Another year, another brilliant experience at RIAT! I spent this year's airshow quite differently to those in the past - I was certainly a lot busier than I've been in previous years. Friday saw me flying out from Turweston Aerodrome for an incredible day's air-to-air shooting. Both Saturday and Sunday, I was helping The Buccaneer Aviation Group (TBAG) with our stall at the airshow itself. Both running the shop and giving cockpit tours of XW550 - whilst photographing the displays in-between, of course.

Let's start with some images from Friday's flight - starting off with the German Tornado!

Although I didn't have long flying with the "Tonka", it was definitely an experience to remember. I didn't have a list of aircraft we were shooting that day, so didn't know what to expect. I remember noticing our Skyvan had picked up the pace, as we leveled out from a steep bank - I thought "this must be a jet". Then, from a small spec on the horizon, this beast came barelling towards us before deploying airbrakes and slowing to match our speed.Despite having ear defenders on, and it being quite windy at the back of the aircraft, the noise coming from this thing was unreal. You could not only hear, but you could also feel the engines as they worked hard to keep the jet at the correct speed. Incredible!

Next up, the Infinity Aerobatics Extra 300. This aircraft was actually with us on the ground at Turweston, so we got right into the formation flying just as we were airborne. The Extra followed us shortly after we'd began rolling along the runway, and caught up to us in a couple of minutes.

Now, you might think this small piston aircraft is not as fascinating as the Tornado which preceeded it, but you would be wrong. Yes, it might not be as fast, or as loud - but they can do some really incredible maneuvers! The pilot was throwing this thing around the sky like there's no tomorrow - and looked extremely cool whilst doing so.

From knife-edge maneuvers, to aileron rolls and inverted flying, this thing had it all!

Need I say more? This was definitely the highlight of my day, seeing 2 x RAF Typhoons arrive in formation from RAF Coningsby. That's cool enough as it is - but one of those jets was ZJ913 "Moggy", flown by Flt Lt Turnbull, callsign "Turbo".

Check out the shots below:

Finally, we had the opportunity to shoot something, which for me, was a little bit different. This was a Bréguet Br.1050 Alizé, of the French Navy. Retired in 2000, this particular aircraft had been restored to flight by a civillian group, and was on static display at RIAT this year.

Before they arrived, however, they flew alongside our Skyvan which allowed me to take dynamic shots such as this: