Warbirds Over Wanaka - the Real Deal

Sunday 5 April

Sunday was our ticketed day for Warbirds Over Wanaka - and also clock change, so we got a lie in before packing a picnic, hopping in the Pajero and preparing to join the enormous queues for the Warbirds carpark… but reader, there was no queue!

We turned onto SH6 about 2km from the airport and cruised up to the volunteers who directed us to a space and we were through the gates at 10.05am as the Vampire & Strikemasters zoomed overhead in the opening display of the day.

We wandered through the event area, marvelled at the static displays, bought Louis a wild venison pie from The West Coast Pie Co stall (cos that’s the law!) and then installed ourselves about 5 rows back, about a quarter of the way down the runway.

As we wandered through, we were stopped at the crossing for the runway as the Strikemasters and Vampire had landed and were taxi-ing back through to their place of honour outside the main hangar. Very cool to see them up so close!

Watched a fantastic programme of air displays - 1930s biplanes, Biggin Hill Spitfires, Russian Yakolovs, the Vampire & Strikemaster jets, choppers of various types, Chipmunks, Pitts, a swooping glider, the chunky Avenger and Harvard, four Aero L-39 Albatros jets, a Black Hawk helicopter and the very bizarre Transavia Airtruck.

Probably the funniest plane of the day was the Transavia Airtruck which has been described as “so ugly it doesn’t actually fly, the ground just repels it”!!! Keen moviegoers may remember it from "Mad Max; Beyond the Thunderdome"!

The helicopters all swooped in, did a little dance & gave us a wave all along the runway - very cool & windy! The Aston Martin raced the Backcountry chopper for three lengths of the runway… and won!

A display by the 1920s tiger moths & other early aircraft was accompanied by the soundtrack song "those magnificent men in their flying machines, they go up diddly up up, they come down diddly down down " 🎶 which was quite funny as I was singing that to myself when we watched them from up on the ridge on Friday. "Up, down, flying around, Looping the loop and defying the ground 🎶"

After them came the ethereal Ash 25 glider - at 25m, this has the widest wingspan of any glider and they are so flexible they bend with the wind, and can almost touch wing tips apparently - that's quite scary!

The “Full Noise” Russian Yakovlev 3 was one of the stars of the show - stunning! Based in Omaka (Blenheim) it is named in honour of Burt Monro of "The World's Fastest Indian" fame. Like Burt, this aircraft has raced along Oreti Beach in Southland, setting an NZ speed record. Besides this one, there were 12 other Yak 3 planes who flew together as the Red Stars display team. The Steadfast (#33) is a new generation Yak 3, re-engineered in the 2000s with a powerful Pratt & Whitney engine.

It was fascinating and noisy and spectacular - what a day!

Met up with Jonny & Debs around lunch time then got a surprise message - our lovely friends Rachel & Miles from Auckland were here too, celebrating their 29th wedding anniversary! So good to catch up with them! Have to say I was very envious of Jonny's Top Gun style jacket, but he'd already given us the Warbirds black cap that he found in an op shop for $4 (RRP $40) so I guess he can keep the jacket 😒

In between displays I took a wander round the stalls, did some people spotting, checked out some of the aircraft parked up between flights and watched the Avenger start up and a dozen caps fly up in the air off the people watching behind it!!!

The first montage is of full on Warbirds fans and photographers - though one of these people/cameras is not like the others! However, the guy in blue is Joshua Crellin who was too busy taking pics to make the selfie!

Second montage is random people, outfits & hats of Warbirds (and thank you to all the brightly fluro orange clad volunteers who made the event so good! 🧡)

Third montage is kids of Warbirds - they all seemed to be having an awesome day!

Other things that took my fancy were the emergency ponchos at Mitre10 and the Remove Before Flight" (RBF) tag (a critical safety indicator attached to protective covers, locking pins, and safety devices on aircraft that must be removed prior to operation) redeployed as a bag tag.

The stunning Biggin Hill Supermarine Spitfires - the classic plane of WW2 - put on a fab display which was very moving.

Continuing the WW2 theme but hunkier and bulkier, the Grumman Avenger was an amazing beast, and it was followed by the North American T-6 Harvard - another very grunty aircraft.

The American Eagles - a display team featuring 4 Aero L-39 Albatros jets from Eastern Europe was a highlight too - I happened to be near the hangar & apron where they stood in between flights as they were getting ready to fly which was pretty cool. But not as cool as seeing them doing their display to the soundtrack of Top Gun & Highway to the Danger Zone (which again ran through my head watching them from afar on Friday).

Love the dedication of this official watching the jets - orange top & orange hair!

Another winner with the crowd was the privately owned Kahu - a Blackhawk helicopter which put on a great display. Kahu is the te reo for swamp harrier or hawk, NZ's largest bird of prey.

Ex-RNZAF P-51D Mustang looked very cool - fully restored and back in the skies with other WW2 aircraft - pictured her before the final fly by.

It was an amazing day with surprisingly good weather - we took layers we never used, it spotted with rain for about 5 minutes just after lunch, there were hints of sunshine and the cloud cover was high enough for most of the displays to go ahead as planned - though a few loops were missing.

The big finale had so many planes up all together - flying with their compatriots - WW2 craft, then all the Yaks and a number of others. The final montage above is all the pics I could not fit in elsewhere!

We lingered long after the final fly past by most of the aircraft, had a wander down the line of parked up planes including the Avenger and the Supermarine Spitfire and didn’t have to queue long to leave the carpark which was great.

Back to Banjo for drinkies with Jenny & Warren, Wattie & Mary and a full debrief of a fabulous weekend then burgers for dinner and a well earned early night!