When the ‘little’ worldfamous airshow of Sanicole is celebrating it’s 40th anniversary you can expect a pretty good airshow…but it’s always a really good airshow, so how do you celebrate in style? To make it a super brilliant airshow of course! Needless to say that the photoflights would be set at the same level.

We were looking forward to return to Yeovilton, as we enjoy a superb corporation with the Royal Navy and the airshow team. Unfortunately one of our main targets – the sole flying Sea Vixen in the world – made a belly landing just weeks before the airshow, and so ended a dream of many photographers to see this magnificent aircraft air to air.

The other target that everyone wanted was an ultra rare species of a white Tiger! Since the French Marine was host of the TigerMeet in june of this year, one of their Rafales was adorned with a superhot tigerschedule and we were waiting for them of course along the great coastal area. The Rafales did not disappoint, and gave us two incredible photo join-ups.

Open the gates of aviation paradise…and let your memorycards be filled with superb shots of participating aircraft, teams and helicopters….welcome to RIAT 2017! Where do we begin with such a giant program of all incredible aircraft posing for us, one after the other….well, we were airborne for 16+ hours just for the photos!

Just like RIAT for military airshows, the word ‘Sanicole’ echoes home of one of thé best civilian airshows in the entire world. Each year again, the little worldfamous airfield in Belgium present an airshow of superb quality, with some unique participants.

As Sanicole is also the place where we shaped the success of the Aviation PhotoCrew, our longtime partnership for the air to air photomissions are a guaranteed success.

RIAT, Royal International Air Tattoo…..does this airshow really needs an introduction? Well if you don’t know, it is the worlds biggest and most famous military airshow!

With our Aviation PhotoCrew, we were more than priviledged to fly the photomissions, and for our preparations we teamed up with our friends from COAP.

Yeovilton Air Station is the primary airbase for the Royal Navy, host for the annual Air Day. It’s a major airshow in Europe with participants from many different countries, and what’s special about the Air Day is that they manage to attract each year a few aircraft that are absolutely unique. Continuing our solid corporation from previous year, the Aviation PhotoCrew hosted a team of photographers joining us for the naval adventures.

The Aviation PhotoCrew was privileged to have for the first time an extensive corporation with the Danish Air Force, on the occasion of their bi-annual airshow. The location was their main fighter base Skrydstrup, we would fly the Skyvan photoship from the nearby Sonderborg airfield. The photo area we had chosen was along the coastline, to include some of the beautiful backdrop Denmark has to offer.

2016 Marked the last year for a very large airshow in Dutch airspace, as the Air Force will only host a new airshow once every two, three years. So this edition of the ‘Open Dagen’ was certainly one where the public would have a blast with the offered program. Thé highlight of course was the first presentation of the Lockheed F-35, not the ugly mock-up, but the first two real aircraft who flew over from the USA. And so we were ready and excited to fly the Skyvan photoship to catch up with them!!

On May 16th, the Belgian Air Force presented their demonstration teams for the upcoming Airshow season. Three teams were showcased at the Beauvechain Air Base, the “Red Devils”, “A-109 Display Team” and the “F-16 Solo Display Team”.

In 2016, the Belgian Air Force Days took place at Florennes AB over the weekend of June 25-26. During the event the 70th anniversary of the Belgian Air Force was celebrated. The organization attracted a lot of participating aircraft to the show coming from all over Europe.

Wittmund Air Base in Northern Germany is home of the famous Taktisches Lufftwaffengeschwader 71 “Richthofen” Squadron. Since the retirement of the F-4 Phantoms in 2013, the Squadron successfully transitioned to the Eurofighter. The base also houses a detachment of Discovery Air Defence, a company specialized in providing military training services. They operate a fleet of seven A-4N Skyhawks contracted to the German Air Force, Army and Navy.

Konya Air Base in Central Turkey is well know being the home of the national demonstration team “Turkish Stars” and being the host of the “Anatolian Eagle” exercise. The international Anatolian Eagle 2016-2 exercise was organized from May 30th- June 10. During the exercise two missions were flown every day with one morning wave and an afternoon wave, each with up to 60 aircraft involved in the exercise. The exercise was attended by 7 participating Forces; Turkish Air Force, Turkish Navy, Italian Air Force, Royal Netherland Air Force, Pakistan Air Force, Royal Saudi Arabian Air Force and NATO.

The 2016 edition of the EAC Convention took place at Malta. The annual convention was held from March 3-5.

As usual the actual convention started on Friday with the introductions and opening address by EAC Executive, Charles Skiera and EAC Chairman, Gilbert Buekenberghs. The more than 200 guests (a record) were then welcomed by the minister of tourism and aviation, Edward Zammit Lewis.

2015 saw the Vulcan XH558 flying it’s very last Airshow season. Since 2007 the mighty AVRO Vulcan returned to the Airshow scene thanks to the great effort made by the Vulcan to the Sky Trust and the thousands of people who supported the project. Dubbed “The Spirit of Great-Britain”, she safely flew 250 Hrs in the skies above Great Britain, showing her grace to millions of people. During the past years, the Vulcan really impressed and was a highlight on every Airshow she visited, it was called the “Vulcan-Effect”. The Aviation-PhotoCrew was honored to fly several times with the Vulcan, and 2015 we had the great pleasure to fly with here on three unique occasions.

The USAF Heritage Flight Foundation provides 40–60 annual demonstrations at events ranging from open houses and airshows to sporting events, parades and funerals. Heritage Flights seek to honor the contributions of every man and woman who has served in the USAF while educating the general public on the importance of the USAF and its mission.

The 2016 Heritage Flight Training and Certification Course took place at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson (Arizona), March 3-6. The qualification course provides the civilian and military pilots the opportunity to safely fly in formation to prepare for their upcoming airshow season.

Our plan was to do a helicopter flight with the famous FlyNYON. early in the week. This way we could see the ball drop on Times Square on new years eve. Thing turned out differently!