The Screaming Diamonds, Michael Jones, Adrian van der Sluys and Chris Lee, will be heading to the Gold Coast to participate in the Pacific Airshow. Photo: Oliver Shedden.
Photo by
Oliver Shedden
The Screaming Diamonds, an aerobatics team based in Moama, is gearing up to take flight at one of the biggest airshows in the world on the Gold Coast this weekend.
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The team, which includes Moama residents Michael Jones and Adrian van der Sluys and Melburnian Chris Lee, participated in the Pacific Airshow last year and is keen to get in the air once more.
The three men have been participating in a training camp at Moama Aerodrome over the past week, conducting five flights a day and reviewing footage to ensure their ten-minute performance is as close to perfect as possible.
Mr Jones and Mr van der Sluys have been flying together in Moama and abroad for over a decade, and Mr Lee, having joined the team in the past couple of years, has slotted into the group seamlessly.
The Pacific Airshow originated from Huntington Beach, California, but this is the second year it has been held on the Gold Coast with the show being part of a larger event spanning from Friday, August 16 to Sunday, August 18.
Each of the group members flies a variant of an S1 Pitts Special aerobatic biplane: Mr Jones flies a T, Mr Lee flies an S and Mr Van der Sluys flies an 11 model.
The Screaming Diamonds pilots have been practising their 10-minute routine at Moama Aerodome.
Photo by
Oliver Shedden
Mr Jones said the name ‘Screaming Diamonds’ came from a traditional Pitts Special design and the noise they made when you were flying them.
“Diamonds are a traditional Pitts Special thing; all of them come with diamonds on the bottom of the wings or the tails, and the screaming comes from when we run them pretty hard; they scream when you’re sitting inside them.”
Mr Jones said he and his teammates were excited to participate in the event again and were looking forward to enjoying the spectacle of the airshow.
“The Pacific Airshow will have roughly 250,000 people on the beach at Surfers Paradise, and it will be a five-hour show that we are fortunate enough to participate in,” he said.
“It’s one of the best airshows you can be a part of, and it’ll have live music, cabarets and bars; we essentially get to go up there and do what we love in the coolest place in Australia.”
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