Volunteering at the Royal International Air Tattoo 2025

This year will be my first year as a volunteer working on behalf of the Media Liaison Group at the Royal International Air Tattoo having been recruited by a tall man, he knows who he is! The Air Tattoo is the world’s largest military airshow, with this year being a celebration of 40 years since the move to RAF Fairford.

With that in mind it seems logical to look into the history of this premier event in the aviation calendar. The very first Air Tattoo took place in 1971 out of North Weald with around 100 aircraft in attendance. It was started by CAA air-traffic controllers Paul Bowen, Timothy Prince and Battle of Britain pilot Air Marshal Sir Denis Crowley-Milling. From 1973 until 1983 it was held at RAF Greenham Common before moving to RAF Fairford in 1985. Between 1971 and 1975 it was known as the Air Tattoo, from 1976 until 1995 it was called the International Air Tattoo and from 1996 until the present day, under the direction of Queen Elizabeth II, the Royal International Air Tattoo.

It wasn’t until 1993 that the show became an annual event (previously being bi-annual) attracting tens of thousands of visitors over the weekend. In 2000 and 2001 RIAT transferred to RAF Cottesmore due to redevelopment and runway work at Fairford. This is where a certain video was recorded on the 22 end during the take-off sequence of a B1 lancer of the USAF. If you haven’t seen it give it a watch, it’ll educate you as to why you don’t stand in that zone.

During the 2003 show, RIAT made it into the Guinness World Records with over 535 aircraft in attendance. The show has also been host to some world firsts including the first display and landing of a B-2A ‘spirit’ outside the USA in 1997 and in 2016 the very first F-35 display in Europe.

RIAT is more than just about the aircraft, it is a champion of development and education for young people who may wish for a career in the Aerospace industry or the Armed Forces. Since 1983 the show has been responsible (under Bowen and Price) of establishing a flying scholarship specifically for disabled people. This was created in memory of the famous Group Captain Douglas Bader, who during the 1930s, lost his legs in the flying seat. This scheme has seen over 400 disabled people take to the skies and take wing like their illustrious forbearer Mr. Bader.

Previous Years Themes / Celebrations

Year	Theme	Notable Events
2008	Cancelled due to weather
2009	Search & Rescue	60th Anniversary of NATO
2010	Training	70th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain
2011	Strike Attack & Reconnaissance STAR11	40th Anniversary of the Air Tattoo
		50th Anniversary of NATO Tigers
		70th Anniversary of the Air Training Corps
2012	Skylift	Airbus Voyager makes Air Tattoo debut
		Black Eagles of South Korea make debut in Europe
2013	Sky Guardian	1st display of a BA A380 in formation with the Red Arrows
2014	Partnership	50th Display season of the Red Arrows
2015	Securing the Skies - Past, Present & Future	75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain
		35 years of the TTTE
2016	The Next Generation	F-35 makes UK debut
2017	21st Century Partnership	70th Anniversary of the USAF - with Thunderbirds
2018	RAF Centenary	75th Anniversary of the Dams raid
2019	Air & Space	Tim Peake in attendance
		70th Anniversary of NATO
		100th Anniversary of British Airways
		50th Anniversary of the 1st flight of Concorde
2020	Cancelled due to COVID-19
2021	Cancelled due to COVID-19
2022	Training the next generation Air Force	75th Anniversary of the USAF with Tom Cruise in attendance
2023	Sky Tanker	100th Anniversary of the Italian Air Force
2024	Pushing the boundaries of Air & Space	50th Anniversary of the F16
		75th Anniversary of NATO
		100th Anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force
2025	Eye's in the Sky	50 years of the Apache
		40 years at Fairford
		70 years since the 1st U2 flight

It has grown to be a true icon in the aviation industry and with enthusiasts the world over, with over 175,000 people in attendance over the weekend period and 224 aircraft from 27 different nations. With sponsorships from the likes of BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Saab, Airbus and many more key industry leaders.

I have been going to the Air Tattoo since 1999, it brings with it great memories of spending time with my dad and learning about aviation which enviably led to taking up an interest in photographing it. The photo below is me in front of a Ukrainian Tu-22 ‘Backfire’ M3 variant at RAF Cottesmore in 2000. The following image the same year with the C5 Galaxy in attendance stood with my cousin to illustrate scale.

It wasn’t until 2012 that I seriously started photographing at RIAT but always as a spectator. In 2013 I graduated from the University of Lincoln and since then it has been my primary concern to build and diversify my skills and experience. I have been lucky to do as much as I have and I have experienced some truly amazing things in my line of work. Now it is time to put those skills and experiences to use for the Royal International Air Tattoo.

The Show

My experience started on Tuesday 15th July where I underwent my registration at DBH and got all my relevant passes and information to start proceedings. The volunteer force this year had a mixture of tents for their accommodation with a generously size social tent that housed an impressive array of beers. Tuesday afternoon was spent in orientation, whilst I had been to Fairford many times before it was my first year seeing the other side of the event from a staff point of view. It was all about settling in, meeting people, getting a feel of the layout and understanding expectations for delivery of media. I had the opportunity to sit in on the Engineering team's briefing, which resulted in several volunteers being given long service awards with one gentleman being awarded 40 years. I however managed to blag a RIAT crew patch for the win!

Wednesday was a 0600 start to get on base, breakfast consumed and ready for the team briefing at 0745. Throughout the day I had specific briefings to cover from photographing aircrew arrivals/check-ins to capturing airfield vehicle operations and Park & View visitors arriving. For the most part my role at the show was photographing people and that all important public interaction element. Wednesday was the shows first arrival day and incidentally the main day for aircraft arriving, The big hitters were the C5 Galaxy from the 439th Airlift Wing, the Egyptian An74T of the 533 Air Wing and the JF17's of 8 Squadron of the Pakistan Air Force.

Thursday's tasks were a mixture of volunteer team photos, airfield activities as arrivals came in and re-addressing the previous day's work with slightly different lighting conditions. On that note, it was important to keep shooting the same things again and again in different scenarios to ensure that I achieved as much variety as possible.

Friday is the show's first display day and with that the great hordes of public arriving for the first time on-base, so with that my first tasking of the day was to photograph members of the public going through security stations and entering the site. This lead onto nicely photographing members of our Royal Air Force conducting security checks on vehicles. For me this gave me an opportunity to speak to members of the RAF Police Dog Handlers who do part of their training in my home town of Melton Mowbray. Come the afternoon I was tasked with the big chief to fulfil a number of briefs from Lynx XZ616 of Historic Helicopters this included photographing and filming the Air Tattoo layout and static lineups from an aerial perspective. This sort of work is incredibly important for future planning and execution in the build up to future years of the Air Tattoo. Shoutout to my buddy Harrison for grabbing this photo of me shooting out of the Lynx, champion!

Saturday and Sunday were a heavy mixture of tasks in a multitude of weather patterns but with so much to cover in your work you almost don't pay much attention to what the weather is doing. I have to admit one thing I was mega impressed with this year was the amount of crews interacting with the public, showing them around their aircraft, talking to them about what the job entails and what life is like in the Military. I can honestly say i've not seen so much effort before at any of the airshows i've been to ever. So outstanding work everyone!

The weekend days also presented the opportunity for me to meet up with a couple of gents that i've known for a little while that serve in the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Air Force, the latter being Squadron Leader Nathan Shawyer who I recently wrote about in a blog pertaining to his first Low Level sortie in a GR4.

I had a first during the weekend too, in all the years I have never once photographed a U2 in the air, somehow. Luckily everything played ball this year and I got the opportunity to photograph the world's most expensive flying camera.

Monday was a wind down day thankfully, it was a day in which the photography team could shoot the departing aircraft, kick back and relax a bit after a great deal of effort. For me the highlight was seeing the beautifully painted Danish F16AM of Eskadrille 727 with a very well placed port wing dip at a moment the weather gods decided to let out a little ray of sunshine, i'll take that!

This year's Royal International Air Tattoo has seen the Egyptian Air Force attend for the first time, the Red Arrows use Sustainable Aviation Fuel for the first time and amazingly the Vertical Aerospace VX4 Prototype do it's first ever A to B route flight into the Air Tattoo itself.

Over the 6 days I was working at the Air Tattoo I took 17,333 images, walked over 50 miles and racked up, by the end of editing, 172.5 hours of work. Suffice to say volunteering as part of the photography team is not for the faint hearted. I can assure you it is hard work, its extremely tiring (even for me as a seasoned professional) but it is very rewarding. Over the course of the event I got to meet a wide variety of people from military personnel to volunteers from around the UK. I got 'coined' by an Egyptian pilot, found myself photographing from a Lynx Helicopter and taking party photographs of an aircrew party. I have to hand it to the photography team, you all did a great job, that was very much against the odds, but still prevailed, I salute you all!

With so many great photos it would be rude not to include a short gallery with the highlights of this year's Royal International Air Tattoo!