The Aviation Magazine 51 July-August 2017 | Page 106
On April 30th the only appearance of Patrouille de France in a Canadian air show was scheduled to cele‐
brate Canada's 150 years of Confederation, and to reinforce the historic bond between Canada and
France, which was strengthened during the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917, and subsequently on the
ground, in the air and at sea during the Second World War.
Saturday April 29, was designated for the media only (mostly just photographers, I might add). The media
was restricted to the Vintage Wings ramp from 9 to noon, due to Transport Canada, because it was an
active airport, funny not even one civilian flew in or took off, but go figure. Only during the military au‐
thority from noon to 3 pm we were able to go to the designated media area and take photos of the ongo‐
ing practice activities. Eventually we had "group" static visit, which was far from satisfactory to take good
images from different angles of the static aircraft, which included surprisingly 2 RAF Eurofighter Typhoon
FGR4s, who flew up from Langley AFB, from their joint Atlantic Trident Exercise with the FAF, RAF and
USAF. It would have been better to send the much better looking and interesting FAF Dassault Rafale in‐
stead than the RAF multi‐role fighters. It was a very windy, cold but at least a sunny day.
For Sunday the public day, the weather turned nasty. It was overcast with ugly grey cloud cover and only 3
Celsius. And that was just after the gates opened to the public. The wind picked up and around 9:30 am, ice
pellets started to fall. Then the rain started too, it was on and off with varying severity. Over all it was just
plain miserable: damp, windy and cold, far from being an ideal weather for an air show. Personally, I have
been at 150+ air shows over the years and by far this was the nastiest.
Around 10:30 am the first 3 PAF Alpha Jets arrived from the Air Tattoo at Norfolk, Virginia, on their way back
to France, and landed quickly in the pouring rain. Shortly after their arrival the Chinook arrived from CFB Pet‐
awawa too. Right on the schedule at 11:30 the Airbus A400M arrived bringing in the rest of the nonperform‐
ing crew and staff of the FAF. It performed an impressive extremely short landing for such a large aircraft and
just about turned on a dime on the runway as it taxied slowly into the "hot zone". This was the first time that
the A400M Atlas been seen at an air show in Canada, even if it was just a static in the "hot zone". It is inter‐
esting to note that the A400M has 4 counter rotating 8 blade propellers. The two engines closest to the body
rotate towards the wing tips and the two outside engines rotate towards the body. Shortly after the A400M's
arrival in groups of three the other Alpha Jets landed too. At noon the Sky Hawks Parachute Team took of in
the Chinook and opened the show, despite the cold, messy mix of rain and ice pellets. The first jumper had a
large French tricolor flag.
The Snowbirds flew next, despite the weather they did a good show for the cheering crowds, who had to be
truly dedicated to put up with the miserable weather. After the Snowbirds, a pair of CT‐155 Hawks took off
just around 2 pm. Around 3:15 pm, PAF eventually flew but only performed a “low show” due to the pouring
rain. PAF performed together with the Snowbirds of a flyby on Monday over the Parliament buildings and
then continued to Montreal, and back to CFB Bagotville. However, there