blood_winged (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blood_winged) wrote2011-07-24 03:31 pm
blood_winged) wrote2011-07-24 03:31 pm
#553
Today, after an hour and a half of sleep after watching the news reports about the Norwegian bombing and shooting repeat every half an hour until I had to switch it off, I got up and went with my parents to Southport for the 2011 Air Show. We drove to Daisy Hill train station and took the train across to Southport, I had to fight for the entire way not to kill everybody in the carriage, since I was tired and crabby and the train was very crowded. Once we got there and out I was fine, and mother is far more understanding of my moods than she used to be and knew that had been rather difficult for me to handle.
While they got some money I went and got a Red Bull, then we went for breakfast in this sports bar that had far too few staff on for the size of the place but the breakfast was great - bacon, egg and sausage sandwich. Yum. I was feeling better by now even if the weather was a bit warm and we went down to the sea front, which was more crowds yet again but not so bad since it was all out in the open. We got our wristbands for the day and headed in. It was about 11am and the wind coming off the sea made it colder than it was and we wandered about for a bit until we zeroed in on the model aircraft and the microlites. Amongst the display aircraft were two of these -
The Bucker Jungmann or Bü 131 was selected as the primary basic trainer for the German Luftwaffe and it served with "virtually all" the Luftwaffe's primary flying schools during the war.
Production licenses were granted to Switzerland (88 built under licence to Dornier), Spain (built 530), Hungary ( built 315), Czechoslovakia ( built10, as the Tatra T 131, before war began), and Japan, which built 1,037 for Army with Hatsukaze power as the Kokusai Ki-86[1] and 339 for the Navy Air Services as the Kyūshū K9W.
In Spain, production continued at the CASA factory until the early 1960s. The Jungmann was retained as the Spanish Air Force's primary basic trainer until 1968. - Source
Piper J3 Cub - G-BSVH
As well as some others that I didn't get a good look at. They were doing microlite flights for £60 and man if I had that kind of money I would have. There was a lot of time left until the air show started so we had a wander around some of the displays on the other side of the sea wall, one of which was a Spitfire.
Check that out. I know I did. I lost my mum and stepdad at this point but they pretty much know not to worry about me when that happens, I always head towards certain things and I'm usually pretty easy to find. I went into the marquee they had set up and had a peek at all the LEGO models. Why did they have LEGO models? I don't know, but there was one of an American space shuttle. I think it says 'Discovery'?
Also in the marquee there were three rather elderly men sat by a display of all the planes used in WW2. I was nosying at one of the displays, when one of these men came and spoke to me. I didn't mind, I love people and I'll talk to anyone. This man was a 93 year old WW2 veteran. He chatted to me for about five minutes about the planes he'd flown in the war, and how the Tiger Moth was a difficult plane to fly because it never wanted to come down out of the air. He said he'd been glad to get out of the war and back to his wife and kids. Before I left (after the parentals found me) I went back to where he was sitting and shook his hand, and thanked him for his services in the war. Him, and another veteran sat beside him. When I caught up with my mum and told her where I'd been she got all choked up on me, but hey, I'll give credit where credit's due and guys like that deserve a hell of a lot of it.
After that, we went to watch the model aircraft being flown, some very snazzy looking little things and quite nippy for their size, especially the jet models.
At 12:30 things finally got going. It was only at this point that I realised it was going to be five hours of a constant show and I suddenly had the feeling I was going to regret making the decision to drag myself out of bed. It seemed to go quicker than that though, and although a lot of the planes went far too fast for me to get a decent photo I still managed to snap a few good ones.
The RV8tors
The Black Cats
The Wing Walkers
After the Golden Lions (free-fall and parachute display team) were finished, the wind was making us all quite cold so we left and went to get some jackets from Matalan. When we came back we just caught the end of the Tornadoes (I think), which was a display involving a lot of explosions and pyrotechnics. I was kind of sad I'd missed it but I would have rather been warm. We got back just in time to see the Battle of Britain memorial flight, which was a display by a Lancaster bomber (one of only two originals still flying, Canada has the other) and a Spitfire.
Totally amazing. After that they brought on a Vulcan bomber, or rather the Vulcan, as it's the last flying Vulcan bomber in the world. The noise it made as it passed over made me feel like my insides were vibrating.
I didn't take many photos after this, because I was getting tired and my feet were aching from standing up for so long. The SWIP team came on, as well as a glider which was very pretty to watch.
When that was finished, the Red Arrows finally arrived. They were really what I'd been to see - I hadn't seen them since I was in Cyprus when I was nine years old (for those who don't know, I'm now twenty-two) and as soon as I saw them coming in from behind us I was up on the railings and pointing like a little kid. For those of you who have never heard of or don't know much about the Red Arrows you can find out more about them here >w</
They were nothing short of amazing.
When they were done, though, it was pretty much time to go home, which was an ordeal in itself. We knew the station would be crowded because of the sheer number of people who had come to Southport that day, but what we didn't expect was that they'd send a train out early, going in the wrong direction.
This was the train that we were on. We ended up getting off in Wigan, and getting a taxi back to Daisy Hill where the car was parked, finally getting home at something past eight. On the way back the skin on my face had started to feel a bit dry and tight so I knew right away that I had sunburn, but what I didn't expect was the extent of it. It was worse last night, but at the moment I'm burnt on my chest, cheeks (under the frame of my glasses), my nose, my chin and my forehead. My scalp is probably burnt too. I am not impressed with these shenanigans.
Last night I managed to sleep for fourteen hours total, though I woke up several times - once when I realised I'd fallen asleep at my laptop again, once when my sister came home and needed me to unzip the back of her outfit, and again when the alarm I'd set went off since I'd been hoping to finish the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
usxuk prompt 'Rain', which I'd been looking forward to, but my brain wasn't having any of it. I can probably make up for it on the remaining prompts, of which I don't intend to miss any.
Today, my face feels weird. Not hurting, but tingly and itchy and I keep wanting to scratch it even though I know I shouldn't.
My fish are better - at least, they don't have finrot anymore. The goldfish seems pretty much back to his old self, very active and curious and I finally felt confident enough to clean his tank out without shocking the poor thing to death. However, the finrot got so bad on the shubunkin that pretty much all of her tail is completely gone. She's still swimming, or trying to swim, and still eating and looks far better than she did, but she has barely any tail and just sort of wiggles the stumpy remains when trying to move. Understandably, she isn't moving a whole lot. Fins do grow back, but it takes some time, so I won't be able to put them back together for quite a while (by which point they might be too big and have to stay in separate tanks anyway). She seems to be having a bit of trouble with balance at the moment.
If you'd like to see all my pictures from the airshow you can look at them here.
Thanks for reading~ :D
While they got some money I went and got a Red Bull, then we went for breakfast in this sports bar that had far too few staff on for the size of the place but the breakfast was great - bacon, egg and sausage sandwich. Yum. I was feeling better by now even if the weather was a bit warm and we went down to the sea front, which was more crowds yet again but not so bad since it was all out in the open. We got our wristbands for the day and headed in. It was about 11am and the wind coming off the sea made it colder than it was and we wandered about for a bit until we zeroed in on the model aircraft and the microlites. Amongst the display aircraft were two of these -
The Bucker Jungmann or Bü 131 was selected as the primary basic trainer for the German Luftwaffe and it served with "virtually all" the Luftwaffe's primary flying schools during the war.
Production licenses were granted to Switzerland (88 built under licence to Dornier), Spain (built 530), Hungary ( built 315), Czechoslovakia ( built10, as the Tatra T 131, before war began), and Japan, which built 1,037 for Army with Hatsukaze power as the Kokusai Ki-86[1] and 339 for the Navy Air Services as the Kyūshū K9W.
In Spain, production continued at the CASA factory until the early 1960s. The Jungmann was retained as the Spanish Air Force's primary basic trainer until 1968. - Source
Piper J3 Cub - G-BSVH
As well as some others that I didn't get a good look at. They were doing microlite flights for £60 and man if I had that kind of money I would have. There was a lot of time left until the air show started so we had a wander around some of the displays on the other side of the sea wall, one of which was a Spitfire.
Check that out. I know I did. I lost my mum and stepdad at this point but they pretty much know not to worry about me when that happens, I always head towards certain things and I'm usually pretty easy to find. I went into the marquee they had set up and had a peek at all the LEGO models. Why did they have LEGO models? I don't know, but there was one of an American space shuttle. I think it says 'Discovery'?
Also in the marquee there were three rather elderly men sat by a display of all the planes used in WW2. I was nosying at one of the displays, when one of these men came and spoke to me. I didn't mind, I love people and I'll talk to anyone. This man was a 93 year old WW2 veteran. He chatted to me for about five minutes about the planes he'd flown in the war, and how the Tiger Moth was a difficult plane to fly because it never wanted to come down out of the air. He said he'd been glad to get out of the war and back to his wife and kids. Before I left (after the parentals found me) I went back to where he was sitting and shook his hand, and thanked him for his services in the war. Him, and another veteran sat beside him. When I caught up with my mum and told her where I'd been she got all choked up on me, but hey, I'll give credit where credit's due and guys like that deserve a hell of a lot of it.
After that, we went to watch the model aircraft being flown, some very snazzy looking little things and quite nippy for their size, especially the jet models.
At 12:30 things finally got going. It was only at this point that I realised it was going to be five hours of a constant show and I suddenly had the feeling I was going to regret making the decision to drag myself out of bed. It seemed to go quicker than that though, and although a lot of the planes went far too fast for me to get a decent photo I still managed to snap a few good ones.
The RV8tors
The Black Cats
The Wing Walkers
After the Golden Lions (free-fall and parachute display team) were finished, the wind was making us all quite cold so we left and went to get some jackets from Matalan. When we came back we just caught the end of the Tornadoes (I think), which was a display involving a lot of explosions and pyrotechnics. I was kind of sad I'd missed it but I would have rather been warm. We got back just in time to see the Battle of Britain memorial flight, which was a display by a Lancaster bomber (one of only two originals still flying, Canada has the other) and a Spitfire.
Totally amazing. After that they brought on a Vulcan bomber, or rather the Vulcan, as it's the last flying Vulcan bomber in the world. The noise it made as it passed over made me feel like my insides were vibrating.
I didn't take many photos after this, because I was getting tired and my feet were aching from standing up for so long. The SWIP team came on, as well as a glider which was very pretty to watch.
When that was finished, the Red Arrows finally arrived. They were really what I'd been to see - I hadn't seen them since I was in Cyprus when I was nine years old (for those who don't know, I'm now twenty-two) and as soon as I saw them coming in from behind us I was up on the railings and pointing like a little kid. For those of you who have never heard of or don't know much about the Red Arrows you can find out more about them here >w</
They were nothing short of amazing.
When they were done, though, it was pretty much time to go home, which was an ordeal in itself. We knew the station would be crowded because of the sheer number of people who had come to Southport that day, but what we didn't expect was that they'd send a train out early, going in the wrong direction.
This was the train that we were on. We ended up getting off in Wigan, and getting a taxi back to Daisy Hill where the car was parked, finally getting home at something past eight. On the way back the skin on my face had started to feel a bit dry and tight so I knew right away that I had sunburn, but what I didn't expect was the extent of it. It was worse last night, but at the moment I'm burnt on my chest, cheeks (under the frame of my glasses), my nose, my chin and my forehead. My scalp is probably burnt too. I am not impressed with these shenanigans.
Last night I managed to sleep for fourteen hours total, though I woke up several times - once when I realised I'd fallen asleep at my laptop again, once when my sister came home and needed me to unzip the back of her outfit, and again when the alarm I'd set went off since I'd been hoping to finish the
usxuk prompt 'Rain', which I'd been looking forward to, but my brain wasn't having any of it. I can probably make up for it on the remaining prompts, of which I don't intend to miss any.Today, my face feels weird. Not hurting, but tingly and itchy and I keep wanting to scratch it even though I know I shouldn't.
My fish are better - at least, they don't have finrot anymore. The goldfish seems pretty much back to his old self, very active and curious and I finally felt confident enough to clean his tank out without shocking the poor thing to death. However, the finrot got so bad on the shubunkin that pretty much all of her tail is completely gone. She's still swimming, or trying to swim, and still eating and looks far better than she did, but she has barely any tail and just sort of wiggles the stumpy remains when trying to move. Understandably, she isn't moving a whole lot. Fins do grow back, but it takes some time, so I won't be able to put them back together for quite a while (by which point they might be too big and have to stay in separate tanks anyway). She seems to be having a bit of trouble with balance at the moment.
If you'd like to see all my pictures from the airshow you can look at them here.
Thanks for reading~ :D
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I'd totally do it.