Bray Air Display 2022

Have to say I don't think I'd bother going to this again, the lack of comunication from organisers was the most annoying thing for me, they put nothing up on the air shows twitter or website all day about cancellations, I could have at least gone home early if I knew the few planes I went to see were unlikely to be able to display instead of waiting around naively and wasting the whole day standing in queues etc. I understand that some things are unavoidable at the moment like difficulty staffing hospitality and the fact that a free event will sometimes attract a rough element that has little or no interest in planes but a simple tweet explaining the situation wouldn't have cost anything. We were at the North end of the beach and couldn't hear any announcements, dunno why they couldn't but an extra loudspeaker up there.

I remember going to Bray Airshow the year the Airbus 340 flew over and the special livery Air Lingus plane as well as I think a 747 and an Airbus A380 as well as a Spitfire and other planes some jet too and I too can say that the Dart was packed and roasting so nothing has changed then. I have not gone since.

The speakers did work do

Well I guess the organisers just put about at least half of the attendees to this weekends show off from ever going again.

Maybe when there is not many crowds at next years show if there is one they might learn something.

I was wondering while I was on a sweltering hot train today, is there some technical reason why the trains air con seems to switch off for inordinate periods despite it being so overheated? Surely a sensor would keep it on and within a certain temp, or did the driver just not switch it on. It felt like there was a low level of oxygen after being on it for over an hour. I know the IR commuter trains are about 20 years old but surely the air con should be on permanently since the windows don't open.

Best thing about the show

Royal Jordanian Falcons

Bad things

No running order

A lot of confusion over the start time, then it still didn't start on time

Barely could see anything apart from helicopters

Couldn't hear the PA or engines thanks to the free disco/s from the amusements

Little or no toilets and bins

Tell people to tag us in your pictures etc then no data connection (few WiFi towers for the day needed)

Absolute farce with public transport, once the red arrows couldn't show that was the start..525 or so eventually walked to the station, went off, came back 625 and still as bad, got food and eventually got onto a dart after 7

One way systems with barriers and signs needed, not free for all with people and buggies and bikes

One Irish rail worker said he can't see it next year and I hope he's right

I absolutely agree with everyone commented here. Please allow me to write (rant from my armchair) here how I have seen it, some of my views are similar with others, some may disagree.

Thank god we took the bus instead to Bray, but waiting 2 hours for a bus to get home that was just insane (read that before here the Dart was not too much better either), never experienced this anywhere else even at bigger festivals and shows. Buses should have been coming and leaving continuously. Seriously on the way back to Dublin after leaving Bray I have seen a Dublin Bus depot with full of buses, obviously not going anywhere. Not to mention all those scumbags cutting the queues... fck off you privileged m0ron... And the cutie who is on the phone wandering down the queue like she has no idea (classic cutting the line trick) and suddenly she is on the bus and you are still waiting there for an other hour. And all the people cutting in and waving to their family to follow... seriously people... And Garda is there at the buses handling the queue and asking people if they go to Greystones etc. what is going on guys, the queue were full of people smoking weed... Oh well, the bus was at least free!

I do photography so I was often scanning around with my camera and I could see the signs of boredom everywhere. Most people were just chatting, playing, swimming, kids are running all over the place like they don't really care about anything. Huge amount of strollers blocking the way out at the rail tracks and moms chitchatting about siht and not moving. I would say the actual amount of people who were interested about the planes were like 20-30% of those attended, maybe less, the 70-80% went to a funfair.

Also not too much information about anything coming as we were at the left side, it was extremely hard to hear the loud speakers, sometimes could not even hear anything. Of course this was my problem as why I was there on the side and not in the middle, right?

