Warbirds over Scone - 28-29 March 2026

[Marty_d]

Hi all,

 

Anyone going this year?

 

Any recommendations re accommodation? Looking like Jetstar to Sydney, hire car and the nearest motel vacancy in Muswellbrook.

 

It'd be great to meet any forum members who are flying in, and drool over your plane!

 

Cheers, Marty

[facthunter]

Jetstar  does flights Melb- Newcastle and no trouble getting a hire car there. Nev

[skippydiesel]

Thanks for the info. Marty_d.

 

Tad pricey @ $57.65/day ($88.25/2day) ticket, plus landing fees and the cost of flying in.

 

There should be a concession for fly-in's, as we provide some of the attraction ("... drool over your plane!").

 

Strangely the Gold Pass price is the same as the proletariat price.

 

Arrivals between 08:00-10:00.

No departure advise, however air show ends at 16:00 so presume anytime after this.

 

😈

 

Edited February 14 by skippydiesel

[Marty_d]

I think you may be mistaken, gold price is $200 for 2 days.

 

Tickets – Warbirds Over Scone

WWW.WARBIRDSOVERSCONE.COM.AU

 

 

For me the $85 general admission for 2 days isn't bad, compared to the flights/accommodation/hire car etc needed to get there.

[facthunter]

Quite reasonable these days. Nev.

[Marty_d]

Well, I'm all booked.

On 14/02/2026 at 9:49 AM, facthunter said:

Jetstar  does flights Melb- Newcastle

They do, but unfortunately the flights from HBA-MEL don't match up.

 

Flying into Sydney on Friday 27/3, hire car, staying at an Airbnb in Muswellbrook and flying back on Monday 30/3.

 

Hope the weather is good!  Massive Spitfire and Mustang lineup by the looks of it.

 

If you're going, send me a PM and it'd be great to catch up!

[facthunter]

Hire car out of Sydney, North on a Friday and back on a Monday? I hope you are used to DENSE traffic. Newcastle ( Williamtown)-Muswellbrook is an easy drive and the flight time is the same as to Sydney as you get Mucked around getting into Sydney. Nev

[facthunter]

PM sent. Nev

[Marty_d]

As I said Nev the flights don't match up with HBA-MEL. Newcastle may be easier but not if there's an extra 10 hours waiting for flights.

Anyway it's all booked now so I'm not changing it.

[facthunter]

OK. 

[Marty_d]

Well that was fantastic!

 

Perfect weather both days, heaps of warbirds in the air (minus the unfortunate Spit which landed sans undercarriage), great routines.

Got to meet and have a chat with Nev (@facthunter ) which was great.

 

Most of my photos are on the camera so I'll post them here when I'm back home.  A teaser from the phone though (camera battery ran out halfway through today)... Paul Benet doing his knife edge past the pyros.

 

Was anyone else there?

 

Edited Sunday at 07:12 AM by Marty_d

[onetrack]

Good God - I clicked on the thread and scrolled down to your post, glanced at the photo - and thought you were reporting "first on the scene", of a major airshow disaster! 🫣

[Marty_d]

No aircraft or their occupants were injured during the airshow, fortunately. But a fair patch of ground next to the runway could be referred to as "badly burnt Scone".

[facthunter]

It was also a great place to get sunburnt. No shade anywhere.  World CLASS Aircraft  Line up, Performances and also the Commentary. About twice as good as I  had hoped for.. Nev

[KRviator]

16 hours ago, Marty_d said:

Well that was fantastic!

 

Perfect weather both days, heaps of warbirds in the air (minus the unfortunate Spit which landed sans undercarriage), great routines.

Got to meet and have a chat with Nev (@facthunter ) which was great.

 

Most of my photos are on the camera so I'll post them here when I'm back home.  A teaser from the phone though (camera battery ran out halfway through today)... Paul Benet doing his knife edge past the pyros.

 

Was anyone else there?

 

 

At least he can't forget to put the wheels down on that one....

We had a shindig in the back yard with a bunch of friends and neighbours. Pretty much my entire circle of relatives and friends has a chronic dislike of people so that seemed the best option - and the two previous shows had done their reversal turns to the north, directly overhead us. This time they did the majority of the turns to the south over Kurrajong Estate, annoyingly. The only time I went down to the airshow itself was to tell them to get on their PA, find the owners of two cars who parked over my driveway and tell the asshats to come back and move their vehicles so I can get out. And this was after my neighbor and I had roped it off to avoid precisely that - we learned the necessity of doing so from previous shows....And it still didn't work...

A bunch of locals were not impressed about the (lack of) traffic control that ultimately resulted in a couple of accidents on the NE Highway due to traffic backing up coming off the bypass or first turnoff, or that it took 45-60 minutes to get back from town - a journey that should take less than 5 minutes. I can see a bit more community opposition to the show next time if they don't demonstrate improvements to the traffic flows.

