11/08/2026
There was something fitting about photographing the Rolls-Royce Spitfire Mk XIX in black and white against a heavy, overcast Farnborough sky.
For all the colour, noise and technology of the Farnborough International Airshow, the Spitfire produced one of my favourite photographs of the week. Perhaps because, in an odd way, it also seemed to frame what I found most interesting about Farnborough in 2026.
This is still one of the great aviation gatherings. The Airbus A350-1000 demonstrated just how graceful an enormous modern airliner can be, while RAF and Italian Air Force Typhoons provided rather more noise and aggression. The UAE display team added formation flying and colour, alongside the British Army parachute team and helicopter display.
Much of the interest, though, was sitting on the ground.
The static display was wonderfully eclectic. A Saab Gripen sat alongside an extraordinary mix of commercial, military and experimental aircraft. There was the Mammoth-converted Boeing 777 freighter destined for DHL service, and GE Aerospace's huge Boeing 747-400 Flying Test Bed, an aircraft whose rather unusual appearance gives some indication of the work it has done testing generations of engines.
Close by was its much smaller relative, a modified Saab 340B being used to develop and demonstrate hybrid-electric propulsion.
Between the 747 and the little Saab was a neat illustration of aviation's continuing evolution. One is a four-engined jumbo jet turned into a laboratory. The other looks superficially like a familiar regional turboprop, yet is helping explore propulsion technology that may influence the next generation of airliners.
Then there was Vertical Aerospace.
Its passenger-carrying electric vertical take-off aircraft looked, to my eyes at least, remarkably like the point where the civilian aeroplane and the drone finally begin to merge. Call it eVTOL, advanced air mobility or an electric aircraft, but stand beside one and there is no escaping the family resemblance. It is, in effect, a very sophisticated, passenger-carrying electric drone.
That seemed particularly appropriate at Farnborough this year because drones were everywhere.
Walk away from the aircraft park and into the trade halls and the mood changed noticeably. Defence had a heavy presence and unmanned systems appeared on stand after stand. Reconnaissance drones, one-way systems, autonomous aircraft, loitering weapons and increasingly large numbers of interceptors designed specifically to destroy other drones.
Some were beautifully engineered. Others looked almost disarmingly simple.
The continuing wars in Ukraine and elsewhere have clearly changed the conversation. Speed of development, manufacturing capacity, cost and the ability to replace an aircraft quickly now sit alongside range, performance and sophistication. The small interceptor on a trade stand can suddenly be as interesting as the multimillion-pound fighter outside.
That gives Farnborough a rather different atmosphere from the airshows I remember.
There is still plenty here for anyone who simply loves aeroplanes. A350s, Typhoons, Gripens, helicopters, display teams and historic aircraft remain very much part of the spectacle. Yet increasingly the most significant aircraft may be the small, relatively anonymous machine sitting inside one of the halls.
Which brings me back to the Spitfire.
The Mk XIX belongs to another period when aviation technology was developing at extraordinary speed, much of it driven by conflict. Photographed against the grey Hampshire sky, stripped of colour, it felt strangely timeless.
Around it sat the past, present and several competing versions of aviation's future.
Some have two wings and two hundred seats.
Some have eight electric propellers and four seats.
And some may never carry a pilot at all.
FarnboroughAirshow
