Turkish Air Force Centenary

Izmir, 4-5 June 2011

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The airshow at Izmir Cigli was a rare opportunity for the Turkish air force to present its hardware to the masses. Apart from the Turkish air force, there were plenty of foreign star items, with plenty of display teams and among the cream of solo displays were 2 by the Pakistani air force.

Display teams at the show were Team Iskry from Poland, Patrulla Aguila from Spain, Krila Oluje from Croatia, Frecce Tricolori from Italy, Patrouille de France, The British Red Arrows and the United States Air Force Thunderbirds, in addition to the Turkish air force’s Turkish Stars. This was also the first major show for the Turkish F-16 solo display ‘Solotürk’.

Sadly, the Turkish inventory flypast was only performed on Saturday, as this was one of the major highlights of the show and a prime reason to head to Turkey for foreign visitors, though it also proved immensely popular with the homecrowd.

Other aircraft at the show were Ali Ozturk with his Purple Violet, a former Turkish air force T-34 Mentor, Austrian Saab 105, Italian Typhoon, C-27 Spartan and AMX, Romanian IAR-99 and of course the Belgian and Dutch F-16 displays, in addition to the aforementioned solo displays by the Pakistani air force.

The static display also provided quite some rare aircraft, most notably from Pakistan, Jordan and Bulgaria.

The show was blessed with gorgeous weather, a scorching sun, though dust from extended drought was a problem for photographers. Security was another issue at the show however with thousands of people crossing the crowd line, and worse still, getting on the taxy way when Soloturk passed by. The showground was also very noisy due to extremely loud music and overenthusiastic Turkish commentators, driving the crowd to such unacceptable actions.

Still, a memorable show with plenty of rare, exotic hardware.