OV-10B Bronco Demo Team


The Weston Air Festival is a seaside event which started many years ago as a helicopter specific event, but has in the meantime grown to a full blown airshow with great allure, attracting over 300.000 people over two days. The invitation to this airshow came by surprise and at short notice due to the cancellation of a few other participants. As several other display aircraft, the Bronco was based Bristol airport. This in itself is nice experience as the former WWI airfield lies on top of a hill and does have carrier like aspirations. There is still an important helicopter element at the Weston Air Fetsival and this is spectacular as these whirly birds land on a green at the seafront and are available for close-up inspection by the public.

The first day – Saturday - was marred by challenging weather and no display pilot thought, after having seen the day’s forecast, that any aircraft would launch. A lucky break in the impossible TAF around noon nevertheless allowed to bigger part of the program to be completed. It was only during the later afternoon that the low cloud started to move in again and some displays had to be cancelled.

Sunday was blessed with brilliant weather and the full show enrolled much to the delight of the appreciative audience, which showed up in great numbers for the free show and ground animation. A varied program included many highlights such as the mighty Vulcan, a Catalina, the Red Arrows, Strikemaster, Sally B, RAF Chinookand many smaller but not lesser acts as the Belgian Ballerina (SV4 aerobatics display), a gyrocopter display, Rich Goodwin’s Pitts S2 and many others. Special thanks to North Somerset Council, Trevor and Jenny Graham, you were all brilliant.