What's On?
It's not just an air show! The Abingdon Air & Country Show will have, as well as a large scale
fly-in of both modern & vintage aeroplanes and the associated air display - vintage
vehicles; steam machinery; arena events including Wallingford dog agility team, music and dancing; craft fayre,
military recruitment display, bouncy castle, climbing wall, flight simulators; mini quad bikes and other kids amusements and much more!
We have always aimed to make our show a great family day out with lots to do and see for everybody - and it's all for charity, as we support the local Air Ambulance. The Thames Valley & Chiltern Air Ambulance, like all Air Ambulance services in the UK, is funded entirely by donations from the public and private companies.
Flying & Static Aircraft
The afternoon Flying Program will be approximately 3 hours long including military & civilian jets,
helicopters, trainers & aerobatic types. Confirmed items will be added here as we get news.
As of 1st May the flying display items that have confirmed are:
Gnat T.1, RAF Chinook (one of very few appearances from the Chinook this year!), Hunter T.7, RAF Tucano, P-40 Kittyhawk, Percival Pembroke, Steen Skybolt, Silence Twister, Douglas DC-3,
BBMF Spitfire, RN Lynx and Swift Glider Display Team.
The static display will consist of over 60 military & civilian jets, helicopters, transport & light aviation types. Currently expected static display items are US Army (SHAPE) UH-60A Blackhawk, RAF Hawk, Bulldog, five Chipmunks, Jet Provost T.3, Jet Provost T.5, Tiger Moth, 2 x Grob 109 Vigilant (612 VGS), Fox Moth, Bell Jetranger, Austers, Long EZ, Yak-52s, Robinson R44, Piper Archer, Beagle Pup, Vans RV9 and various microlights along with several aircraft cockpit sections. A Sopwith Pup and a very rare Junkers W34 project will also be on display.
Weather permitting we will be having a mass hot air balloon launch after all fixed wing flying has ceased at the end of the show (around 17:30).
Pleasure Flights
See Abingdon from the air with two different options for getting an amazing birds' eye view of this
historic airfield!
The Air Atlantique Classic Flight are once again expected to be bringing some of their fleet for Pleasure Flights. Flight pricing will be notified in due course and flights usually last about 15 minutes. Flights will no doubt be very popular on the day so if you want to book in advance and guarantee your flight, you do so by calling the Classic Flight on 08703 304 747 or online at www.classicflight.com.
FlyCB will also be back and offering trial flights of 20 minutes in their Eurostar microlights - one of a new generation of microlights, which has light aircraft performance and style, superb visibility and easy handling.
Vintage & Classic Vehicles
With vintage and classic vehicles of all types attending we hope to have a bumper selection in 2008 ranging
from steam engines, classic cars, police cars (perhaps a police box - more familiar to the current generation
as the model for Dr. Who's TARDIS!), buses, ex-military vehicles and much more!
As well as the classics on show there'll be chances for kids to try their hand at go-karting and arena demonstrations of some of the vintage vehicles... and for those who want a bit of experience driving around in a tank, there will be two or three tracked vehicles to have a go in!
Previous shows
For a better idea of just what happens at the Abingdon Air & Country Show, have a look at these reports for previous shows: 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 and 2002.
We hope you come and join us, have a great day out and make some money for the Air Ambulance! See you on the 4th of May!