Military Jets Photography: 2013 08 24 Radom airshow

Thursday and Friday were spent near the base to witness to arrivals and rehearsals for the Radom Air Show. The local fields and roads became car parks and the whole scene resembled something of a festival, indeed many had set up tents and were camping for the weekend. The Ukrainian trio of IL-76 and two Su27s arriving at a little after 8am set the standard for a good steady flow of arriving aircraft and display practices and though the weather started a little overcast and dull it improved through the day to end in a glorious clear afternoon and evening giving some stunning light for the later events.
On Saturday and Sunday the sun was shining and most of the early morning statics were nicely positioned, though the crews were keen to congregate all over their and other's machines and also happy to photograph people in cockpits etc. It has to be said that the show proved to be a real bonus for rotary winged fans as the hosts fielded a prolific selection of types - Air Force Mi-2, SAR Mi-8, armed up Mil-17, SW-4, camo W-3RL Sokol, Army casevac Mi-17, Mi-2 Navy SAR W-3W Anaconda and Mi-14. A similar selection were lined up for the flying display - an SW-4 and W-3RL from the Air Force, a pair of Mi-24V plus two Mi-24D spares and W-3W from the Army and a beautiful SH-2G Seasprite resplendent with special sea dragon stickers on the Port side. PZL-Mielec-Swidnik/Agusta Westland had a substantial exhibition with further types including a gun ship W-3PL, SW-4 "solo"- an unmanned version of the light helicopter, military marked grey painted AW149 and a pair of PZL built S-70i Blackhawks, one of which flew. Add to this a steady gaggle of VIP configured Mi-8S/T and W-3WA from Warsaw, Police Mi-2, Mi-8, Bell 206 & 412, and an Air Ambulance EC135 and some 40 or so Polish choppers were on view. Foreigners in the rotary winged department featured French Air Force Caracal dangling special forces, Dutch flare flinging Apache, static Danish Fennec and the Red Bull Cobra.
There was a healthy collection of visiting statics - Austrian Saab 105, Belgian Herc, Czech C295 and anniversary marked ALCA, German Tornado and 100 years P-3C, Hungarian An-26, Dutch F-16 pair with the Diana special, Romanian C27, Slovak tiger MiG-29UB and L410, RAF Typhoon and Hawk T2 and aforementioned Ukrainian IL-76 and Su-27.
The flying got underway to a gentle start at 9am with a two hour section entitled "Aeroklub Polski" and featured a varied selection of flying machines and displays such as tethered balloons and powered parachutes, banner towing and aerobatics.
Polish historic items featured a TS-11 Iskra finished in the colours of the prototype and a TS-8 Bies. The TS-11 belonged to the Polish Aviation legends Group who also fly the Xtreme XA41 aerobatic display in a bizarre duo sequence.
From 11am the display notched up a gear with modern military types, display teams and set piece demonstrations and flypasts. Teams comprised the very well received local Orlik Team and Iskry, Croatian Wings of Storm, Baltic Bees, Midnight Hawks and the Patrouille Suisse, who were actually called in to replace the cancelled solo F/A18 demo. There were also some informal formations in the aeroclub section, such as a four-ship of Aero AT-3s, but these were very low key. The home team also provided a very impressive mass flypast to formally open the event - after some parachutes, Team Iskry laid down the national colours in smoke, followed by six PZL SW4 Puszczyk helicopters, then Orlik team trailing white smoke that annoyingly lingered, hampering photographs of the following three-ship of Bryzas, C-130H with two C295s and the heavy metal element of six smoky Su22s, six even smokier MiG 29s and finally six F-16s. Further pairs of F-16s and Su22s featured in a close air support demo, though the Fitters merely made a high speed pass popping flares as they went. The Falcons 'turned and burned', though quite high over the airfield. Yet another pair of Fitters flew the very impressive pair display, add these to the static two-seater Su22UM-3K and some 11 different examples of Sukhois dated but fabulous swinger could be seen.
Foreign fast jets comprised a good mix of common and seldom seen solo displays: Austrian Saab 105 (effectively closing the show on Saturday at just before 8pm!) Polish Mig 29 with flares, Czech ALCA, Romanian single-seat Lancer C, Czech and Hungarian Gripens, Rafale, Italian Typhoon and a quartet of F-16s - Belgian (Sunday show closer with a lovely flare-filled display in the twilight), Dutch, Turkish and Greek. "Stitch" in the Dutch F-16 provided another bizarre moment on the Sunday - he popped the flares whilst still on the deck during his touch and go leading to the runway being closed for 15-20 minutes for sweeping. Solo Turk was fabulous as ever and it was good to see the Americanised Zeus solo Greek display on his only foreign trip.
I haven't included the Ukrainian Su27 in the fast jet category as this was flown in typical Flanker style at a fairly slow pace that demonstrated the sheer power and handling of this wonderful jet extremely well. Expected tail slides, gut wrenchingly tight turns, achingly slow high alpha and a low missed approach with dirty roll didn't fail to impress. The Friday practice was flown in the single-seater whilst both actual displays featured the two-seat UB with the rear seat occupied.
The remaining display items consisted of the solo Croatian PC9, ever impressive Italian C-27, beautifully flown Red Bull Corsair and almost aerobatic M-28 Bryza from PZL-Milec.
Thank you Radom and the Polish Air Force for a first class air show.

Thursday and Friday arrivals and rehearsals