Sunday 9th June 2024
With the demise of RNAS Yeovilton airday, RAF Cosford is the last MOD organised airshow on the calendar and as such carries a weight of enthusiasts' expectations on its shoulders.
Dominic Vickery attended the 2024 show to find out how it lived up to expectations. Photography by the UK Airshow Review team.
It was bloody cold, I’d never been as cold at a summer airshow than at Cosford 2024!
The first announcement for the show was in early February; The Gazelle Squadron. Returning for their first appearance at the show since 2018 with a 4 ship display, Cosford started to show that its announcements would be in a format not used by any other shows. Social media would be heavily used to keep engagement high and ‘Take flight Friday’ and ‘Static Sunday’ were born. Rather than a standard announcement, Fridays started with emoji clues asking people to have a guess at what the item was which then led to a reveal at 7pm. This didn't go down well with some people preferring the ordinary but the majority enjoyed it for what it was, a bit of fun to get people guessing & as our message boards showed, conversation flowing, with Sundays being the traditional announcements.
Early March saw the first of the RAFs participation announced; an F-35 Lightning from 617 Dambusters squadron would be performing the UK debut of its role demonstration. We have seen the F-35 at airshows before but these were a small number of flybys which included a hover, but the 2024 role demonstration beefed this up considerably, lasting nearly 10 minutes. It included fast & slow passes, a high alpha pass as well as the never-not-impressive hovering party piece. A full aerobatic display this is not, but it didn't need to be, it was a great to see it being pushed somewhat more than ever before & if this is a sign of things to come we’re all here for it!
Announcements continued apace but for some these were the standard Cosford fodder. Talk of Cosford 2024 settling for the easy targets was becoming louder and the enthusiast was being left out to dry, the likes of the Typhoon Display team, Red Arrows, B-17 Sally-B are all in their own right brilliant display items but these are things that we would expect to attend Cosford & not necessarily out of the ordinary, until mid April that is.
I’ve searched, as did Cosford social media team & there is no emoji for a Mirage. Instead, a 10 second clip of a desert mirage was posted, they hadn't had they? Internet talk went wild, our thread for the event grew, 7pm came. RAF Cosford had secured the display of the Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace Mirage 2000D duo Couteau Delta, their only UK display in 2024 and the first for 6 years, a proper coup for Cosford. Many people cried out ‘why isnt it at RIAT’ - we say why not not, sharing acts like these at events over the UK only goes to strengthen the UK airshow scene, with the additional ticket sales it can only be a good thing for other shows.
The Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace, it would turn out would be huge supporters of the show this year with the Equipe de Voltige announced for a very rare UK appearance for a solo Extra 300 following the sad cancellation of the Danish airshow at Aalborg. The Rafale display was secured, which was only its second UK display of 2024, and the enthusiast crowd were happy!
In the week leading up to the show, Cosford's social media team all but disappeared. After their appearance a week earlier, the Rafale team announced on their social media pages their next show would be at Sola on the 15/16th June - what about Cosford? Questions were asked but Cosford's silence was deafening. The show announced it had sold out but then a few days later additional tickets were put on sale. It wasn't until the Friday before the show the the RAF Cosford base page and not the show's own announced the cancellation. This was really poor communication. We didn't need war & peace, nor exact reasons but a small post to say it wouldn't be attending would suffice, the loss of one of the star items and the silence behind it left a somewhat bad taste leading up to the show day.
Arriving at the show on Sunday morning it was clear that the show was missing another star item again with no announcements, this was in the shape of an A400 Atlas which was to be on static display. Luckily other than its imposing size on the small airfield, the loss of the Atlas wouldn't have much of a detrimental effect on the static line up. Cosford is in the enviable position of having a plethora of recently retired RAF front line machinery at its disposal and this year took advantage of it.
We’ve criticised Cosford in previous reviews for having too much empty space around the showground with such a number of aircraft being available for them to use, this was absolutely not the case in 2024. There were Jaguars everywhere! In a unique line up was 11 of the much missed aircraft in various colour schemes and configurations curved along a taxiway for photographers to take advantage of, whilst elsewhere on the airfield the main pan was well utilised, this time with the public debut of the newly arrived Typhoon DA2, alongside some of the based Tornados & Hawks, one in an RAF Red Arrows scheme. This year a small but noticeable change was the aircraft on the main pan were turned 180° to have a somewhat cleaner background for the photographers present.
Elsewhere around the showground the stars of the static being an exceptionally rare Belgian Air Force Marchetti SF260 was well positioned in a trainer line up which included an RAF Grob Prefect. Joining the static was another overseas visitor in the shape of an NH90 from the Royal Netherlands Navy both having significant merchandise sales stands. Elsewhere the static felt somewhat flat, the ever present UKAR favourite Trago Mills was interspersed with a Spitfire amongst others but noticeable in their absence were items from the RAF Museum Midlands. The recent past has seen items such as the TSR2, Bristol 188 amongst many others for the RAF100 in 2018 but this year other than opening the doors on Hangar one there was not much to present the museum to the wider airshow attendees. With such a collection literally on its doorstep it does seem a shame that the collection isn't utilised more to add a bit more to the static line up.
Starting the flying off as is the norm for Cosford the RAF Falcons just about made it, the cloud being not more than a few tens of feet off their jump minima which made their routine of getting out of their jump aircraft, formatting up to do a few descending passes even more impressive. In what was also a public display first they jumped from an A400 rather than their usual Dornier Do-228. The A400 then gave a flyby after the Falcons had taken their salute which harked back to the days of them using a C130 Hercules. Hopefully this wasn't a one off flash in the pan as it was great to see a frontline RAF machine used as the jump-ship.
