Portugal 2024
The combination of an airshow and simultaneous two exercises was tempting enough to organise a short tour to Portugal. Air Base No.11 at Beja was the place to be, with a two-day air show and the exercises Real Thaw ’24 and Hot Blade ’24 taking place, with the promise that the exercises would even launch a mission on the Saturday or Sunday (we soon learned it would be on the Sunday)! With the small but fine Portuguese Air Force not often showing their aircraft outside the country, and new types having recently entered service, this was tempting enough for the group of eight arriving in Portugal on the Thursday before the event.
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After the group was complete at Lisbon Airport on Thursday 30 May 2024, we were picked up by the lady of the car rental company who brought us to their office and our VW van. Once on the road we briefly stopped at the airport’s military gate to have a quick look at their preserved T-38. Our hotel for the first night was half an hour’s drive away, in the town of Setubal. Near the hotel we found a restaurant with good buffet food and beers. The trip started well!
The intention for today, Friday 31 May 2024, was to collect as much wrecks & relics in the greater Lisbon area as possible, with the large Air Force Museum (Museo Do Ar) at Sintra Air Base as the main objective. We started off with a Fiat G.91 jet hidden in the courtyard of a residential complex in Setubal. Hidden or not, it was easily accessible and we were on our way again in no time. Arriving at Sintra half an hour before the museum would open its doors, we first had a look at some stored aircraft from the outside. At one moment three Chipmunk trainer aircraft, still in operational use by the Air Force Academy, took off. We immediately assumed these were heading for Beja and would not return to Sintra today, and this turned out to be correct. The next 90 minutes were spend in the museum, which has a very nice and well preserved collection of aircraft. Unfortunately inside the aircraft are displayed close together and in many cases hard to photograph unobstructed. The seven aircraft displayed outside are better off. It was not very clear if we could just wander about there but there was nobody to stop us doing so.
The rest of the day was spend driving from one w&r location to the next. Traffic in the city was light so we could tick off all locations with ease. Later in the afternoon we ended up at Alverca, knowing beforehand that the museum annex there was closed (the Museo Do Ar used to be located here, before it moved to Sintra, with some aircraft staying behind) but at least some of the aircraft are visible outside. With an A-7 preserved at the entrance of a gunnery range as the last stop of the day, we were only 90 minutes from our hotel for the next two nights, a very rural affair in a small town in the middle-of-nowhere. Rural or not, the hotel was very nice with comfortable rooms and a swimming pool. The lady behind the hotel desk was eager to know whether we would like to have dinner there tonight. Yes we would, in an hour or so. It turned out that the lady was not only responsible for the hotel desk but also manned the kitchen and serving the food and drinks! Also the menu was quite restricted, or in other words we could only choose from five or six meat dishes. Ah well you take what you can get, the hotel was probably expecting reservations well beforehand so we were glad we could order food without. And anyway the accompanying beers were good!
The early bird gets the worm. Not that we had any interest in worms, but we aspired to be at the main gate of Beja early in Saturday 1 June. It was said that parking space on base was restricted and we did not want to be redirected to a parking lot in town and having to take public transport to the venue. A good thing about being located in the middle of nowhere is that the roads from our hotel to the air base were totally empty right up to Beja town, and the 50 minute drive was a breeze and slightly shorter. How different it would be returning “home”… Arriving at the last roundabout before the road to the main gate sometime around a quarter to seven we were stopped by the police because the road was not open yet, and wouldn’t before 7:30. Maybe it was a good moment to drive back to the petrol station we had passed a couple of minutes earlier and stock up on food and water. Heading back to the roundabout at seven we noticed that a couple of cars were actually entering the road to the main gate, so we did likewise and this time we weren’t stopped to the police. We ended up in a queue only 100 meters in front of the main gate. That’s at least one mission accomplished! Just before eight the gate opened and we were let on the base and directed to a car park which looked like it was very near to the air show static display. Beja is however a huge base, build by West Germany in the early sixties for their use and without restrictions in size. “Near to the static” turned out to be a ten minute walk. Nevertheless we were one of the first at the static aircraft line and with the sun shining bright but still reasonably low on the horizon we had no problems with photographing. It also helped that most aircrews had not arrived yet to set up their merchandize tables, flags and sun shades in front of the aircraft. The static display wasn’t very big but had some nice aircraft on display, just a shame that everything was parked rater compressed despite the large amount of space available. Before the crowd started pouring in we claimed our spots for the rest of day and waiting for things to come. Besides a C-130 doing multiple take-offs and landings for familiarization flights, and a nice pass by a Portuguese UH-60 not all that much happened, a pity really because in the morning the position of the sun is at its best.
