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ACIG Special Reports
The al-Ain Show 2006 was expected by many observers, foremost because of announced participation of many aerobatic teams from foreign air forces, but also because of the large air show that was to be put up by the United Arab Emirates Air Defence Force (UAEADF).
Eventually, this event was marred by bad weather and a crash of a brand-new UAEADF F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter; the UAEADF was mainly present on the ground, flying was limited, and not few observers returned home quite disapointed.
Georg Mader filled the following report.
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| All photos by Author, unless otherwise stated. |
The ‘Garden City’ of al-Ain is located 120km south of Dubai and the airfield (intl. Codes: AAN/OMAL) holds the UAEADFs ‘Khalif bin Zayed Air College’. “Al-Ain Aerobatics Airshow 2006” was expected by many observers, foremost because of well-announced participation of many aerobatic teams from foreign air-forces, but also because of the large presence that was announced to be put up by the United Arab Emirates Air Defence Force (UAEADF). Georg Mader, the Austrian correspondent of Jane's Defence Weekly, below provides some summary and photographs, of what could be seen during this event - in reality.
The show was held under the patronage of Gen. Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of UAE Armed Forces. It was flagged off by Sheikh Tahnoun bin Mohammed al-Nahyan, the Ruler's Representative in the Western Region, along with Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoun al-Nahyan, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA), in the presence of top government officials - after started with a minute of silence as a mark of respect to senior UAE-ruler Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashed al-Maktoum.
Nevertheless being a nice event and beside total cancellation of all flying on Saturday due to Sandstorms (it was therefore simply extended by Monday - with almost no public), al-Ain did not fulfil high expectations - especially from the military point of view.
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The show was overshadowed by the crash of a brand-new UAEADF F-16E ‘Fighting Falcon’ fighter, only three days before opening. The pilot ejected unhurt. The UAEADF’s Commander MjrGen. Khalid Al Buainain however did not – as one might expect – cancel their ‘Block 60’s participation, although their flying was minimal Led by Captain Khamis, the new F-16s made two over flights only, in unchanged 4-ship formation - BUT only on the initial days of the show!
The same can be said about two fly-bys by four Mirages 2000/9 from the 86th FTS at Al Dhafra. Also there was no Mirage solo-display, contrary to what was announced in the daily schedule.
The highlight of the day was for sure a stunning and brave 8-minute display by a UAE-Army AH-64A. The pilot served in last years UAE’s ‘Apache’-detachment in the Kosovo. A display by a UAE-Special forces ‘Chinnok’ was several times mentioned in some local papers (sometimes bare of knowledge named a ‘Chainsaw’-helicopter) – but in fact it was never even discussed…
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| Photo: Dr. Heinz Berger |
An UAEADF C-130 lifted around 70 civil parachutists for a Guiness-record free-fall attempt. Although this was not achieved on the first run, Nasir Hammod al-Nayadi performing a pinpoint landing in front of the VIPs, ‘flying’ a 15-metre long and 7.5-metre wide national flag of the UAE as his chute.
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UAEADFs BAe-Hawks were missing completely – at least on the two early days they were listed on the programme. A UAE-Army pilot later told the observer, that the Hawk-formation from the local Air College was once sent back to land because they were some minutes late! Well, as sometimes almost nothing on the scedule was happening the way it as listed – that hurts. Especially as landings from the opposite side one could not see from the showground…
As also the Indian and the Saudi-Team did not show up and – maybe the biggest drawback – a static display in front of the chalets and grandstands ONLY happened on the first day, most of military-related journalists returned home quite disappointed. The same frustration was reported to the observer by aircraft-manufacturers when visiting their chalets. Because of anyway spectacular wing-walking and world-record attempts of ribbon-cutting and –underflying by civil aerobatic-masters, the ramp was logically cleared of any aircrafts, normally parked in front of the little terraces. But the manufacturers paid – not too less - for their platforms presence while these Pitts and Extra-pilots were paid by the organizers...
For this reason, those arriving on the second out of five show days, could have seen only an Aeromacchi MB.339 and a PC-7 from close. They were parked behind the grandstands on the Air College’s display, together with mostly obsolete air-defence AAA, a Blowpipe-launcher and communication-sets.
