International Ayr Show – Festival of Flight
The west coast town of Ayr hosts Scotland’s last remaining major airshow, the International Ayr Show – Festival of Flight. As a partnership between South Ayrshire Council and the SKYLab, a STEM organisation, the inaugural event was held year at Ayr’s Low Green and adjoining promenade. That event was hugely successful attracting nearly a quarter of million spectators and expectations were high for its return in 2024. Amongst the highlights planned for this year included a very special salute to a local Royal Navy hero and international participation from across the Atlantic.
Paul Johnson/Flightline UK reports. All photography by the author.
The International Ayr Show – Festival of Flight is one newest and most successful events on the UK airshow calendar. Held alongside the shorefront in the beautiful west coast town of Ayr, the event is the successor the Scottish International Airshow which was held here between 2014 and 2018. However, the International Ayr Show is a very different event being directly run by South Ayrshire Council in partnership with STEM charity, the SKYLab.
That partnership makes the Ayr Show stand out from many of the UK’s other free seafront airshows. The actual airshow days are just a high point in a full week of activities to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. During the week before, around 700 Secondary school students are invited to Prestwick Airport to visit the cluster of aerospace companies based there and learn about the potential career opportunities. Included within that week is a drop in evening where families can also visit.
Friday sees attention switch to the Low Green, an open green space on Ayr’s shorefront. Though it contains the typical major event attractions such as a fun fair, traders and catering, a STEM exhibition was very much front and centre of the showground. The exhibition included some really engaging interactive displays from some big aerospace names such as BAE Systems, Leonardo, Ryanair Aircraft Maintenance, Thales, Collins Aerospace, Spirit Aerospace, GE, NATS, and Woodward Aerospace. Alongside them were contributions from Ayrshire College and the Glasgow Science Centre. It was wonderful to see the exhibition so busy during the weekend as well as an incredible level of support from industry – something often only reserved it seems for the likes of Cosford, RIAT and Farnborough.
Even after the main airshow had finished, the festivities continued on Sunday with a ‘Family Fun Day’ in the centre of Ayr with movie screenings, exhibitions and a farmers’ market.
The main ‘airshow’ took place on Friday evening and Saturday along Ayr Shorefront. It is without doubt one of the most beautiful settings for an air display in the UK looking out over the Firth of Clyde enclosed by rugged headlands to the south and Troon to the north. When it is not quite so hazy, the Isle of Arran provides an imposing jagged backdrop.
2024 has seen some rather odd weather at times throughout the summer. Western Scotland has been subject to a very wet and grey weather for much of the ‘summer’ which was evident in the slightly soft ground encountered on Low Green. The southern half of the UK has seen more settled conditions by comparison even if at times (thinking of Clacton in particular) it has been subject to more autumnal weather. However, for the weekend of the Ayr Show, that pattern of weather was reversed with Scotland enjoying warm, sunny settled conditions while the southern half of the UK got an absolute soaking with several waves of thunderstorms and heavy rain passing through from Thursday through to Sunday. That poor weather though still had some impact on the Ayr Show with some aircraft forced to cancel their appearances as they were unable to leave base.
That sunny weather just made for the most spectacular and magical sunset flying display on Friday evening. Photographers may wince at the thought of a heavily backlit flying display, but the colours in the sky were something else and it just got better as the haze subsided revealing the outline of the Isle of Arran hovering over the horizon.
Much of the planned flying display was built around showcasing STEM skills. One of the acts at the centre of this was Rich Goodwin’s Pitts S-2SE G-JPIT -the Jet Pitts. It is a unique aircraft with stunning performance. It is also one that involved an awful lot of engineering research skills to bring to reality. Rich put on superb displays on both days of the show showcasing just what is possible through science and engineering.
More aerobatics antics came from Tom Cassells flying a solo display in his Extra NG. It had been hoped he would be joined by Michae Pickin to form the full Starlings display but alas the English weather prevented that!
The Aerosuperbatics Wingwalkers were star performers on Friday and Saturday having made the epic transit north from their Cotswold base. Their display during Friday night’s sunset was particularly eye-catching with aircraft and wingwalkers silhouette against the oranges and pinks of the sunset.
Adding some gentle elegance to the flying were the pair of Grob 109bs from Airborne Pyrotechnics. They displayed on Saturday with delicate smoke trails streaming from their wings. However, they were Friday evening finale where they were able to show off their full display with fireworks firing from the wings and animated LED lights on their fuselages.
Another civilian display that really stood out was that given by Hamish Mitchell in the Cessna FR172F G-DRAM – the ‘Wee Dram.’ Based at Prestwick, Hamish operates the Cessna as a floatplane for adventure flying and training across Scotland and operating from the Lochs. Joining Hamish in the cockpit was Seaton the Duck who has just finished a global circumnavigation with the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race raising some £8000 for UNICEF. With the fair weather, Hamish was able to show off some rare ‘Splash and Go’ passes on the water – something I’ve not personally seen at an airshow since the SeaWings 2000 event in Southampton.
At the centre of the historic displays lined up for Ayr were aircraft with connections to the Royal Navy. This was to mark the life and legacy of Ian McKechnie OBE, a resident of Prestwick. Ian had a remarkable career with the Royal Navy which including being involved in operations to bomb the stricken oil tanker Torrey Canyon to contain leaking crude oil. In 1974 McKechnie was dispatched to Cyprus aboard HMS Andromeda to help civilians caught up in the Greek-Turkish conflict. During Turkish offensive operations, the Turkish warship TCG Kocatepe was mistaken by Turkish Air Force pilots as a Greek vessel and bombed. McKechnie volunteered to fly a rescue mission to the warship in a Westland Wasp helicopter conducting a series ship-to-ship transfers in the dark. The Royal Navy rescued more than 100 survivors with McKechnie flying 72 of them in the tiny helicopter. For his heroic flying he was awarded the Turkish Distinguished Service Medal – an award rarely issued in Turkey let alone a naval aviator from a foreign service!
The salute to Ian McKechnie opened Saturday’s flying with the NavyWings Heritage Flight’s Westland Wasp HAS1 leading the North American Harvard IV, Stinson Reliant and the four Westland Gazelle HT2/3s of the Gazelle Squadron for a very special opening flypast. There then followed solo displays from the NavyWings aircraft while the Gazelle Squadron performed their own display later in the afternoon. Sadly, planned participation by the modern day Royal Navy in the form of the Black Cats helicopter display team was withdrawn due to the tragic loss of a Yeovilton based helicopter in the week preceding the Ayr Show.
A very welcome participant was the Norwegian Air Force Historical Squadron’s de Havilland Vampire FB52 on its last weekend of UK operations. Flown by Martin Tesli, it gave a sweeping display of gentle loops and rolls in the clear skies wearing the colours of 502 (Ulster) Squadron of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. During the weekend, the Vampire was based in Northern Ireland, not only to support the airshow there but also to salute the Centenary of the RAAF with the current day 502 Squadron based at Aldergrove.
Completing the historic line-up was the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight with their Avro Lancaster B1 PA474. It appeared on both days, though on Saturday at one point it looked like it would have cancel following technical issues. The BBMF support team did however work wonders and got the aircraft serviceable again to close the shows at both Ayr and in Northern Ireland. The Lancaster is always a magnificent aircraft in any flying display, but over the rugged Scottish coastline there was something very majestic about it – particular in Friday’s sunset.
The modern-day Royal Air Force featured prominently in the flying displays. The RAF Falcons Parachute Display Team really enjoyed the clear skies dropping from 7,000ft above Ayr on both days and receiving a rapturous welcome in the Low Green arena. But it was the Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 that was the star for almost all gathered along the shorefront. Flt Lt David ‘Turbo’ Turnball’s display had everyone’s eyes gazing skywards on both days with the reheat lighting up the skies.
But for the author, it was the international military participation that was the icing on the cake. Prestwick is a busy airport with not only civilian operations, but also military flying. It is very much a gateway to Europe for transatlantic military flights. The Royal Canadian Air Force have long-standing military detachment at Prestwick with Lockheed Martin CC-130J Hercules II aircraft from 436 Squadron operating from Scotland to operations across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. As such the Canadian Armed Forces personnel know Ayrshire very well and have been welcomed into the local community. One of the detachments’ CC-130Js performed three flypasts for the show during Saturday afternoon.
The United States Air Force is a regular sight at Prestwick and the organisers of the Ayr Show well very keen to have some USAF involvement. Their hard work proved successful and just before the event they announced that a C-130J-30 Hercules II from the 123rd Airlift Wing, part of the Kentucky Air National Guard, would be participating in the event. Like the Canadian aircraft it performed three flypasts for Saturday’s audience and was quite the coup for the organiser.
The International Ayr Show was hit by several last-minute cancellations, but that did not detract from what was a superb two days on the Scottish West Coast watching some very fine flying in beautiful surroundings. It is also heartening to see the event do so much more for the local community linking the entertainment to promoting the local aerospace industry and the opportunities it affords to the next generation.
