2011 was the year that the Royal International Air Tattoo celebrated its 40th anniversary. I attended the show for the third time along with my younger brother and a good friend, the trip was made possible by the Royal Association "Onze Luchtmacht".
On Friday evening we departed from Eindhoven to England. From the start of the journey there was a good atmosphere between the members, and this continued through-out the entire trip.
On Saturday morning we arrived at RAF Fairford were RIAT was held. The day started with a lot of rain, resulting in cancelling of the morning show, because of the rain photography wasn't possible, so after some time we ended up in one of the tents to wait out the rain.
At noon the rain stopped and stayed away for the entire day, resulting in some great sunshine, so the day wasn't totally wasted.
This year their where three themes with some great attendants. First of them was the 40th Anniversary. For this theme the Ukrainian Air Force was invited, and they brought a IL-76 and Su-27 Flanker to the show.
Also, the Royal Saudi Air Force attended with their demonstration team, the Saudi Hawks. Because of the weather they didn’t flew on Saturday unfortunately.
Turkey brought their Turkish Stars and F-16 Solo display to RIAT, along with the C-130 support aircraft from the Turkish Stars.
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As an operational theme, STAR 11 (Strike, Attack and Reconnaissance) was chosen. This theme was chosen due to the relevance of the ongoing deployments to Afghanistan for example. For this theme a lot of fast jets and helicopters attended the show. Such as the Royal Netherlands Air Force Apache demo. Armée de L'air brought their beautiful Rafale demo.
The United States Air Force brought several interesting aircraft for this theme, like the A-10 west Coast Demo team and a RC-135 River Joint Recon Aircraft.
Also Airbus industries show one of their newest toys, a CASA C295 AEW.
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The third theme was Tiger 50, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the NATO tiger association. From the three themes this theme was the least presented on RIAT unfortunately. The Luftwaffe brought two Tornado's in tiger theme to the static and the Belgium Air Component brought one F-16.
The Armée de L'air showed off a Mirage 2000 with Tiger outfit. The Austrian Air Force attended with a tiger Saab J-105, but this one was not easy to take a photo from.
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Besides this nice aircraft, some great warbirds were present on RIAT. Like some Gloster Meteors, with one just in primer colors, which was flown from Kemble not far from Fairford to attend with a fresh new permit to fly. Also a Gloster E29 replica was presented in full colors.
A nice line-up from five Pilatus P-3 trainer aircraft were shown to the public and to top it all of a great looking US Navy Skyraider. And of course many more.
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In the afternoon when the rain stopped and the weather became much better the airshow started up with some great demo's. A RAF hawk performed for the crowd. The Royal Netherlands Air Force showed off their tricks with a F-16. British Aerospace Systems showed us what a fully loaded Eurofighter Typhoon could do. The Red Arrows were one of four teams that gave a nice show.
FlyBe presented an Embraer E195 to the crowd. With the Avro Vulcan the show ended for me because it was time to hit the road again to go home.
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A big thanks to the Organisation of RIAT for another great edition of RIAT and Onze Luchtmacht for organizing the bus trip.
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