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12th NATO Days in Ostrava

The weekend of 22nd-23rd September in Czech Republic was definitely a big event for all military aviation enthusiasts. At the Ostrava airport we could attend the 12th edition of NATO Days and Czech Air Force Days.

Although the event was planned for two days life allowed me to attend the show only on the second day. I hope I used all the time I had with maximum efficiency. After coming back home I found few hundred photographs in my camera. Some of them were unusable as blured, unfocused or badly croped but thankfull some of them were good enough to be published here.

On the pictures on thie and next page you will be able to see some just part of all dynamic and static presentations which could be seen in Ostrava.

Just to put you in the picture what you find there: dynamic presentation of Luftwaffe Eurofighter, a pair of Czech Mi-17 supported by Mi-24 showing „real action” of landing troops, action of two Polish Su-22M4 against ground AA systems, a show of two French Mirages 2000 and fly-by's of B-52 (this beast is really huge). This are shots from this page.

Second page gallery begins with a great performance of RAF Red Arrows – these guys really deserves their reputation. Their show was a really strong point in the day schedule. What else? Another good dynamic display was an action of Polish Police Mi-8 helicopter with SPAP (in free translation: Independent Antiterrorist Team of Police) which is detached to Police HQ of Silesian District. Next in the air we could see RAF Tucano Display Team followed by Netherland F-16 Demo Team in an eye-catching organge F-16 with Captain Stefan "Stitch" Hutten on the pilot seat.

There was also an all-silver B-25 Mitchel, both on the static display and dynamic display, but I find it difficult right now to place it in time however I still hear two Wright engines at full speed on take off.

Organizer have prepared a lot of ground displays with the stands of many NATO air forces. There were Poles, Romanians, Hungarians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Americans, German, Slovakians, Norwegians, Welsh, Swedes (although not yet in NATO). For just one day that's more than enough so see. If you will only have an opportunity next year you can't miss this show.