2017 MARKS 50 YEARS OF DISPLAYS IN GUERNSEY

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Six new aviation items are coming to Guernsey to be part of the Guernsey Air Display that celebrates its fiftieth anniversary on Thursday 14 September 2017 and which will also mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF).

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The origins of Guernsey’s Battle of Britain Air Display, now called the Guernsey Air Display, go back to over fifty years ago when the aircraft who were participating in the Jersey Battle of Britain Air Display, practiced in the morning over Guernsey.

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September 1967 saw the first ever Battle of Britain (Guernsey) Air Display due to the initiative of the then Lord Sandhurst who converted the annual practice sessions into a formal Guernsey based event.

 

Alan Brunger, President of the Royal Air Forces Association (RAFA) Guernsey branch, has his own personal long history with Guernsey’s Air Display.  He first participated as a member of the No.1 Bomber Group Pipe Band who visited Guernsey for the Air Display in 1971 from his base in RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire.

 

“The last fifty years of Air Displays in Guernsey have seen countless changes to both the Bailiwick of Guernsey and to the wider world, but what has not changed are the emotive feelings and sense of unshakeable history that are the design and service of the legendary aircraft of the Lancaster, the Hurricane and the Spitfire.” says Alan.

 

“Today, as we did in 1940, we should applaud, honour and remember all RAF servicemen and women who put Great Britain at the forefront of their day-to-day lives.”