Sentry Aviation News-Beauvechain airshow

Beauvechain airshow

The annual airshow in Belgium was held on the airbase of Beauvechain/Bevekom (ICAO: EBBE, Basis Luitenant-kolonel “Charles Roman”) near Brussels. The Beauvechain Airshow 2010 was a 2 day event on Saturday July 03rd and Sunday July 04th 2010, with a spottersday during the arrival on Friday 02nd.
The base of Beauvechain became operational in 1946 as air defense base with 2 Spitfire squadrons, followed by Spitfire, Harvard, Oxford, Mosquito, Gloster Meteor, CF100, Hawker Hunter, T-33, RF84F, F-104G ‘Starfighter’ and the F-16. Mid 1990’s the role changed into a trainingbase when the SF260 Marchetti’s, Fouga Magisters and AlphaJets were located there. In 2010 the helicopters from Liege will be relocated to Beauvechain airbase.

The airshow of 2010 was favored by good weather on Sunday but the organization had some "teething problems". This was the first time that a commercial company organized the airshow, previously the Belgium Defense Force organized the airshows. The aviation enthousiasts complained about the high(er) prices and the problems with the organization of the parkings, the refreshments and the toilets. There were also complaints about the dynamic part of the airshow because it was a bit far away to be photographed adequately. Visitors of the spottersday on Friday got their money reimbursed due to the "teething problems" of the organization and photographing possibilities. Hopefully the organization will learn and improve for future airsows.

The theme of the airshow was the presidency of Belgium of the European Council and 1 F-16 had the flags of the European Council countries on it’s tail. One of the highlight of the airshow was the Ukranian Antonov-26 on the static show, together with a specially painted Austrian Saab 105. During the morning the ‘slow movers’ performed their show and during the afternoon the fast jets were able to perform their capabilities. In between a simulated QRA was performed whereby 2 F-16s intercepted the latest Belgium Airbus 330 transport aircraft and accompanied the aircraft for a flyby overhead the base. The announced Polish Orlik demo team was cancelled.

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