BAF Open Days 12-14 September'14 Off topic

[Bennie]

Especially for the Belgian "ladies" who drink beer like there is no tomorrow !

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[Buccaneer S.2B]

Good afternoon,

After Reading all the stories, I guess I was one of the happy few not being disappointed.
We went to the show on Saturday. Arrived without traffic jams, and after a 15 minute walk we were inside the base. We stayed the whole day at the north part of the static/flightline, which was superb: very quiet, unobstructed view and some nice aircraft taxiing close by.
Ofcourse we didn't play 1,50 to pee, but just walked 10 meters further to use the forest.
food prices were Indeed high: 5 euro for Some chips is to much ! But a Jupiler for 2,50 ain't a big deal, fairly normal price at big events.
Regarding the show itself: being a spotter since 1981, I was pretty satisfied with
the quantity and the quality of the Aircraft. Photo opportunities were great, in the afternoon
the sun adder some Nice flavour to the pictures. We left at 18.45, when the Red Arrows startend their demonstration. Without any problems we went on the road back home,
pretty satisfied after a nice airshow day.

Regards,
Remco

[Cat Power]

Hello all,
I too was at the show Saturday.
Overall fairly pleased and thought the static was laid out superbly for photography.
At 0930 no VIP cars going past but these did increase later. The whole show routine however seemed focused around the VIP area and spectators down the P3 end were left out at times.
Biggest problem was ;
Parking....arriving by coach no one knew were we should go and spent 30 minutes being sent here and there before success.
Coach dropped us off by a shuttle bus drop off point and went half mile back to the coach park.
From this point it was a 40 minute FAST speed walking pace to the show entrance !

Kindest regards

[gold]

If you didn't attend the spottersday, there's not that much to complain I think. Saturday and Sunday was a "normal" airshow. The low visiblity on both days in the morning was bad luck.

However: I was present on friday and sunday and the communication on friday what to expect was very little. If there was any, it didn't reached me. Otherwise, I would have stayed till late on friday just to see Ramex Delta. With them not flying on sunday, I felt somewhat disappointend. Wouldn't mind if they skipped the PC-21. But then someone else was disappointed I guess...

About friday, all has been said and I do subscribe to most of them. About sunday for me, it's a airshow so just sit back and relax. The (at least) 20 minutes walk after the bus dropzone is on the other hand not a sample of good hospitality. I don't know the problems the organisation was facing and why they took the decision but for elderly people and kids, it was a pretty long walk.

Another surprise were the cone's being placed on sunday in front of the aircraft, apparantly to make sure the many shuttle's busses would stay on track

Although I had fun those two days, there are still some improvements to be made. I do hope the organisation ( I believed it's the same organisation as the Sanicole Air show) will take up the challenge for improvements. If there's a second Belgian air force days event that is.

[okerkhof]

I also went to Kleine Brogel yesterday, of course I owuld like to share my comments as well:

First I would like to thank everybody at the BAF for their efforts to make this a succesfull weekend, however I do have some remarks, which they might take in consideration for the next airshow:

-VIP's: please get them to their place via a shorter route to their area, than you did yesterday. It looked more like a carshow now and then and it is not fun photographing with cars running up and down the static parc.
-When BAF employees spot some of their family members, please ask them to park their cars somewhere else instead of in front of the public, or worse: in front of me.
-Toilets: if you charge a entrance fee & toilet money, make sure it is a descent priced and that toilets are clean. Most Fuel station lavatories are far more cleaner than the ones I spotted yesterday.
-Please have the display pilots perform their displays along the whole runway, not only in front of your VIP's, yes they are important and they give you money, but so did we.
-It is nice to have a shuttle bus, but after the bus trip, there is still about 3 miles to walk (well, it felt like 3 miles..).

A kind remark to all parents (And yes, I am a parent too): If my son goes to the toilet, that doesn't mean that you can park your children in front of his seat at the fence, because he is away for minute or 2. This seems to be a common habbit on several airshows now, except for RIAT strange enough.. Parents: get out of your beds earlier and find your own good spot, just as me and my son did.

For the rest I would say that I liked the programm, although there were a lot of gaps, sometimes 10 minutes. For the Joint power Demo: I would like to invite the Belgiums to our KLu open days, to see how this is done properly.

Positive things: whristbands for children with QR code to find their parents, when they are lost, KLu should use this as well. Nice weather (afternoon) and no traffic jams when we left.

Regards, Olaf

[spotterwilliam]

My worst experience was on saturday waiting (from 7o'clock) at the 2nd gate. At 8.45 3 belgian guards came to the gate, and noticed there was a padlock on the fence. They disappeared again because they had no key of the padlock.

At 8.55 2 guards came back with the key to open the padlock. After arriving on the field we heard from the other spotters the gate at the main entrance opened arround 8.

[jp 74]

Did somebody see the Al Fursan team?
Didn't see them on Friday aswell on sunday i left both days around 18:00 because of the horrible light at that time.

[SquAdmin]

Al Fursal performed on Sunday, they took off at 19:00.

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[sp00k]

While my experience with the show was pretty enjoyable i agree on some points, opening the gates and starting the show at the same time is a bad idea, i missed the T28 because of that, and was never able to find a good spot untill 2 guys in front of left.

And whats with the amount of time in between the displays?.. it seems like their planning was made up that same morning, since the show had way to many pauses.

Especially with the air power demo, just the toy soldiers shooting blanks at each other for 15 minutes.. even my nephew who really enjoyed their display at the beginning, was at the end really bored.

And as a spotter of the 80`s / 90`s i really hate having the static line in front of you, having to time your take off / landing shots because of the aircraft in front of you really sucks.

Maybe we are all spoiled?

[eurofighter3009]

Never again I will visit an Airshow organized by the Belgian Defence!
In the future I will witness the arrivals from outside, but never again paying a lot of money to go home so unsatisfied!

[Antoine]

If you arrange a spottersday without giving extra attention to spotters anyway and ask lots of money from participating spotters (and then allow several thousands of schoolchildren to enter the airfield for free?) I now understand that spotters were being used as an extra method to get more money in an easy way. The spottersday was a total rip off...... Belgian airshow-organizations don't consider spotters as enthousiasts, but merely as sources of funds.

[Hans Rolink]

Sorry to see that some of you had such. a disappointing time. My visit during three days has been succesful. The only small gripe was the toilet rip off. The sunday crew had no interest in my three day wristband of Eur 4.50 and tried to have me pay again. I of course declined

Hans.