Airshow report: Kecskemét 2007

[Joe Kurr]

Last weekend I visited the airshow at Kecskemét Airbase in Hungary, together with Wasserfall and Munir.

Early friday morning we took the train to Brussels Airport, where our flight to Budapest would depart later that day.

 

 

The flight itself was uneventful, and less than two hours later we bounced over the runway in Budapest.

The landing was less than perfect, we made one or two jumps before the plane finally settled down.

 

At the airport there are buses which take you from the aircraft to the gate, a distance of about 50 meters.

 

 

At first we planned to rent a car in Budapest, but this proved to be twice as expensive as was advertised on the Internet, so we decided to use the public transport instead.

This proved to be quite a challenge, as the departure schedules at the train stations only state when a train will depart, but not the platform.

This information is only announced over the speakers, and since we only know one or two words Hungarian, we couldn't understand what the announcer was talking about.

Most of our fellow travellers didn't speak English or German either, but we made it to our destination, without getting lost.

 

When we arrived at Cegléd Station, the next step was to find out how to get to our camping.

A taxi was the best option to travel the last seven kilometers, and we arrived at the camping a few minutes later.

 

 

Saturday morning started off cloudy, but warm, and the rain thad had fallen during a very heavy nightly thunderstorm was all gone.

We found out that there was a train station some 10 minutes from our camping, where we departed to Kecskemét for our first day at the airshow.

 

 

At the train station in Kecskemét there were buses which took us to the airfield.

We decided to concentrate on the static show on saturday, and find a nice spot along the runway on sunday.

One nice thing about Hungarian airbases is that they park stored aircraft everywhere, like this nice line up of L-39ZO Albatroses.

 

 

A little further back on a platform behind the Albatroses were a MiG-29 and two Mi-8 helicopters hidden under a camouflage net.

I guess they didn't want us to see these aircraft.

 

 

Somewhat further on we came across this SA-6 installation, with several vehicles we recognized from Lockon.

 

 

The Hungarians also preserve old aircraft, like this Mil Mi-1 helicopter, and the Yak-11 behind it.

There was also a Polikarpov Po-2, but it was too crowded to take some decent pictures of that plane.

 

 

There were several brand-new hangars, which will house the JAS-39A Gripens the Hungarians have leased to replace their MiG-29s.

One of these hangars was occupied by the RAF with two of the four Harriers and two Tornados in front of it.

 

 

Another hangar was used to display several aircraft parts, such as a K-36D ejection seat and an RD-33 jet engine.

 

 

Inside there was a MiG-29B, where we were allowed inside the cockpit.

 

 

The K-36D is rather comfortable, and a MiG-29 is a lot more spacious than a MiG-21.

 

On both days the closing act was a race between a Red Bull F1 car and an Edge-540, Bell AH-1 Cobra and a MiG-29UB.

The F1 team was there with two cars, one of which was Vitantonio Liuzzi's Toro Rosso.

 

 

In the afternoon we found a spot along the runway to see some flying activities.

There were some demoteams which I had never seen before, one of which was Krila Oluje from Croatia, flying with five PC-9Ms.

 

 

Peter Besenyei was also present with his Edge-540, flying a stunning 10 minute aerobatics routine.

 

 

The Turkish Stars also flew a nice demo, accompanied by their very funny commentator.

 

 

The Hungarian national airline Malév sent a Boeing 737-600 which preformed some flyby's on both days.

The first flyby was a practice approach with the gear down, at about 5 meters above the runway.

The second was a high speed run (about 500 or 600 km/h) with the gear up, flying at about 8 meters altitude.

 

 

The Turkish Stars brought their special red and white C-130 Hercules with them, and allowed us inside to take a few pictures.

We had a chat with one of the crewchiefs in there, who proudly told they had been at Volkel two months ago, when he heard we were from the Netherlands.

 

 

End of part one, I will post the rest of this report in the evening when I'm finished sorting the pictures from Sunday.

[192nd_Erdem]

Nice one. SA-6 looks really "strong" and Turkish Stars picture is very nice :)

[Pilotasso]

Cool! ANy pics from inside the fast jets?

