AIR SHOW

Eli and I headed to the annual air show.

We met at about 11am and arrived at our destination shortly after, parking about half an hour away from the airfield since we had decided to hike our way to the airfield. The overcast weather soon began to produce tiny but consistent droplets, and, just a few minutes into our walk, with the rain becoming considerably heavier, a kind driver offered us a ride to the airfield, which we thankfully accepted.

At the airfield we found a number of jets set against an overcast backdrop. A group of pilots chatted casually and roamed about in the vicinity of a parked helicopter. We explored the grounds, studying the curvatures of the aerodynamic shapes, mathematically scrutinizing the proportion of the copter’s rotor blade to its body and admiring the smaller, colourful, propeller-powered planes.

The weather did not improve. Rain trickled down with an annoying consistency, and the sky became even duller as the last trace of cloud vanished, leaving behind a gloomy, hazy, grey backdrop. But whereas the sky was an uninteresting opaque plain, the land offered us an appealing array of colours with the Red Arrows all lined up in front of four black jets, with a huge red and yellow fire fighting plane looming over them, guarding them like an older brother.

We decided to grab something to eat as the rain became heavier, satisfying our hunger with a ftira biz-zejt and some water to wash it down. Refreshed, we decided to queue for the chance of boarding a US Air Force Transport.

The first thing you notice on a military cargo transport is the rugged environment; the interiors were deprived of any luxury, bare and minimalist, though the reason behind this was more of a practical and financial nature, than an aesthetic consideration. One of the crew members, the pilot or co-pilot, I cannot recall, explained to us the functions of the various buttons in the cockpit. Knowing that I would forget everything the minute I stepped off the plane, I decided to indulge in the visual experience instead, which provides for more lasting memories. I remember panels and panels full of buttons, valves and circuit breakers. The avionics themselves were a sight to behold.

The rain was still falling as we stepped off the plane. We decided to head back. The walk back was longer than we had thought, but at least the rain had drizzled down to a few drops. We spotted an interesting playground along the way – it had the spooky and eerie look of horror movies; the murky dim ominous sky and scattered puddles only helped to complete the picture. I felt that this truly captured the feeling of autumn and took a number of photos. A couple of feet away we found another creepy playground; this time it was colder in appearance and with even more puddles, thus having a more wintery look than the previous one. It reminded me of those slum areas in Serbia we used to see on euronews a couple of years ago.

The following day we headed to Bugibba for the Air Show proper. We were almost there when we spotted the red jets and their graceful flight manoeuvres so we parked on the side of the busy coast road and got off the car in order to witness the show being put up by the Red Arrows, which, as always, was marvellous. As soon as they had finished their routine, we headed on to Bugibba, where we made it just in time to see this amazing huge red and yellow fire fighting plane performing stunning manoeuvres, scooping up water from the Mediterranean sea, only to drop it a moment later, regaling the spectators with the splendid view of a watery cloud pouring spectacularly from this fiery bird of human invention.