Koksijde Airshow 2009

After last year’s shortened edition, the yearly airshow at Koksijde Airbase was totally back. The main ‘themes’ were 30 years F-16 and 60 years NATO. Traditionally Koksijde attracts many visitors, and this year was no exception. Many families with children enjoyed the whole day of the airshow and the activities on the ground. For example there was a deathride, a dive tank, a search-the-bomb game, … I’m sure the Belgian Defence has gained some more future soldiers along the kids!

The organisation composed a good display, with much variation. As known the unfavourable position of the sun made photographing not easy. (But hey, glad there was sunshine present!) Some photographers positioned themselves along the taxiway on a parallel road outside the airbase. You could take relatively good pictures from taxiing planes there, albeit meanwhile you missed the whole airshow spectacle.

As for the static display, the most notable was a line-up of F-16s from different countries and 2 special painted F-16s from Belgium.

The airshow started with our sole Belgian civil display team: The Victors. A new member joined the 4 Pipers PA28s, in the form of an Extra 300L (twin-seat), making new formations possible. The Victors showed that a light-aerobatic display is possible with Pipers, especially their break was well performed.

The Royal Air Force Hawk solo display, flown by Flt Lt Matt Barker, was the first modern jet on the display list. Its knife-edge pass clearly showed the logo on the downside. In a special collaboration the aircraft has been painted with the 'Heart Roundel' logo of the RAF Benevolent Fund, the RAF's leading welfare charity, to help celebrate the organisation's 90th anniversary. In normal conditions, the RAF uses the BAe Hawk as an advanced trainer and test aircraft. Its armament consists of one 30mm Aden cannon and up to 2,540kg of underwing stores (rockets, bombs and missiles).

Next up was a formation of Belgian Alphajets with a ‘smokey’ pass and some crossings. To commemorate the death of two collegues during a training flight, also a ‘lost man formation’ was flown. The jets passed before the crowd line while one jet banked away from the formation.

Airbase Koksijde is the homebase of the 40 Squadron Heli, which executes a SAR (Search And Rescue) function with the meanwhile famous Sea King and the Alouette III. A Sea King search and rescue demo gave the public a good view on what to expect if things go wrong, if you replaced the potatoe field with the wild North Sea for a moment.

The new Belgian Air Force formation team ‘Hardship Red’ made its debut at Koksijde. The 4 SF-260 Marchettis are used for preparing future Air Force pilots for the Alphajet. The yellow-red painting ensures that the SF-260 is good visible in the sky on training missions.
To close the forenoon program, a C-130 dropped Belgian paratroopers above the field.

After the short break and a hotdog, a Saab J105 from Austria kicked off the second part of the airshow. Well, I like the charismatic look of this specific Saab!
Another highlight was Cartouche Doré, the 4 Socata TB30 Epsilon from the French Air Force give already 20 years long a great display.

At moments the communication between pilots could be heard through the massive amount of speakers along the crowd line. An often used word was ‘top’, it means ‘go’ and is an old French term. The formation leader says ‘top’ every time a new manoeuvre must be performed. Good to know next time you are ready to press the shutter release button for the Patrouille de France that is about to break!

Our new F-16 display pilot ‘Mitch’ Beulen endured its baptism successfully. His display was noisy and full of action, it even included flares, which the crowd loved. Especially the slow roll, wherein the plane turns slowly around the horizontal axis, requires a lot of control if you consider the massive 224°/sec. roll rate of the F-16! The jet action didn’t stop when a Swiss F-18 Hornet appeared, again popular with the crowd.

A great contribution to the flying display came from East-Europe, with 2 aerobatic teams and a Hungarian Saab Gripen. Krila Oluje (Wings of Storm) out of Croatia uses operational PC-6s from the Croatian air force, so their displays are subject to availability of the aircraft.
Recently another PC-6 joined the Krila Oluje, bringing the total number up to six PC-6s. They split up in two groups so you had always something to look at, increasing the excitement. Formed in 2004, it is a new patrouille. They certainly have a future at other international airshows.

A surprise for me came from Marrakech, Morocco. The ‘Marche Verte’ (Green March) has 7 CAP-323 aerobatic planes. Their display was impressing! The first seven minutes the planes fly tied to each other in formation, Marche Verte is the only display team in the world doing that. When the planes break, the cords are ripped apart. Some characteristics from Morocco were shown in the sky by smoke, like the palm tree and flag. Another world premiere included spinning 3 aircraft at the same time, for a moment it was raining airplanes!

Again some jet action came in from a Hungarian Saab Gripen and the Dutch F-16 Solo Display Team. The F-16 is flown by Ralph ‘Sheik’ Aerts, who clearly shows the outer limits of this fighter jet. The very attractive orange painting features a lion. During his slow pass Ralph had even the time to greet the public. Also in his display were flares included.

The Royal Jordanian Falcons joined the airshow with their 4 Extra 300Ls. The most difficult part of the display was the slow roll in line abreast formation, where pilots have limited visibility on each other.

Last formation team on the program was Team Izkry (Polish for Sparks) from Poland, making its debut in Belgium. They use 5 jets of the type TS-11 Iskra (=Spark). The PZL TS-11 Iskra is a Polish jet trainer aircraft, used by the air forces of Poland and India. It is used as the main trainer plane of the Polish Army, the oldest jet plane still in service in Poland - and one of the most reliable. Although unknown by many people, the team exists already from 1969. I hope to see those guys at other international airshows in West-Europe, they deserve it!

A French Rafale closed the well succeeded airshow with full afterburner!

For more pictures, visit my photo album.