The
50th anniversary of the F-104 Starfighter and the last year
of active service within the Italian Air Force (Aeronautica
Militaria Italiana - AMI) were the reason for an axcellent
airshow at Pratica di Mare during the Pentecost weekend.
Many enthusiast travelled the long way to the airbase that
is located just south of Rome and is the home of the test
facilities of the AMI. Besides the hardcore enthusiats (some
even came from Japan to Italy) and the families and visitors
that just wanted to have a nice day out a lot of former
One-O-Four pilots gathered as well to celebrate their famous
plane.
The AMI is the only airforce that is still flying the Starfighter
in the F-104S ASA-M version, nicknamed "Spillone"
(great sting). However the number of airworthy jets is decreasing
rapidly as October, 31st 2004 will mark the day of the last
flight of the Spillone.
Today about 20 F-104 are still flying and the AMI did their
best to bring as many Starfighters in the air as possible
during that week-end.
The Air Show
Of
course not only F-104s could be seen in the air that week-end.
A lot of aircraft of the AMI were performing a flight
display (Eurofighter, Tornado IDS, F-16A, AMX, C-130J, Piaggio
Avanti) as well as jets from other countries (Belgian and
Dutch F-16, Swiss F-18 Hornet and the Patrouille Suisse)
but the main focus of interest was for sure on the Starfighters:
An impressive line-up of 9 Spillones on the flightline
was a sight that might never be seen again. When all of
them started up their engines and the good old J-79, especially
of the TF-104G-M began howling, one felt being taken back
in time. But that was already after the first highlight
of the day: a formation fly-by consisting of a F-104,
an F.3 Tornado, an F-16A ADF and a Eurofighter, representing
past, present and future of the Italian Air Defence.
Shortly afterwards the 9 F-104s took-off and left a smoketrail
on the horizon that could still be seen quite a while afterwards.
2 fly-bys in a diamond formation followed with the 3 special
colored Starfighters in the middle (the red one in Ducati
colors of the 9° Stormo, he blue TF-104G of the 4°
Stormo and the elegant black one). But the Starfighter had
also twice the possibility to show what they can: fast fly-bys
and sheer climb capability. Very interesting to see the
Eurofighter display in contrast to this!
To conclude the show the Frecce Tricolori took of
and filled the blue Italian sky with smoke in the national
colors green-white-red. As a final surprise the escorted
the red 9-99 Starfighter after their display along the flightline,
which zoomed off into the sky after the second fly-by. In
order to perform a really fast fly-by, that caught many
by surprise. Including me...
The Static Display
In
addition to this fantastic flight display a lot of colourful
Italian helicopters were in the static display, as well
as nearly all aircraft of the AMI from the AMX to the Breguet
Atlantique. Foreign participation was sparse, but
included nevertheless interesting examples like Turkish
RF-4E, the German s/c MiG-29 and a Hungarian Mi-17 and Mi-24.
A good start of the year, many of the following shows
in 2004 will have difficulties to outperform this show [besides
some organisational problems, but that's another story...]!!
!! Farewell One-O-Four !!
