Ramon van Opdorp ( Scorpion Aviation Photography) reports on the Meeting de l'Air held at Colmar in France, featuring the Turkish Stars.

On the 18th of June an airshow was organized by the Base Aérienne 132 at Colmar, located in the northeast of France on close distance of the Swiss border, in the same weekend of the large Leeuwarden open door days of the RNLAF. With some great weather and some very nice participants invited for the show, the show was looking very promising. However some of the participants made some last minute cancellations, which included a RAF Jaguar, the French “Cartouche Doré”, a French A-1 Skyraider, the Turkish Pitts S2S "Purple Violet", Asas de Portugal and some more smaller participants. Arriving at the base around 14:00 hrs, after a traffic jam of almost two hours, the airshow was already in full swing.

With a temperature of 35 degrees Celsius and the sun right in your face from 12:00 till sun down, not the best conditions for photography. The airshow was performed all the time straight into the sun. When the several display teams performed their splits, loops and inverted flights, this made it difficult to see and even more difficult to make a descent photograph. Also the distance of most of the solo display teams was double the distance when compared to other airshows, which made photographing (with a 200/F2.8 lens and a 1.4X converter) nearly impossible for the solo display of the Belgium F-16, French Mirage 2000C and the Super Puma of Switzerland.

For the flying display, rare for Western Europe, the Turkish stars were invited for the flying display in the Colmar show. They performed a very nice and new display of both the whole team and the two solo aircraft, in their former RNLAF NF-5 Freedom Fighters. Also nice to see and always very nice to hear was the display of the Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress from the Association Forteresse Toujours Volante.

A great line-up was formed of all the participants in the flying display, where you could photograph all the “live” aircraft without fences, people and other obstacles. The static show aircraft however were completely build in with fences, stairs and equipment. Which made photographing of a special coloured Mirage F-1 and the “Turkish Stars” support C-130 Hercules impossible. The 2002 edition of this airshow had the static aircrafts positioned much better and with more distance between each one. Overall it was a nice airshow, although with some minor disappointments.

Special thanks to the Communications Officer and the whole organisation of the Colmar airshow.