One of the advantages of living where I do (which is about 15 miles from Farnborough) is that may of the displays come over the top of us, so I too saw the Vulcan, the 787, the new Airbus M400 plus many others from the comfort of my lounge and whilst they were still at low level
Connections to the aero industry? I grew up in Weybridge where the VC10 was built, (Vickers) and every few days a new one would take off on its way to being delivered, would go straight over the top of our house and I was always convinced it was going to clip the pine tree at the bottom of our garden.
The original full size mock up of Concorde was also built there and my father (also a traffic cop in Surrey) had the job of escorting all the sections in to Vickers and we got to see the full scale mock up before anyone else (perks of the job even back then)
Barnes Wallis also worked at Vickers and became quite good friends with my Father, so as a youngster I got the oportunity to spend many a pleasant hour in his office playing with his models of the bouncing bomb, the tall boy and Wellington Bomber which he designed.
Makes me miss the old days
It is better to arrive 30 seconds late in this world than 30 years early in the next
