Farnborough Air Show - 14/07/14 - part 1

A selection of photos taken at the Farnborough airshow on Monday July 14th. This first part takes a look at some of the aircraft actually being exhibited on the airfield – part two will look at the visitors during the day.

The formal opening of the show is traditionally marked by a Red Arrows flypast and this year’s event was no exception!



There was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a fairly low-key Russian presence at Farnborough this year. Sensitivities over the crisis in Ukraine were such that no military aircraft were exhibited and although all the major Russian producers had stands or chalets, many of their executives had been refused visas to attend the show.

Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, together with its Italian partner Superjet International, did manage to display two Superjet 100s. RA-89034 is destined for Tyumen-based UTair while RA-97010 will join the fleet of the only Western customer for the type, Mexico’s Interjet, once fitting out of the cabin has been completed.





There was much speculation in the aviation press in the weeks leading up to the show as to whether one of Bombardier’s new C Series airliners would make an appearance after one of the test aircraft suffered an uncontained failure of one of its Pratt & Whitney PW1500G geared turbofans.

As it was, the CS100 sadly failed to make it across the pond so the Canadian airframer sent a CRJ900 and Q400 to represent its airliner range. C-GWGX, the CRJ900, will be re-registered as N548NN when it is delivered to American Eagle operator PSA, while Ethiopian Airlines’ Q400 was on its delivery flight and already carries its registration of ET-ARM.





Another Canadian company exhibiting at Farnborough was Viking Air, who have now commenced low-rate production of the venerable DHC6 Twin Otter. C-GFAP is a series 400 machine and is destined for Air Seychelles as S7-LDI.



Winglet-fitted Airbus A320 A7-AHW of Qatar Airways was in the static park.



The ATR series of turboprops continues to sell well, with a healthy backlog for both the ATR 42 and ATR 72 versions. On its way to Brazil, where it will be operated by Azul, is ATR 72 F-WWEG/PR-AQQ.



Heading in the opposite direction was the latest aircraft for Belavia, Brazilian-built Embraer 195 EW-400PO.



Are you in the market for a high altitude reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft? Then look no further than the Grob G520T Egrett. Experience in landing extremely high aspect ratio-winged aircraft in strong crosswinds would probably be advantageous!



On to the flying display, now. I’ve managed to get to every Farnborough airshow since 1972 and I’ve been privileged to see some weird and wonderful aircraft over the years, Few though, I think, could compare in the ‘w&w’ stakes with the machine that opened this year’s display, the Airbus E-fan.

Built by Airbus as a technology demonstrator, F-WILE is powered by a series of lithium-ion polymer batteries driving fuselage-mounted ducted fans, and also has a powered undercarriage that can be used to accelerate the aircraft to about 37kts prior to take-off.

Endurance is about an hour, and it takes just over an hour to recharge the batteries. Noise? There isn’t any – it was eerily quiet during the demonstration flight!





From the same stable was a slightly more conventional aircraft making its Farnborough debut, the Airbus A350-900, F-WZNW, resplendent in a joint Airbus/Qatar Airways livery.







Qatar Airways had hoped that its first Airbus A380 would be used in the flying display, however, there were delays in getting the aircraft released for flight so company demonstrator F-WWOW was drafted in.





Airbus Military A400M F-WWMZ makes a sprightly departure from runway 24.



Italian aerospace was well represented, with three aircraft taking part in the display. A type new to me was the Blackshape Prime BS100, an Italian-designed high performance ultralight aircraft constructed mostly from carbon fibre. I-RAIG was the example being put through its paces.



Next up was the Alenia M345 CPX 619, wearing the colour scheme of Frecce Tricolori aerobatic team. This aircraft is a development of the earlier SIAI-Marchetti S211 and is destined to replace the Aermacchi MB339 in Italian Air Force service from 2016 onwards.



The third of the trio, and ‘on loan’ from the Italian Air Force’s flight test unit, the ‘Reparto Sperimentale Volo’, was Alenia M346 CSX55154/61-01. All three aircraft then carried out a formation flypast.







Fresh from its display at Fairford, ‘borrowed’ US Navy FA18F Super Hornet 168890 of VFA-106 once again struts its stuff in the hands of a Boeing test pilot.







There was only one helicopter taking part in the flying display on the Monday, TAI T129ATAK BG12-1001. This potent looking machine is a development by Turkish Aerospace Industries of the Italian Agusta A129 Mangusta and features new engines, uprated transmission and Turkish-developed avionics.



Another airliner to make its Farnborough debut was the latest version of Boeing’s Dreamliner, the 787-900 N789EX.