with the added attraction of the World's only 2 airworthy Lancaster bombers flying. As the organisers said, the roads are grid locked outside, so you might as well stay on after the displays finish & get something to eat, browse the trade stalls or just enjoy the evening sunshine. We did all 3. Makes me think the SSR got very unfair treatment from those that like to shout about these things.
Anyway, we watched all the flying displays, got sunburnt, (again), bumped into a few friends & generally had a fantastic day. At 25 quid a ticket it was expensive, but still worth every penny. I'm not really a plane person, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I make no apology for posting lots & lots of photos.
