Royal International Air Tattoo 2009

I spent two days at the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford with the Garrison Girls (1).

Having previously taught me to pole dance, and dressed me up in womens hand bags, they thought I should spend a weekend doing some more manly things.

First things first, we had to book in ... so while the girls were busy sorting this out, I sat on reception, answered the phones and chatted up a few nice ladies (2). Next up, I had a quick cuddle with some Air Cadets (3) who were raising money for the RAF Benevolent fund. While we were walking to where our stand was, we met some scary looking people in suits who wanted to have their photo taken with me (4). They didn't look particularly friendly but I had a photo taken with them anyway, didn't want to anger them!

As I made my way around the airshow, I came across a lovely looking lady who was selling ice creams (5), she showed me around her Ice Cream Van and we had a quick cuddle, before I had to get moving again.

Next I found a fire engine, it didn't look like your normal fire engine as it belonged to the Defence Fire Service (6). I had a go at driving it, and then moved on to another Fire Engine (7,8), I drove this one too, and definitely prefer the red one best. After I had finished driving the fire engine, one of the kind firemen let me play with his hose (the Garrison Girls found this amusing, tut). (9) We did some fire drills, but I tried to stay away from anything flammable!

As we carried on walking through all the stands, something shiney caught my eye...was it really...could it be....YES it was, I saw a big gun of some sort (Garrison Girls are not all up on their military equipment, sorry). (10) I had GREAT fun playing with that and pretending to shoot passers by. I think I scared some small children though, so I soon got dragged away.

I had a little waddle along (Garrison Girls have decided that I waddle, because I have such tiny legs), and then I heard someone calling me, I couldn't work out where the voice was coming from, but it sounded a little unusual. After a bit of investigation I found Yoda! (11) Yoda belonged to the Royal Signals, and he had done a couple of tours. We had a good chat about the Army, and he was suitably impressed by me (as he should be). Having said good bye to Yoda, I then heard another voice calling me over. A little bit more investigation and I found another bear. This bear belonged to some lads from the Royal Engineers Recruitment Team (12), who had cycled 158 miles on a 7 seater bike to raise money for Help For Heroes. The bike looked pretty hard work and I didnt think my little legs would reach the pedals, so I sat on the top and let them do all the hard work.

Next we moved on to seeing some aircraft, (13-15). I particularly liked the Hawk (16). The pilot told me all about it and let me sit in the cockpit. He was very impressed that I had the right sunglasses on. A quick check on the Dutch F-16 was cool (17) until I met the Typhoon pilots from 29 sqn RAF (18). They were very nice blokes, they told me about aircraft and I told them about jumping out of them!

Then I had a quick photo in a Hercules (19), before climbing aboard the AWACS (20-23). Just as we left the AWACS we saw the Vulcan fly past (24) - VERY impressive!! Then we saw the Red Arrows - wowwweeeee!!! (25)

After we had finished watching the sky, I got an extra special treat - I got to go in the Vulcan, and for free as well. The Garrison Girls weren't allowed on it because they forgot to take any change with them (silly Garrison Girls!), but the pilot let me go on for free, so I waved the Garrison Girls goodbye and headed off in the arms of the Vulcan pilot...who promptly shoved me in some part of the aircraft (26) (Garrison Girls not all up on aeroplanes either!) with a monkey, it was good fun though. I also got to sit underneath the aircraft and look up through the bomb bay doors (27), which was very interesting and impressive. Then we went back into the cockpit where the pilot said he would introduce me to his very own bear, "Oh goody" I thought, I hope it's a pretty girl bear ... turns out it was a boy, but we had a good chat anyway. (28).

Soon the Vulcan pilot sent me back to the Garrison Girls who were waiting nervously for me, as they feared I may escape. They took me to see some more aircraft which I really enjoyed.

I had a fantastic weekend at RIAT, I met lots of lovely people and the Garrison Girls told them all about why I was with them, and explained about Holidays For Heroes. I'm hoping that they will take me to see some more aircraft soon!