For me most of the planes were too far. If the CASA (btw it was not even on the lineup, where they summoned that from?) could come closer why the others went out that much? Even some of the planes I believe which have better maneuvering capabilities went out far away. I have a 600mm+ telephoto lens but even with that sometimes it was hard to get a photo :) And where was the A320? Was that also scheduled for the end? Not that I would not see those around Dublin Airport but that is boring. I wanted to take some good photos when it is next to Bray Head :)

And finally the cancellation. We cannot tell what really was in the mind of the organizers to not to reschedule the main attraction before the weather turns bad. Unfortunately this is what happened and we cannot really do too much about it, they may be messed up, did not manage the project well, who knows. Everyone wanted to see the reds etc but hey, weather is weather, mistake is mistake and we are the ones who are complaining here about everything from our armchairs :)

Next time I would rather pay just have an organized public transport and without all those idiots around, but as others have already mentioned it would be really hard to justify going next time. Maybe we will all be there next time and they surprise us, who knows!

And finally videos are popping up on Tiktok too about the "events" if anyone is interested:

tiktok.com/@xposties/video/7123965980258209029

tiktok.com/@hayleydoyle825/video/7123959868662320389

tiktok.com/@jtaobr/video/7123983192314350854

The queue for the bus was no better than the dart

The one thing about the queue for the busses was at least it was semi orderly, albeit 2-2.5 hours long.. however nobody from official Ireland did anything about the scrotes skipping the queue. Loads of guards standing about chatting with Dublin Bus types doing next to nothing. Tons of busses just parked up doing nothing.

Went down to this as I was out in Bray visiting my folks, christ it was bad. I didn't realise how bad until I wandered up from the harbour wall where we were sitting to get some burgers.

I queued for 15 minutes at one of two burger stands and after barely moving at all and witnessing lots of queue skipping ahead of me, decided to cut my losses and wandered up to the chipper at the train station instead.

Got up to the level crossing and then witnessed the madness with the trains. Loads of people streaming along the tracks, emergency services all over the place.

After getting some chips, I wandered back down to the harbour wall to where my folks were sitting, what was a few dodgy folks behind them had turned into a mob. All drinking and shouting at the top of their voices to talk to each other. Had to pack up and move somewhere else.

And that's all before the cancellation of the actual aircraft we were there to see. Luckily I'd driven out so we were able to hang on for a bit in Bray before leaving to miss the exiting crowds. Felt incredibly sorry for anyone relying on public transport.

Well I'm just saying what happened with the one she was on

Nothing world surprise me after the various stories here, Reddit and social media

Not only the air display came out of this looking bad

Everyone listen to Ger Roe now, he was listening to Bray Air Control so clearly knows better than the rest of us who were there in person.

As an Aviation enthuast I went to Baldonnel on Friday afternoon to see the Hurricane and Lancaster to arrive, there's a few areas to view around Baldonnel Business Park and Greenouge Areodrome Business Park. I also went on Saturday and seen Royal Joardain team full display, Vampire display, all the Air Corps Displays, flying boat, and Arrival of Red Arrows, all at close range. The Viggen never arrived inside source the Pilot in Sweden was I'll. The Hurricane returned to the UK Friday evening. It was well known by plane spotters and organisers that certain aircraft wouldn't fly yet the Bray website was never updated ! The Reds were ready to go any time from 2pm ! It's the Display Director that was to blame as there was plenty of slots when they had no aircraft and the reds could have displayed ! Yes there was a massive downpour around 4.30pm at Baldonnel but it cleared up after 10 mins or so. The runway had pools of rain, but I wouldn't have taught it would have been a problem for the Red Arrows Hawk aircraft. These RAF pilots are the Top Gun of the RAF and used to all weather conditions. The runway at Baldonnel is long enough to take A C130 or C17. Baldonnel doesn't have great ground facilities or Radar etc, hence the lack of funds given to the Defence Forces. Regarding the Reds I think the weather delayed there slot in the show and there time to return to the UK which is all planned. The wind at Bray was an issue for some aircraft. Airshows at sea are always a problem due to wind, it's better to have a show at an Airfield.