Let me start by saying that the Open Days held on June 15th and 16th 2007 at Volkel airforce base were mostly about....BAD WEATHER. I was supposed to be going both days but ended up only going on Friday. The weather was already bad on Friday, very cloudy and eventually very very dark. Just occasionaly we saw some sparkles of sun.

Supermarine SpitfireThe second day was actually better, with more sun, but by the end of the day there was a thunderstorm and Patrouille de France had to land early.

Now onto the static and airshow. The static show is always good at Volkel, since the planes that fly mostly are part of the static show, you can see the pilots get in, start the engines and taxi up close, ideal for taking photos. Some of the highlights of the static show were the DC-2 replica of the "Uiver", the famous plane that ran in the London - Melbourne race. The Fouga Magister made one of its last flights during the airshow. One of the nice arrivals was the Hawker Hunter, it was completely restored and now the Netherlands has a Hawker Hunter again.

The aerobatics demo of the Acromach team was great, despite the low ceiling he put on a good show. I do hope seeing Ali Ozturk again, with his bright purple Pitts biplane. The Blades are another aerobatics team with former Red Arrows members. They put on a great show, with lots of action, nice splits and high speed passes. I was actually standing very close to the planes of the Blades and got a good look on the start up and taxiing. The DC-2 Uiver made it's first flight since it had problems with one of the props. Despite being an old plane it showed of some nice maneuvers.

After that there was the F-16 Solo Display, which as usual was great to watch, despite not being able to do a high show. Talking about F-16's one of the F-16's that was to participate in the Air Power demo had a flameout, a bird got sucked into the engine and made the jet engine stall (meaning it got switched off). The pilot did manage to restart the engine, after which it stalled again. After a second restart he managed to land it safely.

The Breitling Jet Team gave a pretty spectacular show. The only private aerobatics team in the world using jets. Switzerland send a good deal of planes to Volkel AFB, among which were a F-18 Hornet and the Pilatus PC-7 Demo team. First there was a great formation flight between 9 Pilatus trainers and the F-18 Hornet, after that the Pilatus team gave a demonstration showing off the capabilities of this plane. After that the F-18 gave a solo display.

The last show I saw was the one of the Turkish Stars, the aerobatics team from Turkey. It was a nice show, but not as spectacular as I had hoped, which might be because of the weather. Nice to see an aerobatic team from the east though, now for next year to send the Russian Knights or another aerobatics team from the east.