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The only really interesting stand in this area was by the UAEADFs “UAV Research & Technology Center”, because there the Austrian eye spotted images and friendly personnel of the new Austrian built SCHIEBEL S-100 ‘Camcopter’ rotary-UAV. The type is now – reported soon as very promising – fresh in the inventory of the UAE-forces in an OEU-status. As almost nothing of the UAE-deal is heard of in the manufacturers ‘defence-neglected’ homeland, this was a nice chat, spiced by the UAE-personnel’s conviction that the superb S-100 would 100% be in Austrian service at home! The poor man was left mouth-open when told that in Austria there is only an ever unfulfilled ‘UAV-symbol’ in an organigram – and below 1% GDP on defence...
Another interesting rotary asset on site was this Minhad-based AB-412SP, one of only three airframes delivered to the UAEADF, two years ago. It was kept ready for SAR-duties during the show.
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Beside the lukewarm UAEADF-presence, warmly welcomed were good displays on nice jets by several other teams. The three L-29 ‘Delfin’ of the South African team 'Sasol Tigers' (sponsor SASOL is a syntetic fuel manufacturer, based on German “Hydrier”-technology of WWII) arrived in the UAE on Antonov-transporters coming from their base at Johannesburg. Before departing to the UAE, Leader Ralf Dominick, Martin van Straaten and Nigel Hopkins participated in several major events, such as the AFB Overberg Air Show, the 2005 Sasol WesBank Airtainment Tour at Ysterplaat Air Force Base last December, and a special flypast over a Shopping Centre in Umhlanga. The latter was a staged to the premiere of the IMAX movie, “Fighter Pilot - Operation Red Flag”. The striking paint-scheme on their L-29s was inspired by a ‘Tiger-Delfin’ done by the Czech AF in the early 90s. Two of the Delfins are ex-Bulgarian, one ex-Ukrainian AF trainers.
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| Photo: Dr. Heinz Berger |
France had another presence in the well-known ‘Breitling Jet Team’, flying on blue L-39s. Great as always were the five Sukhoi Su-27 from Kubinka’s ‘Russian Knights’, who hold the promise of entertaining the audience in an electrifying early-evening display by using hundreds of flares. Of course, Katsuhiko Tokunaga was in one of their –UBs, doing the pictures most of the participants would later use for PR…
PILATUS, the Swiss trainer-company, put on show its striking-red state-of-the-art turboprop training aircraft PC-21, which is its latest of the highly successful turboprop training-aircraft series, characterized by superb performance and competitive capacity. Wherever brandnew combat-jets are introduced, you can see pilots and aviation-journalists discussing if it is possible to convert to them on the high-tech equipped PC-21. Despite some commanders are sceptical because of the power, it will have its success…
The 3rd day of the Show had approximately 25.000 visitors, while the total number of visitors during the first three days of the Show surpassed 70.000. Most of them were for sure not touched by the military no-shows…
But maybe one should not forget that al-Ain was announced as an ‘Aerobatic Airshow’ and 23rd FAI Grand-Prix - and not as a military Air-Tattoo. Thus if you were just somebody’s guest and VIP-visitor - like the observer was this time - it was nevertheless a nice day in the desert with a picturesque scenery and audience and over 30 superb displays against a spectacular background – especially during the European winter. Al-Ain remains the only event of its kind in the world that is held at this time of the year due to the in forgiving weather conditions in (our) other countries that usually host such competitions.
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| An image from al-Ain show in 2005: unfortunately, hardly to match this time. (Photo: S. Rybasev) |
Results of al-Ain Aerobatic Show 2006 & 23rd FAI World Grand Prix
The al-Ain Aerobatic Show 2006 ended up on 16 January. At the closing ceremony, awards were distributed to the Winners of the 23rd FAI World Grand Prix and al-Ain 2006 Freestyle Aerobatic Trophy, and the final results were as follows:
Formation Teams/Jets:
1 – Russian Knights (Russia)
2 – Breitling Jet Team (France)
3 – Sasol Tigers (South Africa)
Formation Teams/Pistons:
1 – Royal Jordanian Falcons (Jordan)
2 – Mazda Zoom Zoom (South Africa)
Al-Ain 2006 Freestyle Aerobatic Trophy:
1 – Jurgis Kairys (Lithuania)
2 – Klaus Schrodt (Germany)
3 – Zoltan Veres (Hungary)
© Copyright 2002-3 by ACIG.org
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