Sanicole Airshow 2011

18 September 2011,

We woke up, being very tired but looking forward to the day allot.

The day before me and my two brothers decided to go to the Sanicole Airshow the next day and made sure there are still tickets.

We woke up very early in the morning to arrive at the airshow an hour before it began to get good places to sit (next time we'll be able to choose a better spot).

Unfortunately the weather was not that great and in the future we'll definitely bring our own food since everything there was HELL expensive.

Many things had been learned that day but all in all everything was really great!

There were a few things we didn't know.

Firstly it was the 35th anniversary of the Sanicole Airshow:
This was celebrated by a formation flight of an MK48 SAR Sea King, two A 109BA Agustas and an AH-64D Apache from the Netherlands Airforce.

The Sanicole Airshow was founded 35 years ago by Gilbert Buekenberghs after finding inspiration from selling tickets at an airshow in England.

The organization of the airshow every year is mostly planned by the Buekenberghs family and supported by those who love aviation.

[AH-64D Apache]

[MK48 SAR Sea King] [A 109BA Agusta]

It was also the 65th birthday of the Belgian Air Force and was celebrated by the flyby of an Airbus A330 from the Belgian Air Force in formation with 4 (2 on each wing) F-16's.

[Airbus A330 + F-16 Fighting Falcons]

The last was of the 70 years commemoration of Pearl Harbor:
This was celebrated by an N3N-3 Canary, P-40D Kittyhawk (no picture available) and a Mitsubishi A6M Zero who performed a small re-enactment of the battle of Pearl Harbor.

[N3N-3 Canary] [Mitsubishi A6M Zero]

All in all it was a great airshow with a lot of aircraft you don't usually see flying around here nor in South Africa.

Some of my favourites were the Mi-24 Hind, JAS 39 Gripen, AH-64D Apache, F-16 Soloturk display (shame on you Belgium!) and the Royal Navy Lynx HAS.3 Black Cats (From England).

My favourite between these was the Apache Solo Display Team.

Never in my life have a seen a helicopter that can perform that well. I mean, a helicopter doing a flip and shooting out flares at the same time, that's just awesome!

[Mi-24 Hind] [JAS 39 Gripen]

[ AH-64D Apache] [F-16 Soloturk ]

[Lynx HAS.3 Black Cats]

The whole day was accompanied with very good pilots, some from the best pilots in the world. But of course it can't be compared to Waterkloof Airshow in Pretoria, South Africa.

Reasons for this are that there are way more aircraft flying, the show itself in the hangers are excellent with almost an impossible amount of things to see and experience, the food is (ALLOT) better. And the aircraft land and lift off in front of you. Did I mention the amount of aircraft? Also it's in summer, so nice and warm :D

But I'm not saying Sanicole was crap, it was very good (for Belgium) and I'm looking forward to next year.

Hopefully the weather will then be better.

[click on the images to make them larger]