TEAM VIPER MAKE AIRSHOW DEBUT
A DISPLAY team that blossomed from a bar discussion made their debut appearance at the Royal International Air Tattoo.
Team Viper was formed three years ago by a group of friends who had the ambition to form their own jet aerobatic team. Now they have helped the Royal International Air Tattoo celebrate its 40th birthday and the 60th anniversary of their mount, the famous Hawker Hunter fighter plane.
Unfortunately the weather curtailed the Exeter-based team's display on the Saturday, but the team's pilots managed to display on the Sunday of the show.
Team leader, Chris Heames who previously flew the Lightning and the Tornado in the Royal Air Force said: "The Hunter is a wonderful aircraft, you know that every time you get in it, you know you are going to return with a smile on your face.
"The aircraft comes from a time when British aviation and engineers was admired all over the world, and I think when audiences look up and see the aircraft in the sky they think back to that period."
The team is the only Hawker Hunter display team in the world and one of only a handful of civilian jet teams in Europe. The pilots are keen to retain the identities of their aircraft rather than paint them all in the same scheme, so one wears the colours of the Royal Navy, while another is painted in the colours of an RAF squadron.
As well as flying close formations, rolls and loops, the team also demonstrated the unique noise that the Hunter makes, so much so, that a recording of the sound is being made available as a mobile ring tone.
Click here to visit the Team Viper website
August 12, 2011
