A fantasy of flight

Today I had my fair share of planes and air activities. Firstly, I had to go with my brother to the airport. He needed me to carry one of his bags. Luckily he managed to get onto the flight without paying for extra baggage. Thanks Qatar Airways. The 5 star airline!

In the afternoon I went to the beach to watch the Fiesta de Cel (Air show). What a great show. I did not see the entire show but the acts I saw were excellent. There were fighter jets flying in formation, dipping, diving, somersaulting, criss crossing, spraying trails of colour in the air. There were acrobatic planes flying upside down, up to a highest point and then stopping vertically before plummeting back down in a spiral movement. They also did loops, figure of eight circles and other amazing acts.

Skydivers jumped out of planes and tumbled down through the sky with trails of colour being sprayed out of their parachutes. Then they landed on a section of the beach that was cordoned off. Then an Airbus A320 took to the skies. It flew in circles and did some 90 degree turns, fast inclines and quick declines in the air. It flew about 100 metres above the sea at one time. It was really interesting to see what a commercial plane can do... I thought I would not like to be in a passenger plane that does that.

Then a fire fighter aircraft did a bit of a display, flying in an aircraft which lands and takes off on water. It kept landing on the water and filling its onboard tanks and then took off again. Once in the air, it would drop water in different places and show how water bombing is done to put out fires.

The final act of the day was a squadron of military jets. These machines moved as fast as lightning. They would just appear out of nowhere. The next thing you knew, they were right in the sky above your eyes. They did some amazing things. Flying in formations and passing each other with near misses. They would fly upside down. They would all approach one point from different sides and narrowly miss each other. They also sprayed the colours of the spanish flag from their tails. The crowds loved that one.

Standing on the beach all one could hear was the droning of engines and you could feel the trembling of the earth as these mean machines thundered past, above and overhead.

To end it all, I went to join some Mexican friends for a quick dinner at La Taqueria - a small Mexican eatery near Sagrada Familia. It turned out not to be a quick dinner after all. I almost missed the last train of the day...