Airwaves Portrush - Northern Ireland 2019 Review

The 17th Annual Portrush Airshow took place over the weekend of 31st August & 1st September 2019 in the stunning setting of the Causeway Coast, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland, and new Air Displays UK reporter Przemyslaw Zachwieja spent the weekend taking it all in. 

The Airwaves Portrush Airshow is a special event for me, not only because it's my local airshow, but it was also the first airshow that I had ever attended 9 years ago. I attended my first ever airshow which was, back then, held at West Strand and that was when I fell in love with aviation - since then Portrush airshow has always been in my diary, and 2019 was no exception.

It was clear from early on that the show this year would be held on a much smaller scale due to the Bournemouth Air Festival taking place on the same weekend, no Scottish international Airshow (Which Portrush usually shares some of its acts with) and most importantly the lack of the RAF Red Arrows due to their North American Tour. The weather on Saturday was not very cooperative, with fierce winds early in the morning damaging several of the ground stalls and making village North nearly non-existent. The scheduled Huey and the Loach team were grounded on the UK mainland due to low clouds and heavy rain which stopped them from crossing the Irish Sea, although they eventually found a gap in the weather for the Huey to close the show on Sunday with the famous poppy drop. 

Fortunately enough the weather improved slightly throughout the day allowing most of the acts based in NI to display. It was unfortunate that as well as the Huey and Loach, the Royal Air Force Tutor Display Team, Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Douglas Dakota, and Wildcat aerobatics in their Pitts specials couldn’t make it to Portrush either, due to technical issues, and thus had to cancel their display.

Following the success from the past, Air Waves Portrush was once again held in two locations - Portrush had the daytime air displays and Portstewart had the night-time live entertainment, fireworks, and a night-time pyrotechnic display by the Global Stars and their four aerobatic aircraft trailing fireworks!

Throughout the weekend a variety of helicopters, vintage aircraft and aerobatic teams could be seen in the sky on both days. The Portrush regulars included Ian Gallaher who performed a beautiful aerial ballet in the Ulster Gliding Club Schleicher ASK-21 followed by a beach landing. Peter Davis brought his Calidus Autogyro close up and personal to the spectators, whilst further rotary action was provided by the Irish Coast Guard Sikorsky S-92 with an extraordinary SAR demo with the Portrush RNLI Lifeboat. 

Crowd favourite, The Plane Sailing PBY5a Catalina, the famous “flying boat" flew across Portrush from Duxford. Team Raven also wowed the crowds with their 5-ship close formation aerobatics in their Vans RV8 aircraft from their base in Wales. Tony de Bruyn and the Bronco Demo Team from Belgium flew a very impressive display in the North American Rockwell OV-10B Bronco, giving an extremely tight solo display of this iconic Vietnam-era fixed-wing aircraft. 

Making a welcome return after eight years were the Aerosuperbatics Wingwalkers -The world’s only formation Wing walking Team, and for many the highlight of this year's airshow! Another team making a return to Portrush after five years were the Wild Geese Parachute Display Team which performed a free fall jump and precision landing on the beach, sadly due to intense winds they were only able to perform on Sunday. Third and last Team returning to Portrush were the aforementioned Global Stars with a mix of 2x CAP-232, Extra 300S & Extra 330SC aircraft performing high-energy aerobatics with their unique trademark Wi-Fi controlled “dotty” smoke. 

It’s always great to have debut displays, and this year we were lucky enough to have four of them in Portrush. Starting with the first aircraft; the Yakovlev Yak-3UA of the Classic Warbird Displays which was flown by Will Greenwood who put on a fantastic display of graceful aerobatics in this Soviet fighter. If one warbird wasn’t enough there was yet another one making not only it’s Portrush debut, but also Northern Ireland debut, and my personal highlight; the Republic P-47D Thunderbolt "NellieB" flown by Jon Gowdy, bringing a very vintage and classic sight and sound to Portrush - sadly due to bad weather "NellieB" was stuck at Bournemouth on Saturday and could only display in Portrush on Sunday.

 Another very unique debut came in a shape of the privately-owned Northern Ireland based Westland Scout AH.1 flown by Major Matt Roberts of the Historic Army Aircraft Flight – bolstering the rotary contingent further. The final debut came from the Irish Air Corps in the form of a single CASA CN235-100MPA Persuader from No.101 Squadron at Casement Aerodrome performing a series of flypasts. This is one of two 235’s within the Irish Air Corps, and they are used for the Maritime Patrol, Air Ambulance, Transport and Search and Rescue (SAR) roles. 

The Royal Air Force have been regular supporters of the Portrush airshow over the years and in 2019 Flt. Lt. Liam Matthews of No.72(R) Squadron at RAF Linton-on-Ouse represented the RAF in the very last display season of the Northern Irish built Shorts Tucano T1, and one the last displays of the season as well. The Tucano is to be retired at the end of 2019 after 30 years of service and replaced by the Texan T1 which will be based at RAF Valley with the Hawk T.2s. 

Portrush is not only Air Displays, this year on the ground we were able to see various Static displays from the Ulster Aviation Society and their Replica of the Spitfire, RAF Puma HC1, IAC SA316 Alouette III and the fuselage of the RAF Tucano T1. Also visiting Portrush was the Portrush regular Vietnam pair the Huey and the Loach with the Huey closing the show on Sunday with the famous poppy drop. Finally on static display was the biggest of all the helicopters at Portrush; the Royal Navy Agusta-Westland Merlin HM.2 from 824 Naval Air Squadron based at Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose.

Air Waves Portrush 2019 perhaps wasn’t the best airshow to be held here but given the circumstances it was still a very enjoyable weekend and I’m looking forward to 2020 with the 18th edition of the show!

Photos and Words by Przemyslaw Zachwieja.