One of Italy’s longest-running airshows started with a quite underwhelming participant list. However, few days before the shows some rare participants were announced, which forced me to organize a trip to the holiday location near Venice at the last moment.

The show was opened by the usual SAR demo by an AgustaWestland HH-139 of the 15th Stormo of the Italian Air Force

Police AgustaWestland UH-139, which however flew quite far from the crowd

Guardia di Finanza (custom guards) AgustaWestland MH-169 LUH

Vigili del Fuoco (firefighting corps) AgustaWestland AW139

RedStar Ttake Aerobatic Yak Team flying 2 Yakovlev Yak-52

Replica of the SPAD XIII flown by top-scoring Italian WW1 Ace Francesco Baracca, built by Jonathan Collection. It should have flown alongside their Caproni Ca.3 replica, but the Caproni flew on Saturday only due to technical issues.

Italian airshow debut for the Hungarian Air Force Airbus H225M

Few passes by a pair of 51st Stormo Typhoons

Pitts Special flown by Maurizio Costa

CAP 10 flown by paraplegic pilot Paolo Pocobelli

Frecce Tricolori, which usually fly with white smoke on rehearsal days. They flew in a reduced-strenght 7-ships + solo formation instead of the usual 9-ships + solo one after 3 planes were damaged in a mid-air collision on 6th May. Unusually, they were not the closing display of the day, as they scheduled a flypast on Lake Iseo later the same evening.

The unexpected participant, announced only 2 days before the show: a rare display by the Italian Navy! The navy brought both its frontline jets, the F-35B Lightning II and the AV-8B Harrier II+. The only other time I saw an Harrier was 22 years ago at a small airshow on the general aviation runway of Bergamo Orio al Serio airport. It was the last day of the first year in high school, and I remember my father waiting for me to end the lesson to bring me with the motorcycle directly at the airshow!

The F-35 display was quite underwhelming, far from the crowd and without an hovering demo.

CAP 231 flown by Andrea Pesenato

Closing the rehearsal day, a tactical demo by the Italian Army Aviation, which simulated an hostage rescue situation with amphibious troops and an UH-90 escorted by 2 AH-129 Mangusta. Unfortunately, an airdrop by 9th Regiment “Col Moschin” (Italian Army’s Tier 1 paratrooper special forces) happened only on saturday.