The Aerobility Armchair Airshow: coming to a screen near you

There is only one place that you can watch the SR-17 Blackbird, Concorde, Vulcan and the Red Arrows this summer – the Aerobility Armchair Airshow.

Live streamed for free on 20 June from 14.00 – 18.00 BST on our YouTube channel, we’ve assembled never before seen display and in cock-pit footage with exclusive commentary from some of the world’s best pilots to create a unique airshow experience.

I’m sure you’re as disappointed as I am that this season’s traditional shows aren’t able to go ahead, but I hope this will be the next best thing to being there. In fact, given there’s no airshow in the world where you can watch the Red Arrows and Blades alongside the Blackbird, the Breitling Orbiter, Solar Impulse an F-18 and of course a Spitfire as well as hear exclusive insight and stories from the pilots  who flew them – I think this might be even be better than the real thing.

Throughout the afternoon you’ll be able to take part in live Q&A sessions with some flying legends, win amazing prizes and have the chance to bid on some once in a lifetime experiences in our online auction, and all hosted by the incomparable George ‘Smokey’ Bacon.

The whole thing is being made possible by the production expertise of the team at PlanesTV and I hope we’re able to bring the exhilaration of airshows to everyone during this time of extended isolation.

For those who don’t know Aerobility, enabling anyone with any disability to fly is at the heart of what we do. It drives a focus on ‘if I can fly a plane, what else can I do?’ But Aerobility is really struggling at the moment. The pandemic has not only grounded our planes and shut our classrooms but with fundraising drying up as aviation events are cancelled as well, it has dealt us the single biggest challenge to our survival in 25 years.

However, as JM Barrie said: “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it” and this spurs us and our disabled community on. We have responded to the challenge with the creation of the Armchair Airshow. Our hope is that, as well as providing a fun and welcome distraction, it will give us a chance to talk about our work and the lives we’ve helped change, encouraging viewers to donate whatever they can afford.

Of course, you can donate now too if you like at our Just Giving page.

We’re also incredibly grateful to our event sponsors and supporters Aerobytes, Breitling, Nasmyth Group and Hayward Aviation, without their support none of this would be possible.

We’ll have more exciting announcements over the coming days, so keep track of the news on our twitter feed and visit aerobility.com to find out more about what we do and how you can support our work.