[TorwaK]

The Turkish Stars also flew a nice demo, accompanied by their very funny commentator.

 

 

The Turkish Stars brought their special red and white C-130 Hercules with them, and allowed us inside to take a few pictures.

We had a chat with one of the crewchiefs in there, who proudly told they had been at Volkel two months ago, when he heard we were from the Netherlands.

 

Hi Joe!

 

Can I get these photos with high resoulution please? You can upload them to imageshack than send me the links by PM. Thank you for all photos which you shared here, if you've more please send them. Rep inbound! :D

[jonob66]

The photos are excellent. Looked Like a great Airshow. :thumbup:

 

rep inbound..

[4c Hajduk Veljko]

Last weekend I visited the airshow at Kecskemét Airbase in Hungary, ...

Did you by any chance take pictures of Serbian military airplanes?

[Joe Kurr]

Cool! ANy pics from inside the fast jets?

 

No, unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside those cockpits.

 

Did you by any chance take pictures of Serbian military airplanes?

 

Yes, the Serbian airforce were there with a J-22 Orao and a G-4 Super Galeb.

I will post pictures of those two aircraft in part two of my report :)

 

The Orao did some extremely low passes, the lowest at about 1 meter altitude.

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of that pass, as it was too low and too fast, so my camera couldn't focus.

[Xealot]

At first we planned to rent a car in Budapest, but this proved to be twice as expensive as was advertised on the Internet, so we decided to use the public transport instead.

This proved to be quite a challenge, as the departure schedules at the train stations only state when a train will depart, but not the platform.

This information is only announced over the speakers, and since we only know one or two words Hungarian, we couldn't understand what the announcer was talking about.

Most of our fellow travellers didn't speak English or German either, but we made it to our destination, without getting lost.

 

 

Funny, We had the exactly same problem when we went to budapest last year (Me and my family)

[TucksonSonny]

Wow, nice event!

Rep points send… :thumbup:

[159th_Viper]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excellent :D

 

Awesome Pics - Looking Forward to Part II :)

[centermass]

Cool pics and story. Thanks for sharing.

[4c Hajduk Veljko]

Yes, the Serbian airforce were there with a J-22 Orao and a G-4 Super Galeb.

I will post pictures of those two aircraft in part two of my report :)

 

The Orao did some extremely low passes, the lowest at about 1 meter altitude.

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of that pass, as it was too low and too fast, so my camera couldn't focus.

I thank you very much.

[59th_Bird]

A short correction. The Hungarian Gripen's name is JAS-39EBS HU(Export Basic Standard for Hungary). The aircraft body is brand new, the wings came from the A version, the avionics came from the C/D version. The planes have air-to-air refuelling capability.

Some videos and pictures about the practice of the air show's opening ceremony:

 

http://www.cougar.hu/downloads/LHKE_20070801.wmv

http://www.cougar.hu/downloads/LHKE20070802.zip

[Joe Kurr]

Funny, everyone at the airshow called them JAS-39A, although I did notice the refuelling probe, which I had never seen before on a Gripen.

[59th_Bird]

Funny, everyone at the airshow called them JAS-39A, although I did notice the refuelling probe, which I had never seen before on a Gripen.

 

Yeah, it's really funny, because all the SAAB's announcements consequently call them JAS-39 C/D... :)

[Joe Kurr]

As promised, part 2 of my report.

 

Sunday morning started off with quite a bit of rain, so we decided to wait a bit and eventually arrived at the airshow arount 10:30.

At that time it had stopped raining, and the clouds were breaking.

Due to the weather the show had been altered a bit, so we could still see the opening flypasts.

On Saturday we had already seen that the Hungarians like to show off their flying skills, which resulted in this very nice formation of two An-26s, which couldn't have been closer to eachother.

 

 

The Mi-24 'Golden Hind' also gave a stunning demo...

 

 

... with lots of flares at the end!

 

 

There were several aircraft at the airshow which were new to us, like this Serbian Soko G-4 Super Galeb, which seems to have a lot in common with the BAe Hawk.

 

 

Unfortunately, the Dutch demo F-16 J-055 was broken, so the team brought two standard gray F-16s instead.

The routine was the same however, with some nice flare drops.

