Tinysquishy Diaries

2006 Archives

2006/10/24

Horror Festival

The South African Horror Fest 2006 is taking place at the Labia Theater in Cape Town on the 27th to the 30th of October. Local and International horror shorts and full-length movies will be shown, dress-up parties, prizes and silent movies like Nosferatu played to live audio mixes! Also playing will be one of Lord of the Ring's director Peter Jacksons first film - Bad Taste. We're going to do our best to get there!

2006/09/24

Some of us at Tinysquishy went to the African Aerospace and Defense Expo (Official Site) on Saturday the 24th.

It was a really busy, really fun day. The event was held at Airbase Ysterplaas here in Cape Town. It was a beautiful sunny day with some amazing cloud formations framing the sky. A perfect day to watch high-performance aircraft tear through the wild blue yonder.

We arrived at lunch time to a Buccaneer fighter plane just finishing up it's flight signalling a break in the flight displays. We parked the car and took the opportunity to make our way into the hangers where vendors from many different industries pushed their wares and wowed the public with interesting displays and demonstrations.

This was the portable toilet train near the entrance - the organisers made plenty of preparations for this very busy event.

Cape Town was ready for busy skies!

This was a demonstration of infra-red tracking systems for helmet-mounted sights.

After that we grabbed some cooldrinks and headed out to the apron where many different aircraft and technologies were on static display.

Some angry-looking infantry weapons were on display.

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This was an awesomely-detailed model of an aircraft carrier:

...as well as Airbus's new models, including the massive A380:

Here is a model of South Africa's new German submarine.

This is the new Panasonic Toughbook. I want one. They don't make em like they used to - unless it's a toughbook!

Check this scifi machine out - a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) - Big Brothers New Tools!

Lots of people turned out. Supposedly 40000 people at the peak - the entrances had to be closed to stop people crowding in.

A nice black-painted Huey!

Here are some aggressive-looking tanks as well as a simply alien Russian Hind attack chopper!

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I'm afraid I can't tell you what these tanks are, I've become woefully out of touch with current military hardware these days - it's got something to do with setting up these websites!

What I came to see - the new South African Gripen fighter planes purchased from Sweden.

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This is the British Hawk trainer that the South African Airforce is purchasing to train pilots for Gripen operations:

I plan to purchase one of these for Tinysquishy business trips soon enought ;)

Or this might do:

We hear a loud shriek approaching and looked to the sky... The flight displays were re-opened spectacularly by the Airbus A340 doing low-level flypasts and steep climbouts.

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Next up was the 2v1 Cheetah simulated dogfight! This was very noisy and exciting! After this the air displays came thick and fast. We watched everything from high-speed modern fighters, some older jets from yesteryear, as well as some awesome synchronised aerobatic flying.

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A loud explosion was heard! What could it be? Accident? Terror Attack? Well sort of - the terror of the Rooivalk attack chopper was upon us:

This is one viscious-looking beast of a warplane:

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Finally it was the Gripens turn - but this was very disapointing. For some reason, it took off, zipped around for a very quick hop, and then landed. I heard something over the announcements about it still in the process of being certified, and not being allowed to do aerobatics yet.

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Stall Turn!!

This was a historic event. These are the only flying BAe Lightning Interceptors around - and all four of them flew formation manouvers at the show. It was loud and impressive!.

Here is the Hawk landing after its very slick display

In the late afternoon, we packed up our things and headed for the car - after all, 40000 people had to squeeze out the single entrance (that we knew about anyway):

Overall - a great experience! See you next year!

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