Portugal Air Summit 2019 - video & debrief

[Adam]

My third airshow of the year saw me head to Ponte de Sor for the Portugal Air Summit. It was my second time at this small show, which is like a small scale general aviation expo with a flying display on the side, rather than a traditional airshow.

The bulk of the flying programme was the Air Race Championships, a simplified fusion of Red Bull's condemned world championship series and the Reno Air Races - indeed, the latter organisation helped stage the event. Vans RVs (Sport Class) and XtremeAirs and Extras (Extreme Class) took part, flying both a circular course in small groups and individual chicane runs.

The stars of the show were undoubtedly Team Raven (x5 RV-8) with a seamless, energetic 13 minute display with non-stop action, including plenty of formation aerobatics, bomb bursts and so on. There really is no let-up in the display, by the time one group of aircraft is exiting the box, another is already diving in for the next move.

The locally-based Yakstars flew with three Yak-52s in a show that had very nice moments, but extremely long gaps between them. Aerosparx from the UK (x2 Grob 109) flew very graceful daytime and sunset shows with colourful wingtip smoke, including a sunset performance which concluded with a ground show, featuring both aircraft, drones, hot air balloons and a live orchestra.

Solo displays came from Castor Fantoba, flying his Su-26 in a very entertaining performance. A handful of local pilots also took their planes for a demonstration on Saturday morning - a Decathlon, Acro-EZ, Chipmunk and so on. Some of these were very high and non-aerobatic, others were absurdly low and quite uncomfortable to watch.

The authorities put in a good showing last year, but this was much-reduced in 2019. A Canadair and Fire Boss were due to appear, but had to stay at base because there was a fire risk due to the hot weather. The air force made only one contribution, a pair of F-16s performing flypasts on the final day. These were straight-and-level solo passes and were rather unremarkable compared to last year's mini-demonstration.

A big gripe was the sound system. This was used to indiscriminately blast a short, repeating playlist of heavy rock and Top Gun music at the crowd from dawn until dusk, sometimes at painfully loud volumes. Commentary most of the day was Portuguese only, but English only during the air race segments, provided by the Reno crew. The latter was scant and fragmentary at best, and sorely lacking any useful or interesting information.

What made the weekend for me was being able to stand at the base of one of the air race pylons during the sunset portion on the Friday - an unbeatable viewing spot, and having the race planes screaming right overhead was incredible. Likewise, Team Raven and Aerosparx flew during this slot in perhaps the most gorgeous light I have ever filmed in. Those few hours provided memories which will last a lifetime.

Video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klwHikGL4xA