Flashing end of Bonn Hangelar

The airshow at Bonn Hangelar was a success with a sad end. The Camouflage Yak cancelled due to a technical problem, so we only had two Yak's to go to Hangelar. We were supposed to get airborne at 1400 hrs on Friday, to rendezvous overhead Belgium with the B25 Mitchell and to proceed via Maastricht tower to Bonn Hangalar. 100ft overcast and thunderstorms overhead Sanicole made a short story of this plan, too bad. As you know, the major part of flying is often waiting, waiting and then more waiting. Eventually the weather cleared at about 1800 hrs and we finally got airborne. The Mitchell was already in Germany.

So we had a pair of Yaks, me taking the lead, proceeding via overhead (actually below) Maastricht tower, on a direct course to Bonn Hangelar. We reckoned that if could continue this flight as planned, we could have dinner and a beer at 1900 hrs. We did not even had breakfast that day.
With only 7 more minutes to go and, a line of CB's, darker than dark loomed directly in front of us No way I would have taken my wingie into this crap. Overhead the "Old Crow", P51D was heard, is suffering from the predicament. However his high airspeed and greater range afforded him to reach destination along a more southern route. I decided to return to Maastricht, and boy what a hospitality. They fully understood our sad faces, and they were delighted to get two Yak 52's at Maastricht for the first time. We have had a bite to eat, a couple of drinks and fell down in bed. Next morning, yeahaaa, rain again, however with a slightly higher overcast, allowing us to continue to EDKB were we arrived at 1100 hrs.

Gennady Elfimov had arrived with the airliner the day before. He flew his first display at 13.30 hrs, and of course, he was a huge eye catcher, according to the AAAhhh and OOOhhh crowd. The show continued with a real nice demo of the B25 Mitchell, some very impressive glider demo together with a Suckhoi. What an energy management! And how bloody fast were those 450kts low passes of Frédéric Vormezeele with his P51D.

Once I had an air show at the Dutch Groningen which was very well organised. Everybody who visited that particular air show still speaks about the organisation and luxury where the air- and ground crew could bathe in. However It was nothing compared with Bonn Hangelar, this was class AAA, or SUPER as the Germans say. An unbelievable VIP place to stay, a huge Saturday evening party with live music, VIP dinner, entertainment, you name it, and it was there! Thanks Bonn Hangelar.

NEXT DAY

The organisation was quite impressed by the demo of Genna and asked him to perform two more displays on Sunday. to which he agreed. The weather was a bit better and the spectator numbers increased till approximately 15.000, however too few to cover expenses of the show.

But at least it was better than Saturday. After the second demo of Genna, hell broke loose. In the distance I saw a huge very, very dark cloud approaching. I told the ground crew to scramble ASAP and get into the VAN immediately. Initially they did not hurry much, however a lightning impact at the far end of the airfield was sufficiently convincing.

Once in the VAN with 7 souls, there was an impact only 70 yards away from us into the crowd, rendering 19 people seriously injured and causing the tragic dead of one spectator. The authorities took control over the airfield which made us stay put with our aircraft until Monday, no way to get out.

A tragic end of a very well organised Classic Wing Airshow...

What's next?

Jerome