International Air Show Batajnica 2009

[imalko]

On Sunday 13th September an International Air Show at Batajnica Air Base will be held. This is first International Air Show to be held in Serbia since 1997 and as such is given great publicity in my country. Living near Batajnica Air Base I had pleasure since beginning of this week to witness rehearsals of our military aircraft for upcoming event and must say I'm very excited about this already. General rehearsal with foreign participants will be held on Saturday. Of course I'll be present at the impatiently anticipated event on Sunday and you can expect a lot of photos from the Air Show.

For now here is the list of participants as published at Air Show's Official Internet Presentation:

United Kingdom: BAE Systems Hawk
Germany: C-160 Transal
Czech Republic: Aero L-159 ALCA and Mil Mi-171Sh
Denmark: F-16 Fighting Falcon and CL-604 Challenger
Greece: Mirage 2000-5
Spain: EADS CASA C-295
United States of America: C-130E Hercules
Hungary: SaaB JAS-39C, SaaB JAS-39D and Mil Mi-24
Slovenia: Pilatus PC-9M, Pilatus PC-6 and L-410 Turbolet
Italy: Eurofighter Typhoon
Austria: Eurocopter Aerospatiale SA 316B Alouette III
France: Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet
Romania: MiG-21 LanceR
Serbia: MiG-29, J-22 Eagle, Sea Gull G-4, Gull G-2, UTVA-75, Gazzele SA-341 and Swallow
Turkey: F-16

Not having seen in person the majority of aircraft listed, you can imagine how much I'm looking forward to all this...

 

[imalko]

In the meantime here is one of the photos published today on the Serbian Ministry of Defense website - practicing for the upcoming Air Show:

 

[imalko]

First foreign participants arrived to Batajnica on Wednesday afternoon - it was Turkish C-130 Hercules in preparation for arrival of their F-16s. 8)

 

[B-17engineer]

Looks like it'll be awesome! Have fun!

 

[pbfoot]

enjoy I know i would

 

[Airframes]

Hope you have a great time at the Air Show Igor, and looking forward to your pics!

 

[hypo]

ETA of the Czech Flying Hypos is on Friday approx 1300hrs

 

[imalko]

Thanks for the info mate.

 

[Milos Sijacki]

Can't wait to see Typhoon, Mirage 2000, F-16 and all other airplanes. hope weather doesn't get bad on sunday.

Will post photos from it.

Cheers

 

[Heinz]

Hope you guys have a great time!

 

[109ROAMING]

looking forward to the pics Have fun mate!!

 

[elmartinez]

In the meantime here are some photos published today on the Serbian Ministry of Defence website - practicing for the upcoming Air Show:

Hi Imalko,

Will the serbian and romanian Mig-21 perform dynamic display? I`m deciding to drive to Batajnica airshow.

thanks

ElMartinez

 

[imalko]

Hello Mate!
Your from Slovakia? (As I see from your user profile.) No tak, potom si môžeme pisať i po Slovensky.
(Then we can write in Slovak language.) OK, but not here there's appropriate thread for that in multilingual corner.

Serbian MiG-29s will definitely have an attractive aerial display, simulating a dog fight I believe. Serbian MiG-21 should (as far as I know) fly too. Not sure about the Romanian MiG-21 though. As I observed today from my balcony it appears as if only one Romanian MiG-21 arrived and I don't know if this plane will fly on the day of the Air Show or will it be only on static display...

 

[DBII]

Have fun guys, remember to take lots of photos.

DBII

 

[elmartinez]

Hello Mate!
Your from Slovakia? (As I see from your user profile.) No tak, potom si môžeme pisať i po Slovensky.
(Then we can write in Slovak language.) OK, but not here there's appropriate thread for that in multilingual corner.

Serbian MiG-29s will definitely have an attractive aerial display, simulating a dog fight I believe. Serbian MiG-21 should (as far as I know) fly too. Not sure about the Romanian MiG-21 though. As I observed today from my balcony it appears as if only one Romanian MiG-21 arrived and I don't know if this plane will fly on the day of the Air Show or will it be only on static display...

Hi bro,

Please check your PM, thanks

El

 

[imalko]

So I did and send you an reply...

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Very cool, looking forward to the pics.

 

[imalko]

Hey guys, I've just returned from Air Show and it was awsome!!! My legs are killing me though, spend all day walking since 8 AM till 5 PM, but it was all worth it.
Don't know where to begin. I took almost 200 photos, but can you believe batteries on the camera are empty now and can't even download the photos. As soon as batteries are recharged I'll download photos, sort them out and start posting them.

Static and aerial displays were equally impressive, but I was hugely disappointed since two Eurofighters from Italian AF were present and both were on static display only. Also out of safety reasons (which were quite strict because of recent crash of Serbian MiG-29) the flights were taking place further away from the audience making some flights difficult to see in all segments and even more difficult to take a decent picture (but I will return to that later when I start posting photos). Also I had a nice chat with Hungarian and American pilots and took some cool photos with them.

I came to the Air Show with a good friend of mine, but I also met a great new friend. He's Martin from Trenčin (Slovakia), who recently joined our forum by the user name elmartinez. He came to Serbia specifically just for this Air Show. As he was better equipped then myself (with better camera I mean) he took some great photos of aircraft in flight and he will be posting them here as well. I also hoped to meet with another forum member - Milos Sijacki, but despite the good will on both parts we managed to miss each other in the crowd and haven't met after all. Hope Milos took some good photos too and hopefully will be posting them on the forum as well.

That is all for now, until I manage to download and start posting photos.

 

[Airframes]

Sounds like you had a great day Igor, and it's fantastic that you were able to meet up with Martin. Shame you missed Milos, but it's difficult in large crowds at air shows! Looking forward to your pics when they're sorted.

 

[109ROAMING]

Second what Terry said!