Military Jets Photography: 2010 06 26 Meeting de l'air Cambrai

With the closure of Base Aérienne 103 approaching in 2012 and only one resident Mirage 2000C Squadron left, Cambrai/Epinoy hosted its first airshow since 2006 over the weekend of 26th/27th June. The theme for Cambrai was "from Blériot to Rafale" and boasted an interesting line-up but perhaps on first glance not what you'd call a classic.
The static display included a good mix of types from various air arms, although photography was a challenge due to the close proximity of the barriers. The quantity of static aircraft was also slightly down compared to '06 but times have of course changed. That said, there was plenty to see with a line up of modern metal including Hungarian Gripen, Belgian and French Alpha Jets, Danish F-16, French Rafale, Mirage F1 and Mirage 2000C, D and N variants, USAF F-15Es from Lakenheath, RAF Tornado GR.4 and Hawks.
The base is now home to only one Mirage 2000C Squadron - EC 01.012 Cambrésis, whose sister squadron, EC 02.012 Picardie, disbanded last year, but the Tiger squadron's days are also numbered with draw down scheduled for 2011. Two M2000Cs were on static allowing visitors into the cockpit with a steady queue of wannabe fighter pilots waiting to have their photos taken. A third aircraft was on jacks in an open HAS and two more participated in the flying display.
A nice feature at Cambrai is that the display aircraft park in front of the crowd and all taxi to & from display along the crowdline. The only disadvantage this year with six display teams was a lack of space for most of the fast jets that had to operate from remote areas of the field. The flying started at 10am and continued uninterrupted until 07pm - an impressive nine hour program. Bearing in mind this isn't an annual event, the organisers are to be congratulated on attracting such a diverse range of displays and running almost exactly to the scheduled times with only one no-show.
The flying display had something for all, display teams, fast jets, helicopters and histroic types. These were nicely spread out in the program so that everyone kept entertained.
The home team launched two Mirage 2000s for a 'presentation tactique' along with a C-160R Transall from ET 02.064 based at Evreux. The Mirages demonstrated several airfield attack profiles, a mix of slow & fast passes as singles and paired, a loose air to air refuelling formation with the Transall and strangest of all a slow formation, or as close as they could manage, with a TB-30 Epsilon. The Transall then performed a short solo routine complete with a steep Khe Sanh approach and landing.
The star of the show was the 1 SLK Mig-29UB from Sliac. This iconic type is very rare on the airshow scene, so a powerful display including topside passes, a missed approach and lots of smoke from a pair of Klimov RD-33s was very welcome. The few clouds that had bubbled up to cover the sun at this point however were less welcome. With the landing and shutdown of the engines of the Alpha Jets of the Patrouille de France the Meeting de l'air was over. It was a perfect day with some nice flying and very good weather.