Last weekend I visited the Farnborough Air Show. It's the first time I've visited such an event and I have to say it was pretty amazing.
The undoubted star of the show was the Airbus A380, which is, as I'm sure everyone knows by now, the world's largest airliner. Two other large civil aircraft were present, the Airbus A340-600 and the Boeing 777-300ER, although the 777 did not take part in the flying displays. The way the test pilots throw those big planes around is ridiculous, you'd certainly lose your lunch if they did that on the way to Tenerife…
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A wide range of military aircraft were also there, including fighters such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, Tornado, F-16 and the MiG-29, which drew applause from the crowd for its mind-boggling manoeuvres (are planes meant to be able to turn end over end in mid air??)
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Looking down the bill, the glider looked like it had the potential to be the most boring display - but how wrong we were. The pilot pulled off some amazing twists and turns, which he surely shouldn't be able to do without the luxury of motive power!
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The uncategorisable (is that a word?) Osprey was also present, which is a cross between a plane and a helicopter, having two large props which can be moved through 90 degrees, allowing it to fly like a traditional plane and also to hover like a helicopter. Very strange.
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A Battle of Britain Memorial Flight took place, with the legendary Avro Lancaster, Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane taking to the skies.
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Finally, the RAF Falcons parachute display team braved the fairly nasty weather to put on a great show to round off the day.
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All in all, despite experiencing at least three seasons during the day, it was a fantastic day out. You can view the rest of my photos here.
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On 15th July I took part in the Sport Relief Mile, a fun run for the BBC's Sport Relief charity. These runs were taking place all over the country simultaneously, and myself and some others from the Chemical Engineering department took part in the event at Hillsborough Park in Sheffield.
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In the interests of being daft students, we decided to do the run in lab coats, hard hats and goggles, so we certainly stood out from the crowd!
I raised about £140 for what is a very good cause, and I believe the team raised around £250 in total. Our resident departmental photographer Nynke came along and she has kindly let me publish her photos. You can see more pictures from the run here.
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