Late last night, a mate of mine with a relative who is a full size hawk pilot ( this years demonstrator actually ) emailed me to tipme off about a graduation ceremony being held at Valley this morning - including a display of the diamond 8 formation, solo show off session, and a visit by the eurofighter and others. Wifey and I pack our flask and sticky buns and head off for the free car parking area at the end of the runway- 40 minutes drive for us door to door.

9.35 sees several hawks take off, and after approx half an hour they returnd in pairs and landed. We are thinking...this aint much cop - we have been duped, we will give it til 11am and then its off we go.

10 48 Am and the ground shakes us back out of the car ! A nice 5 minute slot by said eurofighter

Five minutes later we hear the distant roar of a BIG engine, and wait for its return...but instead we get a fully swept wing Tornado doing huge vertical climbing rolls, and fast low passes down the strip!

5 minutes later and a pair of Harriers strut their stuff.

We break off for a hour after the air goes quiet, and head for Treaddur bay for a spot of lunch.

As we are heading back down the Island around 2PM we spy the first diamond 9 banking hard around the airfileld, we park up again and have a terrific 45 minutes of "red arrow" routine flight demos, and then top it all off with David ( my aforementioned friend's nephew) NOT Mr Ashby - strutting his solo stuff - low inverted passes, twinkle rolls the lot

Got rid of my decent 35 mm SLR years ago, so all I can offer is a few lousy shots from my cheapo point and shoot jobby, and of course the imaginary picture of my gloating grinning face

Nice

That Hunter seems to have landed on a tree!

Pity I didn't know you were down there twenty years ago, I could have called in, resplendent in my wet-suit, and scrounged a cuppa, and left you with salty puddles on the floor! Haven't been since then, the patter of tiny feet got in the way! 

Now if that had been maybe 40 years ago, I could have

Indeed I was often found resplendant in my own typhoon wetsuit waterskiing the various beaches and coves around the North Wales coast. Unfortunately 20 years ago I was not around here, because although born and bred as it were in Llandudno, my job took me all over the country living in many different places for a few years at a time, unitl I returned to god's country around 7 years ago, following a very early retirement and divorce etc etc.