Sola Airshow 2024
Sola-Stavanger, 15-16 June 2024
Playing Danger Zone at an airshow is tedious and shows lack of creativity, and is just as annoying as playing Thunderstruck through a mediocre sound system. Sola Airshow did both. Was there anything to enjoy? Let’s find out.
Sola is located near the city of Stavanger, in southern Norway. It’s easy to get to thanks to a busy international airport, which is also the location for the Sola Airshow, Norway’s largest airshow in 2024.
Like much of Europe, Norway was struggling with unseasonable weather in June, with lots of rain, strong winds and cold temperatures, hardly ideal for an airshow! The show is spread over two days, with Sunday perhaps even worse off. Saturday was quite wet, especially at the start, but Sunday saw very strong crosswinds leading to the cancellation of several display items. Some participants already hadn’t ventured down to Sola on account of the weather, so particularly on Sunday morning, flying was very sparse.
With a show at a busy international airport, fitting displays in is always a challenge and the programme was very gappy as a result, with up to 45 minutes between acts to allow for regular airport traffic.
The location of the airshow was an apron to the south of the airport’s main runway. The main runway also served as the display line for most acts, except the Royal Air Force Red Arrows who thought better than to perform over the passenger terminal, instead using an alternative axis to the far left of the public area.
The static display on the apron included some airframes from the nearby historic aviation museum and visitors could get on board most of the static display aircraft, with hardly any barriers around the aircraft. There were a few sales stands, though they were very sparse, as were catering stands, leading to massive queues.
The flying display was quite varied with a nice selection of Norwegian classic aircraft and modern aircraft from Scandinavia and a bit further afield. The French air force Rafale proved particularly popular throughout the weekend, as was the Danish air force’s F-16 solo display, the latter’s display pilot being very accessible and chatty to the audience after his display.
Getting to and from the show with public transport was quite easy with public transport from either the airport or Stavanger and this was a popular option for many visitors. This means it’s very easy to combine the show with a weekend at the lovely city of Stavanger. Don’t expect a full day of action, but if you go to the event with the right expectations, you can certainly enjoy some acts that rarely venture outside Norway’s borders.
