Saturday 22nd May 2010, day four of our trip to France and day one of La Ferté-Alais. With our return to the UK beckoning on Sunday, this would be our only airshow day at the airshow and we arrived with high hopes. As you’ll know if you’ve read our report from the Friday press event, this was a day which essentially turned in to a bonus airshow itself, where we had enjoyed a magical time in the French sunshine with many of the acts flying and rehearsing. I guess Karl and I were probably wondering whether the show proper could live up to the previous day’s experience in all honesty, but as things turned out we needn’t have worried.
We got onto the site with little or no delay, despite the country lanes, rural location of the airfield and expected large attendance. We couldn’t help but compare the ease in which we found our way in with some vastly different experiences at British shows and my theory is that this was due to the event being heavily policed from some distance away with a superbly co-ordinated traffic system. Added to that, would you mess with the Gendarmerie? I wouldn’t – most of them looked mean and were armed, as good a reason as any to keep moving in the direction you’ve been instructed to! Having parked up in one of the fields at the bottom of the airfield we gathered our belongings and, five minutes or so later, found ourselves back where we’d been the day before, this time with an increasingly large crowd for company.
Top priority, as usual, was to find some breakfast and it was a great pleasure to find that local schools and charities were running many of the food stalls. In fact I can’t actually recall seeing any of the kind of catering outlets which, in my mind, blight our airshows in the UK, serving largely hideous food at hugely inflated prices. What a shame that commercial pressures, alongside the all too prevalent health and safety considerations, seem to have almost put a complete stop to this at British shows. Many of us remember the USAF BBQs at Mildenhall Air Fetes back in the 80s and watching our French friends setting up their own grills and hand-making baguettes brought back tasty memories of Polish sausages and burgers with wet sauce. I digress slightly, but I do wish someone would grab the bull by the horns and see if we can’t go back to some of this fare at UK airshows. Anyway, we found a likely looking stall and, coffee and pain au chocolat safely dispatched, decided to have a look around.
The overall feel of the show was very similar to those we visit in the UK. The audience consisted of a great range of ages from young to old but, if I was going to take a guess, I’d say that the average age perhaps was a little older than for a show here at home. But, as you might expect, families were very much in evidence with the lure of an airshow clearly as strong for the French household as it is elsewhere.
Traders were also very much in evidence and, again, were broadly similar to those you see at UK shows, with one or two familiar names selling their wares. Models, t-shirts, books, patches, camera gear, binoculars and surplus clothing etc, all were available in abundance. Acts from the flying display were also selling merchandise and the Armee de l’Air Rafale crews had a nice line in patches, key rings, stickers and even a thong (printed with…..wait for it……’Remove Before Flight’!). Suffice to say I didn’t purchase anything from that particular line but, having discussed Cte Ruet’s solo display routine, and the possibility of a future GAR feature, with the two pilots manning the table positioned next to the Armee de l’Air careers and recruitment van, I did buy patches for myself and Sammy as a memento – sorry Karl!
Perhaps most impressive was the Dassault stand which had some stunning bits and pieces on display, including the very stylish official Rafale range of clothing and in particular some incredibly detailed and very smart display models – many of which would however have required a re-mortgage or probably special clearance through customs.
“Do you have anything to declare sir?”
“Only a Mirage 2000.”
Programmes for the show were priced at €2 incidentally and, although not the most detailed in terms of content, contained all the important information such as the display schedule and a map of the venue. We couldn’t actually read most of it, obviously, so anything more would have been wasted on us anyway!
Traders negotiated, for the time being at least, we wandered back down to the area containing the display aircraft to see if we had missed anything the previous evening and ended up in a hangar where Karl found his way in to the museum to grab some images of one or two of the exhibits. We then made our way back in to the aircraft park, access to which was priced at €5 for adults, with all the proceeds going to the museum and, most obviously, B-17G ‘The Pink Lady’ - handily parked next to the entrance for what was in essence a flightline walk. The stunning airworthy B-17G arrived at La Ferté-Alais in April from Paris-Orly and is currently grounded due to spiralling insurance costs. A special memorial hangar will be built for the aircraft at the airfield and she will naturally be kept in an airworthy condition while the quest for funds to allow her to actually fly once again goes on. Here’s hoping………
It was naturally far busier inside the aircraft enclosure than it had been the night before but, with the sun shining down once again, Karl was keen to capture some more images, particularly of the line of Harvards and A6s etc that we had not shot the previous evening. We were also fortunate enough to see both the An-2 and Ju-52 start and taxi for take-off as they commenced pleasure flights for visitors to the show. This was a different Ju-52 than the EADS sponsored example (really a CASA 352) we had seen flying on Friday, being a black and silver example from Dubendorf belonging to Ju-Air. Judging by the number of trips flown by this and the mighty An-2 on Saturday, the pleasure flights were extremely popular and, no doubt, a great way to take a look at the French countryside and see La Ferté-Alais from a very different perspective.
