Having missed the appearance of the Romanian MiG-21 LanceR at the 2013 edition of the Radom airshow, their renewed participation this year was a welcome reason for the author to set off again for the "Far East" of Poland, which thanks to new motorways and expressways is far less arduous to reach than before. As there was no time at the weekend, the Friday before the event was the ideal day for a visit, as the arrival of the LanceR was announced for the morning and the rehearsal for the display was to take place in the afternoon.
On arrival on Thursday evening the weather was still perfect, so that both the colourful French Rafale ...
... and the Spanish EC-120s shone in the evening sun.
On Friday morning nothing happened for a really long time, until the L-39s of the Baltic Bees were the first "real" aircraft in the air.
The two LanceR from Mihail Kogălniceanu came earlier than announced and made two flypasts as a pair.
After the accompanying C-27 had landed first, ...
... the two LanceR also floated in. Unfortunately, no other aircraft had landed before, so there was no opportunity to look for an optimal photo position. The results ...
... were therefore only mediocre.
With the following Belgian F-16 there was then no problem at all – probably also because the author's pulse stays calm with anything that is not called MiG-21.
The rehearsal for the Polish Air Force flypast then took place under increasingly heavy cloud. Nevertheless, formations in the sky are always a great sight, whether they consist of SW-4, ...
... Mi-2, ...
... W-3, ...
... Mi-8, ...
... Mi-24 ...
... C-295 or ...
... C-130.
The real highlights, however, are of course the combat aircraft, of which Poland has three types in its inventory with the Su-22, ...
... the MiG-29 ...
... and the F-16.
The PZL-130s flying behind them did not really stand out afterwards.
The red and white Iskras of the aerobatic team of the same name had opened the flypast and – unlike most participants – then landed on the airfield.
Afterwards there were also Iskras solo ...
... and again as a team (although only the soloist can be seen here).
The MiG-21 rehearsal was scheduled for the late afternoon, and the time until then passed only slowly with unspectacular solo displays.
Only the Patrouille Suisse ...
... and above all the Frecce Tricolori, which "fill the sky" like no other aerobatic team, ...
... provided some entertainment, but also a lot of smoke in front of the lens.
When the announced time for the MiG-21 display had long passed and the aircraft – to the at least partial reassurance of the author – was already waiting at the edge of the runway, the simulated bomb drops of a Su-22 ...
... and an F-16 darkened the sky.
The result: grey LanceR against a grey sky, ...
... sometimes with grey wisps of smoke in front. Nevertheless, it was nice to see Gheorghe GICA Stancu circling his aircraft on full afterburner, and so the long journey was worth it after all.
