The Farnborough International Exhibition and Flying Display is held every other year in the little town of Farnborough, England, just south of London. It's attended by representatives of major aerospace companies from around the world, and for the first five days of the show the agenda of the attendees is clearly to do business. But on the final two days of the show, the general public is allowed onto the grounds to view the exhibits and enjoy the aerial performances. A total of 243,000 visitors attended the show: 133,000 from Monday to Friday and 110,000 of the public over the weekend.
This year, for the first time in about 10 years, NASA sent an exhibit for display in the show's new International Space Pavilion. Here are some pictures of the exhibit and the NASA staff.
There's Leslye Mogford taking a picture of Bill Anderson taking a picture. Sherri Smith is on the far left.
Tony Springer is preparing to suit up for a space walk.
Jim Hull and David Morse are asking Tony if he's comfortable in there. Heh heh.
Jean Bianco came all the way to England just to meet a spaceman. Where's Vic, Jean?
There he is -- Dr. J. Victor Lebacqz himself, our Associate Administrator for Aeronautics, holding a little Mars airplane.
Well there's a whole group of visitors! That's Vic's wife Ginny, Vic himself, Christina Rosati, Jean Bianco, and Jaiwon Shin.
Bill Anderson got to meet Fred Clarke. Notice Fred's resemblance to his brother, Sir Arthur C. Clarke?
Sometimes the crowds were packed into our exhibit shoulder to shoulder.
Just look at their expressions of fascination.
Actually most of our visitors seemed very interested in the exhibit, and many were exceptionally well-informed.
Leslye became an expert at crowd control.
But Alotta Taylor, now, let me tell you, there was no breaking line when she was in charge.
There's Steve Lighthill telling all about the X-43A. You'd be surprised how many visitors of all ages knew about the vehicle's scramjet technology. And see that little model of the Shuttle Orbiter on the 747? One 5-year-old boy demanded to see it up close, so I held it up for him, and he squinted and frowned and pointed to the vertical stabilizers on the tips of the horizontal stabilizer and informed me that they weren't supposed to be there. I learned from his Dad that he lives near Heathrow and can identify all the jumbo jets. The kid's not a trainspotter; he's a planespotter.
That might even be the kid talking to Kent.
There's Phil West explaining how a space suit works.
And here's Nora Normandy taking pictures of people and Photoshopping them into a Mars landscape. Ihor Kiryuk is looking over her shoulder, and Bill Carswell is standing back there behind her. One day the NASA staff produced over 1100 portraits. People just love to get their pictures taken. Bomb-sniffing dogs too, as a matter of fact.
See what I mean?
Thanks to Bill Carswell for these pictures of Bomb-Sniffing Dogs on Mars. Hey, that might make a good movie title.
Still, it looks like Nora and Ihor are having fun.
Posing on Mars.
David looks lonely. He's staffing the Mars rover demonstration.
Now he has a customer.
Show's over today, and now we're headed home. There's Patty Currier on the footbridge over the tracks at Farnborough Main Station.
All around the water tank, waiting for a train
A thousand miles away from home, sleeping in the rain
I walked up to a brakeman, to give him a line of talk,
He said, "If you've got money, I'll see that you don't walk."
"I haven't got a nickel, not a penny can I show,"
"Get off, get off, you railroad bum," and he slammed that boxcar door.
Why these aren't railroad bums at all. That's Maylene Duenas on the left, Elsie Weigel in the middle and Patty Currier on the right. The trip to Farnborough from our hotel in London took about two hours each morning, but usually only about 90 minutes returning home in the afternoons. Normally we rode the Bakerloo subway line -- the Underground -- the Tube, to Waterloo Station, where we caught a Southwest Train to Farnborough.
But these pictures were taken on that last Sunday when the Bakerloo Line station manager became ornery and wouldn't open the door and we had to take the Circle line to Waterloo. It was the only day we were significantly late getting to the air show. Off in the distance are Jonathan Wall, Willie Love and Alotta Taylor.
Here's the crowd at Farnborough Main, headed to the show.
And just so we can all remember what it was like, here are some shots I took on the bus ride to the air show.
Genuine British double-deckers. Earlier in the week they had even been red.
Notice all the jackets in July. It wasn't cold at Farnborough, but it certainly wasn't hot either.
That, my friends, is a helicopter.
Leslye is discussing the day's plan of attack with somebody I don't know.
Patty and Sherri and Bill went out for lunch.
Food and flight. Can't get much better than this.
Well, sure it can -- they even have RIDES!
Oh look -- a merry-go-round!
Mommy, can I ride the giant chicken?
Mmmmm, boy. Southern barbecue.
And look at that. Free samples of the ham hocks. Almost Heaven. Now where's that sauce?
Applesauce? Did they say, APPLESAUCE? And stuffing too. I must be in some sort of foreign country. Can you imagine Leonard's serving barbecue on a baguette?
See the stealth aircraft? No? Guess it works.
Jonathan got to play with toys all week while the rest of us worked.
Contemplating Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics cuz that white one with the legs looks kinda scary.
The last bus ride from the air show to Farnborough Main. The police are out in force.
The Swan -- a very popular pub just outside the gate. I think that's not skywriting in the clouds.
Approaching a roundabout on the wrong side of the road.
It seemed we didn't take the same route back to the train station any two days in a row. And really it was only a short distance.
Approaching the Clock House roundabout.
The Clock House and the roundabout.
That's Farnborough Main over there behind the trees.
Almost there.
This wasn't one of the fancy trains, but it moved along pretty fast. Patty is making plans to spend a few extra days in London.
All done. Going on vacation now.