Air Show: Flat Scanley's Point of view

This little guy is so quiet, polite and tidy I sometimes forget he is here- he's just the best house guest... but he did make his presence known at the Air Show.

Here's Flat Scanley's week of the Air Show....

Hi all,

After spending some time with Will and Gypsy waiting to pick up the kids from school I had seen so many interesting things that I was growing very excited to go and spend some time with Les at work. You see I was wondering what was in here;

And I was really looking forward to seeing one of these up close!

Gypsy and Will dropped me off to the 6 Squadron Hangar which is where Les works with the Sea Sprite Helicopters. Check out what was parked outside...

Les is a Sergeant and he works in a trade called Safety and Surface that means he can do LOTS of interesting stuff! Do you know he knows how to Pack parachutes, cargo chutes and drag chutes. And he has spray painted a whole Helicopter! He can fix and pack Life rafts and he knows how to look after Left preservers. And he knows how to sew all sorts of stuff for the people and the aircraft in the Royal New Zealand Airforce.

Because he is a sergeant he also has to do some other not so exciting stuff as well. So we started with checking emails.

And then we took some important calls.

After that is was 'Joe time' or morning tea so we went and got a coffee, I had a Hot Chocolate.

Then we got down to the real business...

Les looks after all the safety gear for the Sea sprite Helicopters and their pilots... if they get into trouble then it's the stuff that Les takes car of that will help get them out of trouble.

Yep this helmet is working fine!

The Sea Sprite Helicopters go out to sea on the Navy boats and take off from there. The Navy boats can go away for 6 months at a time so Les needs to make sure all the safety gear is ship shape for that. He has one helper, Corporal 'Tab'.

This week the hangar was also playing host to some aircraft that were visiting Whenuapai Base for the Air Show. Including this little plane an Air Trainer which is used to train the new pilots and also for the Red Checkers Aerobatics Team. Did you know... one of the Red Checkers Pilots comes from the USA and he's in the New Zealand Air Force Cool Huh??

But this plane blongs to another Pilot. What do you think Uncle Scott??

After my day with Les I felt like I was well briefed and ready for the Airshow day....

Like they say in the RNZAF... "Bring IT ON!"

I wanted to look the part but they didn't have any flying overalls in my size. See what I mean...

As well as planes they had cars and other stuff at the Air Show. Like this Vintage Ambulance.

And this Fire Engine.

And this thing, which I think is a Airplane tug. The Air Force Motor Mechanics put it up on a BIG jack!

As well as aircraft there were HEAPS and HEAPS of people at the Air Show... It seemed like half of Auckland were there!

And a little bit of the USA as well!

These guys were part of the Globemaster crew.

Before I knew it the Air Show was over and it was time to go home and I can tell you I knew just how Will was feeling!

Love Flat Scanley!
♥