With the crowd line already beginning to fill-up, at this juncture we decided it would be prudent to find a spot to watch proceedings for the rest of the day, despite there being a good two hours or so until flying started at 13.30. Having photographed the Friday practices from a point just to the right of crowd centre we headed much further down the line in order to go for some different angles, hopefully better light later in the day and improved rotation shots. It rapidly became apparent however that a place on the crowd line was already beyond us, such was the eagerness of those who had already bagged the best places – nothing changes eh! Having not bothered with any of the official press facilities since arriving the previous morning we were delighted to find, almost hidden behind the press and media tents, a smallish fenced off area for press, so in we went and bagged a corner where we would remain until the end of the display. Needless to say this enclosure did end up pretty packed, mainly with members of the general public, but it was essentially fine for photography and offered an almost clear view of the display line – other than one rather annoying aerial connected to the PA system which both Karl and I managed to photograph on a number of occasions throughout the afternoon!
Sun-cream liberally applied, a very tasty lunch taken and drinks close to hand, the flying show commenced at pretty much 13.30 sharp with a parachute drop from two Douglas DC-3s, with a T-6 on escort and filming duties. This was followed by the ‘100 ans d’aeronvale’, the routine we had seen run-through on Friday but this time with the Grumman E-2C Hawkeye taking its rightful place in the line-up and flying a very sprightly solo routine of its own. It’s a great looking aircraft and was a privilege to see as France only owns three of this airborne early warning platform, although it is understood to be seeking purchase of a fourth example. A second, and possibly last ever for us, look at the Super Etendards was obviously not to be sniffed at, and the Rafales were impressive once again, if a little more distant than on Friday. Still they flew through with the Avenger once more and all the participants flew a carrier-style approach with everything hanging out which made for a great photo opportunity.
It all made for a strong start to the show and it never really let up until Cedric Ruet closed things out with his solo Rafale display for the Armee de l’Air at just after 18.00. What I particularly liked about the show was that, Flying Legends style, the programme had been basically split in to a series of set pieces. This meant that the crowd was treated to an almost constant flow of mass launches and recoveries and there were really only one or two occasions when a single aircraft would taxi, take-off, display and land. I must say however that one such occasion saw World Aerobatic Champion, Renaud Ecalle, display in his Extra 330SC, and Renaud, a former Mirage F-1 pilot, flew an absolutely breathtaking display that concluded with him on the ground, smoke on, performing 360s on the grass in front of a very appreciative audience. That’s Gallic flair for you!
Throughout the day though, the sight of multiple aircraft taxiing out towards us was magnificent. The Battle of Britain segment for example consisted of Tiger Moth, Spitfire Mk Vb, Hurricane Mk 1, Hurricane Mk XII and Messerschmitt Bf-109 Buchon (or, to the purists, a Hispano Aviacion HA-1112). Special mention must go to Stephen Grey who put on an especially exuberant display in Spitfire EP120 with some stunning fast and very low, passes. ‘Tora Tora Tora’, complete with pyros, saw a PT-13 Stearman, followed out by a NAF N3N, four North American T-6 trainers, an NA-6B and the two A6M ‘Zeros’ – superb stuff. Other highlights for me were the ‘Baby Fly’ section which saw a Cri Cri MC-15 flying in formation with a lovely Nord 3202 (and flying aeros!) and also a fine solo appearance from a Dassault Falcon 900EX – seeing a biz jet flying that like that is not something you get to enjoy too often.
The end was drawing near when a large posse of warbirds taxied out for their finale and the sight of two Spitfires, a P-40, two Hurricanes, Bf-109, P-51D, Fw-190, Yak-3, two Yak-11s, the AD-4N Skyraider and an NA T-28 was a sight to behold. Sadly Anna Walker, for reasons beyond her control, was a straggler and forced to park on the grass and watch proceedings from atop her Hurricane, although this fortunately did happen right in front of us which made for some nice images. The actual formation was a bit of a mess in all honesty and they never really got together as a whole group. This was not in keeping with the way the display had run prior to that and was later described to us by one UK participant as a, well, I can’t repeat it here to be honest, but it certainly didn’t go to plan! Still, the sight of so many warbirds bombing around in clear blue skies was a memorable one and they left the stage clear for Cedric Ruet’s Rafale to close the show, which he did in noisy and impressive fashion.
We couldn’t help but note incidentally that two of his manoeuvres are almost identical to those flown by RAF solo displays this year. His on-crowd loop, preceded by an aileron roll, is a mirror of Flt Lt Tom Saunders’ “Stinger” in the Hawk and, like Flt Lt Tim Clement’s Typhoon routine, Cedric also flies an impressive high angle of bank outside turn. Has Cedric posted spies at Valley and Coningsby I wonder?!
It was a great way to end what for us had been a very special visit and the day concluded as it began with a pain free experience leaving the airfield for the last time, after a relatively short wander around the showground to miss what we assumed would be the worst of the rush. To be frank I’m not sure there was one and we were still seeing Gendarmes at least a couple of miles away from the site, ensuring that the traffic kept moving. La Ferté-Alais is a very special airshow and one that we will remember for a long time. Yes we were lucky with the weather (for the entirety of our trip to France fortunately enough) but the atmosphere, superb hospitality, variety and number of aircraft made the event a wholly excellent experience. I would highly recommend it.
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