Military Jets Photography: 2006 07 02 Meeting de l'air Cambrai

On the 2nd of July a 'Meeting National de l'Air' was held at France most northern airbase Cambrai-Epinoy just across the Belgian-French border. This show was in the same weekend as the Koksijde Air Show. The weather at the time of the airshow was perfect, with a blue sky and the sun in your back the whole day. The airshow could be very nicely photographed under these conditions. Fortunately Cambrai is also famous for having the aircraft participating in the flying display parked at a flightline just in front of the public.
The display started with an AS555 helicopter performing a 'slow intercept' on an Piper Navajo and forced it to land. At first with a sign saying 'Zone Interdit' (Forbidden Area) and later on with a sniper pointed at the intruder. A fighter type interception was made later during the day when no less then five Mirage 2000's took off. Their goal was to intercept an Alpha jet that was acting as the intruder. The French AWACS who was coordinating this intercept made a couple of flyby's. Offcourse the Patrouille de France and Cartouche Doré were present at the show.
The Swiss PC-7 Team with no les then 9 aircraft gave a splendid performance, as did the Team Breitling with their civilian L-39C Albatross trainers. Further participants came from the Dutch and Belgian Air Forcewith both their F-16 while the Belgians also sended their Fouga pair.
France has their own collection of unique warbirds, most of them not often seen abroad. At Cambrai there were quite a few of them in the flying display. A nice variation on those well known jet displays seen on most shows in Europe.
The static show was split into two separate areas. On the west side were all jets from the French Air Force represented while on the east side the foreign part of the static could be found. These included Danish F-16's and C-130J, German F-4's, USAF F-15's and RAF Jaguars and a Tornado.
In general the Meeting National de l'Air was a nice airshow with a typical French atmosphere.