First let me start by bringing my condolences to the family of two female pilots who passed away around the time of the Buurse airshow. Svetlana Federenko en Vicki Cruse both passed away while performing what they were passionate about, aerobatic flying.

For the second time, since the big succes back in 2008, the Buurse Airshow was held. Great weather, perfect for a good airshow. The first participants were the para's, they opened up the show nicely. Showing how to descend in various ways.

The Victor Romeo team was up next, Victor Romeo is a part of the Vliegclub Rotterdam (Flightclub Rotterdam). This time they had 4 general aviation planes and showed tight box, line astern, line abreast and echolon formations. Henk-Jan Overvest was up next showing of the aerobatic capabilities of the Cap-21. He could do a good high show, stall turns, hammerheads were some of the maneuvers. Mr. Overvest did something a little different in his last pass, he waved while flying inverted, nicely done.

The at Airport Hoogeveen based Seagull formation was up next. Pilots with lots of experience. Tight flying.

Normally you see Robert "Redyak" de Vries flying solo. Not this time the Yaks over Holland team did a flight together. First some formation passes, the Yaks of Willem and Hans (2 of the pilots) broke off and Robert did a very nice solo display. Plenty of action and nice Lomchevacs (tumbles). The 2 other Yak's returned to do an opposite pass with the Red Yak. Then the team broke formation for a nice wing wave at the audience. Slowly but steadily this will be a great aerobatics team.

Next up was the Swift Aerobatic team Glider, flown by Mike Newman, National Glider Aerobatic champion of 2008 and 2009. He was towed by Frank Versteegh and after release Mike showed what can be done with a plane that has no engine, which is ALOT. I loved the show as I could hear the wind whizzing over the wings. Swift team, please do come back.

It was time for 2 classic vintage planed, the P-51 Mustang and the DC-2 "Uiver", nice fly-by's, especially of the DC-2 which did pretty low passes for an old plane of that size. Two Pitts aerobatic planes were up next, nice gracefull maneuvres, but I hope to see them do more tumbles and spectacular stuff. It's not that they don't do that at all, but a little more would be nice.

The famous Fokker Four team, who doesn't know the team, in their bright yellow Fokker S-11. Don't expect high speeds. There are aerobatics and it's especially hard to do formation flying in these planes as they don't have tons of power.

Hans van Geffen was up next in the Robin 2160 aerobatic trainer. In my opinion a very nice show, with wing-overs, stall turns, hesitation rolls, especially considering this plane has no inverter system to give the engine fuel while flying upside-down. You hear the engine sputter and stop at times. Timing is crucial, staying upside down too long and the engine won't kick itself back on.

One of my personal highlights was up next, the Pioneer team. A great team from Italy, doing a great show, plenty of action, tight flying and yes, FLARES. The crowd loved it. I do hope to see more of them in the near future.

The KRUK is one of those planes you don't see too often, a plane used to do crop dusting. It looks weird, but showed very nicely that plane can do more than meets the eye. The Captens, an aerobatics team from France, the pilots being Marianne and Adam Shaw.

The team doesn't exist for a long time, but already they look like they're doing displays for years. Their flying is tight and spectacular and yes, they are very nice people.

One of the last participants is Frank Versteegh with his Extra-300. What a show, it went from high to low and with low I do mean VERY low. Buzzing the trees, Frank showed why he was one of the Red Bull Airrace pilots. Almost every possible aerobatic maneuvre was shown. Frank was the only pilot who went to an extreme low altitude and went closest by the white (do not cross line). As such Frank is the other highlight for me.

The last participant was Rick de Graaf in his Yak-3, finally I got to see him fly, the sound, the sights, all excellent. It was a great airshow and I do hope Buurse will keep this airshow tradition alive.

A special thanks to the organisers. See you next time Buurse.