The main attraction for most of the crowd that gathered at aerodrome Maribor, had to be the performance of Royal Air Force Red Arrows aerobatic team. Flying the nine BAe Hawk T.1 jet trainers, the team is arguably the best in the world.
Category: Slovenia
On Friday, 3rd June 2011, airshow called Aviofun 2011 was held at Maribor airport in NE part of Slovenia. Organized by Slovenj Gradec based Aviofun private aviation company it was meant to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Slovenian Air Force and hence the slogan 20 flights for 20 years. Airshow promissed a lot but unfortunately things were not smooth and the last minute cancellations of DB-5 and Croatian MiG-21 removed two very interesting displays from the list of participants. I managed to get the press photo accreditation but unfortunately due to total mess in organizations and some irrational decisions I remained in the crowd and tried to enjoy the programme as much as I could. Unfortunately as has happened before, and this airshow was no exception, it is of utter importance to make the airshow last 8hrs – it’s ok at RIAT but not here with such a small list of participating aircraft… Why not make a 4 hour airshow and that one packed with nice flying displays without pauses? And of course Mother Nature had her own plans for that fateful Friday and supplied all kinds of weather – from bright sunshine to heavy downpour; and everything in between and thus making photography quite challenging.
Anyway here’s the first part of my report – some of the civilian aircraft on display
Yesterday, 22nd March 2011, Russian Prime Minister arrived to Slovenia for a formal visit (with Gazprom representatives you can imagine what was the main topic). Anyhow every time an interesting bird flies into the small Slovenia, aviation enthusiasts and spotters gather behind the fence of Ljubljana airport (LJU/LJLJ). I don’t like shooting photos of the flying “buses” (ie. airliners) as they are too boring and predictable for my style of photography but as a big Soviet/Russian aviation fan and as I had a day off work, it would be a sin to miss an opportunity to catch the Rossiya 1, Russian equvivalent of the US Air Force 1. All in all, 5 aircraft flew in for this event: transporter Il-76TM, 2x Tu-154M, Gazprom Falcon bussiness jet and last but not least, the presidental Ilyushin Il-96. Below is the photo story of yesterdays event. View full article »