Unfortunately my pictures of the demo weren't as good as I expected, so I only have a picture of him taxiing back to the flightline.

 

 

The Belgian Solo Display also had a problem, they had brought the FA-101 with 1Sqn Stingers anniversary paint as their spare aircraft.

 

 

This Swedish Gripen pilot was very satisfied with his routine :)

 

 

The Hungarian MiG-29 demoteam had a completely new routine for this year, which unfortunately might be their last ever, since the MiG-29s will be replaced by Gripens.

 

 

Unfortunately the routine didn't include a Cobra, but the MiG did perform a tailslide, and dropped a nice trail of flares.

 

 

Sunday afternoon we found a nice spot along the fence, right in front of the Patrouille de France.

This gave us the opportunity to see the entire preparation for their demo, and take some very nice pictures of them.

 

 

Meanwhile, other aircraft taxied by, like this Jak-11.

 

 

One of the highlights for us was this Serbian J-22 Orao, which we had never seen before.

 

 

Zoltбn Veres flew a very spectacular, although at some points rather dangerous, demo routine with his Extra-330.

Several times he almost touched the ground, and even flew straight at the crowd at only a few meters above the ground, which looked really scary.

 

 

Just like on Saturday, Peter Besenyei took on the challenge of racing a Red Bull Formula 1 car, with Hungarian race driver Lбszlу Palik behind the wheel.

 

 

Palik also raced a MiG-29UB, where the MiG pilot tried his best to stay behind the car.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of these runs themselves, because our view of the runway was obstructed by two C-160 Transalls and ten Alpha Hets.

After the show we waited for the MiG-29 to land, and take some pictures of it while it taxied back to the flight line.

 

 

After that we set off to the exit, when this An-2 surprised us with some very low flypasts over the crowd area.

We estimate its last flyby to have been at about 20 meters off the ground.

 

 

Time flies when you're having fun, and this weekend went by way too fast.

Monday morning we had to get up early and take the train back to Budapest.

After some problems with the passengers list, the plane finally left to Brussels.

Just after take-off, we made a wide turn over Budapest, which resulted in this last picture.

 

 

Click here to see all pictures

 

All in all this airshow trip was a success, and I'm thinking about doing this more often.

Now let's see what's on the airshow list next year...

[TorwaK]

Joe it looks like you had very nice trip there, I envy you. Please inform me about your next travel project like that by PM please.

[Kuky]

Thanks very much for the photos...

 

these three aircraft bring some memories back...

 

 

[159th_Viper]

Thanx for Sharing :thumbup:

[59th_LeFty]

MAN, YOU'RE GOOD! AWESOME PICS!!!

 

Pilots thanks for the really good Fulcrum pictures! If someone knows the Slovak albatros pilot, please slap ont the back for THAT My personal favourite, in line at the end dof the rwy :D (it was VERY-VERY CLOSE to the fence and ILS antennae, 1,5m max) The Orao and the Belgian F-16 had also proved alike. No pics unfortunately:( Serbian pilots were very good, the aerobatic team, the supergaleb and the Orao performed excellent shows! We hope they come next time!

[TorwaK]

More shots from Kecskemét 2007... Turkish Stars. :pilotfly:

 

 

 

[Kuky]

geees Torwak... those are some great shots too :) (and flying :D)

[TorwaK]

Thanks Kuky... I'm sad because of I missed an air show like that beautiful.

[159th_Viper]

Stunning Pics TorwaK - Straight to Desktop :D

[wasserfall]

Here are some more shot's from Kesckemet, i was there with Joe Kurr and Munir.

 

For the Serbian Airforce fan's:)

The J-22 was flying so low that we thought it would end up in a pile of smoke!!

 

 

J-22 Orao

 

 

 

And the last one

 

 

 

Serbian Hero

 

 

 

Speaking of low flying!!

 

 

 

Mmmmm. this head is looking very familiar to me

 

 

 

Close

 

 

 

Closer

 

 

Clo..........!!!Run!!

 

 

 

My favorite plane the Mig29

 

 

 

 

 

Not very sharp, but nice vapour

 

 

 

At last in the Mig29 cockpit, and i do fit in (1,97m)