Double Ace! My 10th edition of the yearly Historical Aircraft Group meeting in a very cold [citation needed] June weekend with only 40 °C!
Formation with a Cessna Bird Dog, 2 Boredom Fighter and a F8 Falco during the flag raising ceremony:
Bird Dog and Boredom Fighters display:
Giuliano Ignoto flying Van’s RV-4:
Ttake Aerobatic Team’s Giada Beccari flying Yakovlev Yak-52:
Sergio Cobuccio flying Jodel D120:
Team Charlie 26 flying 2 MB Avio C26:
Piper formation with a PA-24 Comanche and a PA-28RT Turbo Arrow IV:
“Red Squadron, lock S-folis in attack position!”
Davide Augusti flying Extra 300:
Thirties training biplanes formation: de Havilland Tiger Moth, Stampe SV-4 and Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann (actually a Spanish license-built CASA 1.131), the latter of which recently joined the HAG fleet.
Maurizio Costa flying Pitts Special:
Ttake Aerobatic Team flying 2 Yakovlev Yak-52:
Francesco Delmastro flying F.8L Falco:
Aerobatic paraplegic champion Paolo Pocobelli flying CAP 10:
“Dogfighting” a Vueling A320!
Giancarlo Gusso flying Focke-Wulf-Piaggio FWP-149D:
This year’s guest stars:
Gli ospiti speciali di quest’edizione: Fundación Aeronáutica Antonio Quintana‘s Reims F337G Super Skymasters. They are the French license-built version of the Cessna 337 Skymaster, a twin-engine general aviation plane with a push-pull configuration to avoid asimmetric thrust in case of engine failure (obviously, obtaining a twin-engine rating on this plane forces the pilot to fly push-pull planes only, as he would not be trained for asimmetric trust). Both planes served in the Portuguese Air Force in a COIN (counter-insurgency) role, and they were repainted as O-2 Skymasters, the military version flew by the USAF as FAC (Forward Air Control) in Vietnam. The O-2 actually had large glass panels and dedicated radio equipment, lacking on this version. Probably its most famous operation is the search-and-rescue of Lieutenant Colonel Iceal Hambleton, intelligence officer on board an EB-66 Destroyer bomber modified for electronic warfare flying with the callsign “Bat 21”, which was shot down in Vietnam. addetto all’intelligence imbarcato a bordo di un bombardiere EB-66 Destroyer modificato per guerra elettronica con codice “Bat 21” abbattuto in Vietnam. This event was re-told in a fictionalized version in the 1988 movie “Bat*21”, where a Cessna 337 Skymaster is visible in several scenes.
Formation with the O-1 Bird Dog, which was used for the same tasks:
Closing the show, Fondazione Jonathan Collection with the replicas of the SPAD XIII flown by top-scoring Italian WW1 Ace Francesco Baracca and of the Caproni Ca.3 flown by Maurizio Pagliano and Luigi Gori:
