UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions

Here's Belinda standing at the entrance to the pedestrianised bit of Terminus Road in downtown Eastbourne.  There's a large covered shopping area, the Arndale Centre to the left of this view, but she managed to resist the temptation.

After our rather wet holidays in Cornwall and the Lake District earlier in the summer, it was good to have some hot, sunny weather and here's Belinda slapping on the sunscreen on Eastbourne seafront near the pier.  Hey, you've missed a bit!
 

Looking out at Eastbourne beach and suddenly the peace was shattered by the roar of a jet engine and the flash of a large plane above our heads, taking us by surprise, odd considering we knew we were at an airshow!

The first plane we saw at the airshow was the Nimrod MR2 which flew in, making several low passes over the beach.  A version of the Nimrod was supposed to be the UK's airbourne early warning system before Awax, but let's not get political.
 

Here's a shot down Eastbourne seafront from the bandstand looking down the beach towards the pier.  Eastbourne beach is well maintained and clean with a kiddie play area, seen on the left here, with bouncy things.

This is the Harrier GR7 hovering over the sea, you can see the disturbance the downdraught from the engine makes.  Bet those swimmers were glad they didn't venture out further!  Among other aircraft flying at Airbourne were a Jaguar GR3 and Hawk T1.
 

At the Eastbourne Airbourne airshow the Chinnock helicopter lands on the beach, throwing up sand and spray (which they warned you about over the PA).  They staged a beach battle, picking up a Land Rover, then a person dangling on a rope.

This is the Lancaster bomber flying overhead.  It came in with both a Spitfire and Hurricane, all famous aircraft from WW2, and made various passes at the airshow singularly and in formation with a Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
 

Here's Mike looking out at the Tornado F3 as it flew past showing its afterburners.  It was all rather dramatic, with plane after plane flying along in quick succession and was pretty noisy too, but enormously enjoyable nonetheless.

On the lawns at Eastbourne's Wish Tower there was the airbourne ground display, here you could sit in the cockpit of a war plane as this woman is just about to.  The sheer number of people about made taking pictures rather difficult at the airshow.
 

Here's a woman trying on some combat gear, looked on by those rather hunky looking army guys, it almost made Belinda want to sign up for the army!  The army guy in the foreground is saying 'now just try bending over like this'.

This guy's explaining his job as an aircraft engineer, making the innards of a jet engine sound pretty simple really!  Now, that engine is sure to make Mike's car go a bit faster, do you think they'd miss it?  Hmm, anyone looking?
 

Unfortunately they didn't have a flying display by the Red Arrows at Eastbourne Airbourne this year and we had to make do with this one on the ground.  As with that other plane, people could climb into the cockpit and have a twiddle with the controls.

Another formation display flies past over the crowds' heads.  Eastbourne airshow was all very well organised with hardly any wait between displays, noisy though and that was just Mike enthusing that he wanted to be a pilot/aircraft engineer/army man/etc!
 

Here's the two Utterly Butterly female wing walkers doing handstands and walking to the end of the wing.  The planes flew upside down, at each other, trailing smoke and so on, all at 60 mph!  Hope they had a change of knickers back at base!

These are the parachutists coming down in formation and is the only shot we got of them owing to the fact we ran out of memory having taken so many pictures at the Eastbourne Airbourne airshow!  After they landed, we went to get a cool drink.
 

Eastbourne seafront is famous for its flower displays, here's Belinda admiring the airshow themed one.  The displays stretch along the seafront, Eastbourne's a well-kept town with tasteful street furniture and flower displays everywhere.

Happy chappie Mike here, on Eastbourne pier after visiting the pick 'n' mix.  There were fireworks later at 10pm, but we didn't stay on for that or it would have been a very late night after a long day.  Eastbourne Airborne airshow website links are on our UK tourist links page.