That being said, it was a perfect weekend for the show, and Saturday especially seemed chokkas. Traffic started around 0730, was queuing back to back from 0830 and didn't really die down until lunchtime. I had to work Sunday so missed out there, but the only difference AIUI was the Vampire flew Sunday, vs the Strikemaster on Saturday. 

I'd be very interested to see how much of a profit Paul Bennet Airshows was able to make versus the last two shows where the Council lost about half-a-million putting it on....And why they were able to make a profit putting it on themselves rather than being contracted to put it on by Council that cost ratepayers a motza.

[facthunter]

Actually the People facilities and vehicle handling was atrocious.  No Shade No seating and holdups and long queues everywhere and the dunnies in one Place usually with a long queue again On a Hotter day I would be unbearable and there was plenty of flies. (musca  domestica). The last 1KM took 1 Hour in the vehicle to just get it Parked. Later NO SHADE No seats anywhere unless you brought one as Marty did, Which he lent to me. Nev

[Marty_d]

I found out on Sunday Nev that there were another lot of dunnies on the other end of the ramp. Not signposted at all so there were no queues.

I learnt my lesson, went an hour earlier on Sunday, got a park on a side street close by (didn't block anyone's driveway) and no queues to get in.

Then I left while the "Balbo" was still forming up and watched a couple of passes from outside the airport, there was pretty much zero traffic when I drove off.

[Marty_d]

As promised - some pics; sorry about the quality, I only had our little OM-7.  Some of the people there had lenses as long as rifles - would love to see some of their pics.

 

If they load the way I think, they are:

 

- Boeing Stearman

- Paul Benet in his Wolf Pitts after a brilliant display

- Beech 18

- Five - FIVE!!  P51D Mustangs in formation

- Grumman Avenger with F4U Corsair

- The crowd...

- T28 Trojan

- Tiger Moth rolling back after deadstick landing

- Fokker DR1, Sopwith, Stearman, Tiger Moth

- Sea Fury (fantastic flying displays with this machine too)

- P40 Kittyhawk

- Australian flag being parachuted down

- Pilatus PC9

- How often do you get a lineup like this? Spitfires, P40, P51, Lockheed Hudson

- A flight of Wirraways in the perfect sky above the ramp full of warbirds

- Transall C160 - massive aircraft and flung around the sky with skill.  Soon to be a firebomber here.

- Spitfires in formation.  Does life get any better?

- Spitfire again (my wife asked me tonight if I was dehydrated from drooling so much)

- F4U pulls in after a display

- The aerobatic crowd - Pitts, Pitts, Pitts, Extra 300, Yak 52.  All brilliant performers from the Paul Benet Airshows stable

- Mustang loaded for bear.  Mind you I think those bombs may have been fake given 2 blokes quite easily carried them.

- Lockheed Hudson

- Paul Benet lighting the barbie

- Fire Boss putting it out

- RC Model F16 ($30,000 worth) - they weren't game to say how much the twin turbine F14 Tomcat model cost, because the guy's wife was in the audience.

 

(If the pics aren't in that order, you'll figure them out.)

 

[Marty_d]

For far better photos, my wife just showed me a Facebook thingy #warbirdsoverscone - there's some beautiful pictures on there from some of those people with the big ass cameras.

[red750]

Unfortunately I can't see them, I've been kicked off Facebook again. I read on reddit that this is fairly common. They quote some nonsense about breaching "Community Standards" (on Facebook???) but the common thought is, if you don't buy stuff advertised on FB, they don't want you.  They keep details like your IP address, internet connection, etc, and now they require video facial ID, to prevent you opening another account under a different name.

 

I thought Marty's photos were OK. Seen a lot worse.

[facthunter]

When did the Kittyhawk come to grief? On Take off or Landing? How many People do you think attended Marty?  Nev

[Marty_d]

Well, AI says 15,000 people attended - but I can't see where it's sourcing that from so it may be total BS.  Also whether it's for a sum of both days, or a sum of ticketholders regardless of whether they came 1 or both.

 

But there were definitely in the thousands each day, so it's probably not far off the mark.  One thing's for sure, I rang at least 20 motels before I found the last Airbnb in Muswellbrook, so there would have been a good tourist dollar influx to the region.

[Marty_d]

Oh - forgot to mention - on the way back to Sydney I detoured to Williamtown AFB to check out the Fighter Museum.

Museum itself was a bit naff (or maybe I was spoiled by the warbirds at Scone) but I did see some Hawks and F35's taking off.  I don't particularly like F35's, with their long history of problems and massive price tag, but jeez they made some noise taking off.