Kate and I went to the Clacton Air Show yesterday, held (oddly enough) at Clacton, Essex.

Like the Southend Air Show held back in May, this was a free event watched from the sea front. Unlike Southend, we decided to take the car to Clacton instead of a 2 hour train ride. This meant that the free air show cost us £6.00 in parking, plus a long wait to get out of the car park at the end of the event (about 30 minutes).

The show was held both yesterday (Friday) and Thursday which seems a little odd considering the 3 day weekend but it was still busy none-the-less thanks, I'm sure, to the school summer holiday. Having said that though, I got the impression it was smaller than the Southend show.

That's not a bad thing though. It was still a good event with the Red Arrows opening the display at 1:30pm. They weren't present at Southend this year so it was good to see their aerobatic skills this time. The rest of the show consisted of favourites such as the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (featuring the Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane), P-51 Mustang, the Tornado GR4 and the Harrier GR7.

Other planes featuring included the Catalina, Tucano T1, Hawk T1, F-86A Sabre and the Essex Air Ambulance Eurocopter EC135 - unfortunately the only helicopter on display.

Aerobatic displays were also provided by the Road Angel Sukhoi 26 (some amazing stunts pulled off by the pilot Will Curtis - he just seems to throw the plane through the sky!) and relatively new display team who where also at Southend; The Blades, flying Extra 300LPs.

I took my camera with me as usual and probably spent half of the display looking through the viewfinder rather than directly at the aircraft themselves. Coming back home with 141 7MP photographs would certainly suggest I did.

Unfortunately there is a fault with the camera in that it appears there is some dust inside the lens mechanism which in certain conditions shows up on the pictures - in some cases very clearly. This meant that a lot of my Red Arrows photos plus a view others are spoilt. I've managed to crop others so they are suitable for display here on the website but it is most annoying. It's not a new fault though. I've been aware of it since at least March this year. Looking on the bright side though, it gives me a great excuse to say I need a new camera. You see since getting a digital camera, I find myself taking more and more photos and trying to get better and better results. I'm now using manual settings more than automatic settings so I have come to the decision to get myself a entry level digital SLR, namely the Nikon D50.

Anyway, I've sidetracked a little bit there. Back to the airshow, I don't know why I've not been before. It's definately a good afternoon out especially when the weather is good as it was yesterday (better than Thursday which was a bit of a wash out). And as for the 141 pictures, well I've whitled the number down to 70 good pictures which I have cropped and put on display in a photo album (Clacton Air Show 2006).

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