RIAT 2023

Aviation PhotographyHistoricWarbirdsAirshowsModern MilitaryFast JetAerobatic Team
Written By Jack Goward

Yep, it’s the big one! Inclement weather was pretty much the theme for the Air Tattoo this year, but I’ll get onto that shortly. It is always a special time of year for anyone with even a remote interest in aviation as the whole community converges on the Cotswold base of RAF Fairford.

It would be easy to write thousands of words for this event but in the interest of keeping it short and sweet here’s the highlights from the three days I attended the show. Each year the Air Tattoo runs a few core themes that govern a lot of the participants for the show. This year’s main theme was SKYTANKER23 – highlighting the vital roles of air-to-air refuelling in modern military aviation. In addition to this there was also a large Italian Air Force contingent supporting their 100th Anniversary celebrations.

This year I attended from the Friday-Sunday to ensure I could get round everything the show had to offer – here’s the highlights!

Friday

I’ve been doing this for a lot of years now and never have I experienced such dramatic weather for a mid-July airshow. Friday at the Air Tattoo in more recent years has been a fully-fledged ‘show day’ featuring upwards of six hours of flying displays. 2023 was no exception with a full programme due, however the British weather put pay to nearly all of it with the flying being canned at around 1230pm – I then spent the next 3 hours drying out…

We were treated to the Armée de l'air et de l'espace KC-135 Tanker demo which featured a quite remarkable missed approach in some quite horrendous conditions. One of the highlights of 2023 for me personally was the opportunity to see the Royal Danish Air Force F-16 Solo Display wearing its ‘Danneborg’ colour scheme. Due to technical issues on the Saturday and Sunday, Friday was the only day the special scheme jet displayed!

Saturday

The forecast for most of the arrival days and in fact the entire Air Tattoo week was looking grim so on Saturday morning after a 0400 alarm and the weather looking stable, I for one was feeling a little more optimistic about the first full show day. With a scheduled eight plus hours of flying on both Saturday & Sunday there’s naturally a lot to photograph. I’ve picked out my top three shots from each day, followed by a roll of some additional favourites!

The weather held up nicely for large parts of the day with some beautiful contrasts at points. This was also the first day that for the first time as a photographer, I used an extender as part of my setup and I was amazed at the results! Saturday was also the day I decided to take a look around the huge variety of static aircraft present at the show – more on that in the last section of this post.

Sunday

My third and final day at the 2023 Air Tattoo and the weather was set to be much the same as Saturday which was actually not a bad thing. Once again a shockingly early alarm and before I knew it I was back on base and ready for the day. The highlight of the whole Air Tattoo for me personally was the UK Debut of Me 262 ‘D-IMTT’ operated by the Flugmuseum Messerschmitt with support from the Airbus Heritage Flight. Due to the flying cancellations on the Friday and wind conditions on the Saturday I hadn’t actually got to see the jet fly yet. All came good on Sunday though so naturally this was the top highlight of the day! This was the first time this type has been seen in the skies over Britain since WW2 – remarkable!

Sunday’s weather was the more changeable with slightly less wind interruption. You can see from the images just how different the weather was at points! The USAF closed the show this year with a visiting B-52 and just like that the 2023 Royal International Air Tattoo drew to a close. Another memorable year with fantastic flying, interesting and increasingly rare aircraft and as always great to catch-up with friends.

Static Displays

As always RIAT puts on one of the best static displays you’re likely to catch this side of the USA. The runway at RAF Fairford is two miles long, which means there’s equally as much concrete for the pan areas and therefore more parking spots for more aeroplanes! There were some very special aircraft on show across the ground which I’ve tried my best to capture below – enjoy!

I’ll round off this post now – this was a fantastic year for the Air Tattoo. Despite some extremely, actually scrap that, despite some of the worst flying conditions I’ve seen at an airshow to date - over the course of the weekend almost everything that was scheduled to fly did. The changeable weather provided some excellent photo opportunities across the weekend and for the first time in my life I can confidently say that weather proofing on cameras is a thing and yes, it does it work. All that is left to say is THANK YOU RIAT, and roll on 2024!

Been before or interested in going again?

Until next time…

Jack

Jack Goward
Previous

Navy Wings Nightshoot
Next

Shuttleworth Evening Airshow