This year involved a higher than usual RAF participation. One of these was in the form of two Hawk T2s from RAF Valley for two flypasts. RAF Brize Norton was not to be outdone, firstly with an A330 Voyager in it’s colourful ‘Vespina’ scheme, though perhaps a shame not to see it in in a clean configuration or trailing its refuelling hoses to demonstrate its day to day role. One of the highlights of not only the RAF participation but of the overall show itself was a pair of A400s returning from a flyby over Normandy as part of the D-Day commemorations, seeing the large transports in a loose line astern formation low on the horizon at what seemed like tree top height was pretty unforgettable.
In what was a first for 2024 and Cosford being the public debut of the RAF Chinooks role demonstration, it was a much different Chinook display to the one we are used to. We’re used to seeing the Chinook being put through its full display routine paces but for 2024 this has been scaled back to be a role demonstration, with the Chinook being a ‘fat’ HC5 variant which could well also be the first time the model has flown at an airshow, the routine showcases more of the Chinooks normal taskings and includes a huge underslung load in the form of a huge artillery cannon, troop drop off & pick up and a quad bike with a few of its traditional wingovers and quick stops thrown in for good measure. It was as good as seeing a full display and something different to previous years.
A welcome return saw the Red Arrows back as a 9-ship display, celebrating their 60th anniversary and gave a polished display. Their skywriting 60 mid display is a real highlight of their routine, it being their 60th year also saw a Folland Gnat added late to the display line up which put on a great routine and was displayed directly before the Reds. The question has got to be asked whether more could have been made of this, could they have formatted for a flypast as a nod to where the Reds were born from, surely this has to go down as a missed open goal.
As for classic jets, Cosford 2024 saw 3 separate civilian owned classic jets display which we think is possibly the most at the show since 2014, which included the ill fated Midair Squadron. The aforementioned Gnat and two Jet Provosts one a Mk3 and a Mk5 graced the flying display all with wonderful graceful displays showing twofold that full aerobatics are not needed to show off these machines and that classic jets can be safely displayed and enjoyed. 2024 has seen some wonderful displays across the country with vintage jets, hopefully people take notice of this and the classic jet scene can start to come back to life again which will benefit the whole industry.
The French contingent of the show ‘bossed it’ as the kids would say, starting the day With Christophe Simon in his wonderfully choreographed to music display in a Mudry Cap 10, this year in a substituted silver and Red in place of his normal brightly coloured Red & Yellow aircraft which would have brought a splash of colour to the otherwise grey cloudy sky. Christophe is no stranger to RAF Cosford, last year his excellent routine saw him take home the Bill Hartree Memorial Trophy, this year saw him receive a special mention award showing you don’t need to make an obscene amount of noise or have huge afterburners to wow the crowds! The French aerobatics didnt stop there, Equipe de Voltige put on a spell binding display of unlimited aerobatics starting with the drawing of a smiley face at crowd centre and a routine that was best enjoyed by putting down the camera and watching what the aircraft could do.
The highlight of the show was without doubt Couteau Delta and their two Dassault Mirage 2000D, successfully making it to Cosford after their predecessors Ramex Delta were forced to withdraw at short notice in 2015. Against a dark and horrible backdrop their afterburners lit up the sky with their signature fast paced, high energy routine which wowed the crowd and beat up the Shropshire skies like nothing else that day, it was well worth the wait!
Closing the show the F-35 debuted its role demonstration showing off a tiny part of the aircrafts capabilities and was a proper way to close the show, its always an impressive sight to see and a hovering aircraft is very much a welcome return, however this also leads to one of the biggest gripes of the event. Cosford has never been an easy venue to vacate with really only one way out until after the flying has finished and the runway can be crossed. As is traditional with a UK airshow people start to make their way home not long after the Reds have displayed but the last few years the F-35 has closed the show thus crowds have chosen and been encouraged to wait to see the RAFs newest toy. This leaves the majority of the public in situ until the display has finished and instead of the usual post-Reds leaving, a near capacity crowd stays and then tries to leave once the flying had finished at 5.30pm leading to unacceptable delays. One of the UKAR team tried to beat the queues and leave as the F-35 started but was still on base two hours later. I personally didn't start my car until gone 7pm and still took nearly 20 minutes to get off base which a large portion of that can be attributed to me being parked quite close to the main funnel point to get off the airfield and onto the tarmac near the railway bridge. This needs to be looked at, the same thing happened in 2023. Whilst someone on their own probably won't have issues with waiting around that bit longer for traffic to die down, people with young families are a different matter. Waiting 2 hours in a queue that hardly moves with young children is no fun for either adults not children, I would implore the Cosford organising team to seriously consider changing this next year.
Another issue which has also been raised on our forum is the depth of the crowd area, it’s tiny, and once people had started to arrive became very hemmed in very quickly and was quite uncomfortable having near enough zero space around you. A trip to the toilet or a food outlet became a near 10 minute ordeal having to walk around people's picnic tables and blankets, gazebos, tents and windbreaks. Followed by ending up in a queue to walk past people at a pinch point round a corner to get to the toilet block - or a trip back with children or food dodging people and children doing what children do, the space from the front of the crowdline back needs addressing and increasing.
Cosford 2024 can only go down as a success though, a line up bolstered, some may say rescued, by the French participation. The weather stayed mostly dry, tickets sold out, we saw a new and fun way to interact with the public regarding participant announcements and we look forward to Cosford 2025.
Vive La France!