When the flying did start it was simply great. A KC-390 took off (or rather: the one KC-390 they have received until now) and flew in formation with a Falcon 900 before both doing some solo work. Both made sure, as did most, that us photographers were not let down. An air mobile assault display followed with stunning low level flying by the UH-60, two AW119 Koala’s and an EH.101. We had apparently picked the right spot to sit because it all happened right in front of us! More display flying followed but as the day went on the light got worse and worse, with the sun high up in the sky and then giving us horrible back light. What seemed at first like a single Portuguese F-16 finished the flying display with a lazy pass from the left. But, with our combined 300 years of airshow experience, we should have known better, and a few seconds later we were surprised by a very low and very thunderous pass of a second F-16 from behind! A few people in the crowd probably got a heart attack, but we could appreciate the move and had a good laugh. Well played!
With the show over it was time to head back to our van. However at the agreed time the parking lot was still full of cars trying to get out and the base roads clogged to a standstill. This was going to take some time… At least we didn’t need to rush to photograph one last Alpha-jet preserved near the car park. Once in the van and cars apparently starting to move somewhat, we took a bit of a (legal) shortcut and eventually drove off base without much fuss. It was feared that the roads outside of the base would be jammed full as well, but this proved to be untrue. On our way back to our hotel and hopefully some place to eat half way we only encountered two traffic jams because of pesky traffic lights on a main road not intended for this amount of traffic. It took some effort to find a restaurant but we managed to find one in the end, not too far from our hotel.
Let’s do this all over again. Better knowing what to expect we departed our hotel on Sunday 2 June half an hour later than the day before, stocked up on food and water at the same petrol station, and queued up at the main gate again, now a couple of hundred meters further back. Once on base we were this time directed to another car park, promising an (even) longer walk to the static display area. But we were in no hurry. The group quickly split up, with some going to sit near the same spot as yesterday, and others looking for a bit more comfort and shade under some trees on elevated ground at the opposite end of the static display line. Today participants of the Real Thaw and Hot Blade exercises were promised to participate in the flying, and this was eagerly expected. When the French E-3 AWACS took off, in beautiful light, and made another pass, it was clear that there would indeed be some action. From the Real Thaw side two French Mirages, two Romanian F-16’s, two Czech L-159’s, a Danish C-130 and a Romanian C-27 flew, whilst the foreign participants of Hot Blade, two Austrian Bell 212’s and a Swiss Cougar participated in the Air mobile assault. Unexpectedly the focus point of the display had shifted to the left today, because of the VIP area to the left of the public area, and the group members on the “hill” found themselves once again in exactly the right spot.
The rest of the flying display copied the day before, and so did the heat and the sun steadily moving into the wrong position. But at least the shadow of the trees on the “hill” gave some relief. The other group members had by this time also fled further back into the trees. So, everything was well until around four o’clock. The group of six Yak 52’s, of the Spanish/Portuguese “Yakstars” team, was about to finish their display routine when things went horribly wrong. As planned the solo display aircraft, EC-IAS, separated from the formation but in the ensuing maneuver it collided with another Yak (EC-NGZ) and the two injured aircraft both dived to the ground. From a distance it was immediately clear the solo aircraft was mortally wounded when it spiraled down. Amazingly the pilot was seen falling out of the aircraft, but it was obvious to us spectators that it was much, much to close to the ground for the pilot to survive. Indeed, he did not. The actual crash happened some distance away behind a tree line so at least the public did not witness the final split second, “just” the ensuing fire and smoke. Meanwhile, the other Yak dived to the ground under some control, and its pilot managed to straighten the aircraft at the last moment, made a belly landing and flipped over. It appeared like he had a fatal crash as well, but as it turned out the pilot only suffered minor injuries and was able to get out of the wreck by himself and walk away.
Shocked and stunned by what just happened, it was clear to most people in the crowd that the airshow had finished prematurely. So there was nothing else to do but to pack up our camera equipment and head back to our van. Amazingly however, our group members who had retreated into the trees at the far end of the static display area, were taking a nap when the Yak’s crashed and were totally oblivious to what had just happened and that the airshow was in fact over! So it took some time for them to realize this and return to our van. That didn’t matter much though, since as could be expected the base roads were once again jammed full with cars trying to leave. In the end we took another (legal) shortcut and managed to get off base fairly uneventful. Tonight we would be staying at the same hotel as on the first night, in Setubal, which promised a long drive on the same busy road with inconveniently placed traffic lights, and after that a good stretch of motorway which also was full of cars and jamming up regularly. But we made it in the end, with enough time to say goodbye to our two group members who would already depart for home tonight, and the rest of the group found themselves at the same buffet restaurant as on the first night.
Today, Monday 3 June 2024, there was not much else to do today than drive into Lisbon, turn in our car and fly home. The tour lead had other plans however and flew straight on to South Korea even without a pit stop at home!
The brief Portugal tour was indeed short but also very satisfying. We got to see and photograph a nice collection of Portuguese and foreign aircraft, and despite the light conditions in the afternoon plentiful of photos were made. Well worth the effort, something to keep in mind for the next edition.
