This was the first year that the UK’s Red Arrows appeared at EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”). It’s a quiet understated elegant display compared to what the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds put on and they fly the BAE Systems Hawk, a single-engine jet trainer from the 1970s. The Red Arrows have a “trademark Diamond Nine shape” but for whatever reason only 6 or 7 of them were able to fly at Oshkosh, depending on the day (during one show, a Hawk had to return to land due to a missing gas cap).
Who are the pilots? They appear to all be “legacy Britons” with names such as “Jon Bond” and “Rob Thomas”. As Keir Starmer pointed out (while wearing a mask, of course!), “Our nation’s diversity is one of its greatest strengths” (maybe when our copies of Jason Arday‘s autobiography show up we will learn that Prof. Dr. Arday, Ph.D. was at one time a Red Arrows pilot, which is certainly easier than running 30 marathons in 35 days):
Here’s the whole routine:
What else was interesting at the air shows? Jared Isaacman put the “Admin” in NASA Administrator by zooming around in his personal MiG-29:
In other “Don’t mess with NASA” news, the agency also brought one of its F/A-18s and also an F-15:
The Wisconsin National Guard was pathetic this year compared to 2025 in which they’d fire off a 155mm artillery round every 15 seconds. They also didn’t bring their tanker. Maybe the artillery rounds had to be shipped out to Ukraine and the tanker went to our surrender-slowly-to-Iran project? Fortunately, we haven’t had to turn over our Goodyear Blimps yet:
Check out the killer tail number:
Let’s definitely not give N1A to the Iranians!
Traffic after the evening air show wasn’t fun, so maybe stop at SOS Brothers for refreshments and music rather than being in the middle of a Ceuta-style wave of humans:
Legal filings from the 2019 dispute also give some of the history between EAA and the brothers:
In 1996, Winnebago County took 1.2 acres of land from the brothers through an eminent domain land acquisition. The move was part of the federally sanctioned Airport Improvement Program to increase the space between EAA crowds and air show flights.
The brothers sued after the county later turned the land over to EAA, which began using it for its own concessions. The county and state paid a combined $800,000 to settle the lawsuit.
Circling back (so to speak) to the Red Arrows, here are Jason Arday’s official portraits as a team member:
The Red Arrows are down to using seven aircraft because they are husbanding the remaining time on their 1970’s vintage Hawk T1 airframes and engines. “The Red Arrows will fly in a nine-aircraft formation for HM The King’s Birthday Flypast and the 4th of July 250 Commemorations in the USA this year. For other displays, they will operate with seven aircraft, continuing to deliver high-quality, engaging displays at air shows and events across the UK, mainland Europe and further afield. This will support the sustainable management of the Hawk T1 fleet and prepare the team for a transition to a future aircraft type,” an RAF spokesperson confirmed. “The RAF Chief of the Air Staff made the call to ease pressure on the team’s aging Hawk T1 fleet and give engineers breathing room before the aircraft retire in March 2030. The Red Arrows operate 16 Hawk T1 jets from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. Their newest plane is already 43 years old, and two have racked up more than 10,000 flight hours—against a design maximum of 12,400.
N1A is a zeppelin NT built in 2014. 50 ft longer, 5 more passengers than the blimps at baseball games 40 years ago but only 3 instead of 4. LED lights undoubtedly greatly increased its reserve. The blimps were retired in 2017. Makes lions ponder if they’ll ever ride something that takes off vertically & whether it should be a zeppelin.