The first air show in 12 years in London, Ontario, was held on Sept 16th to Sept 18th at the London International Airport, with mixed results. On paper, or on the web more accurately these days, it looked very promising and by the number of performers and static displays too: it was the largest air show in Canada for 2016.

The general synopsis of the air show consisted around the spectacular line up with the Snowbirds, CF-18 Demo Team, Canadian Armed Forces Parachute Team – The Skyhawks, F-22 Raptor Demo Team and historical flight with the CF-18 and Harvard II and the F-22 with a P-51D Mustang, in flight refuelling demo, F-16s and F-15s delivering military fighter demonstration with lots of jet noise!! Add civilian performers to mix, such as Pete McLeod in his Edge 540 of the Red Bull Air Racing fame, Gregory "Wired" Colyer flying his Ace Maker T-33 and several others.

Friday: media day, arrival for many performers and static, and an evening show called the Hour of Power with gates opening at 4 pm and the show starting at 5pm until dark. A limited number of tickets were available in advance for this with a cost of $15.00 and included free onsite parking. Perhaps the best deal over all.

The weather was perfect on Friday, warm and sunny and the sun was be behind the spectators during the air show, which makes photography better. From media's perspective, there were a lot of confusion just were can the media go by the security personnel, our promised tent was not accessible, as the security did not allowed the media to go there, also we were prevented getting a closer look at the USAF B-1B, USAF's RC-135 Rivet Joint and USN P-8 Poseidon as well, which were parked on the way back on the static apron. This was a bit of a joke as school kids were able to visit them all day. After 4 pm as the Hour of Power attendees started to come in, the media finally had a chance to visit the 3 aircraft already mentioned which was joined by the KC-135R tanker by then.

Photo Tour tickets were available for 2 days $125.00 or for 4 days $200.00 (arrivals on Friday, departures Monday). The Photo Tour attendees were corralled into an large area on the flight line right of the static apron, giving them a fairly good look at the right hot ramp, but limited view of the left side were the F-22s, CT-130, P-51 Mustang, OV-1 Mohawk and the Harvard II were parked. The Hour of Power was quite good and started off with the arrival of the F-16s and the F-15s, they made several low level passes thrilling the photographers. Also (3) additional CF-18s arrived as the sun was going down. for a total of (4) when the Demo jet was taken into consideration.

The organizers of the show, or at least our media contact, were unable to provide a schedule of performers and from the looks of the performer’s ramp and listening to the Air Boss chatter on our scanner, it was evident that there were times when they were kind of making it up as they went along depending on who was ready right at that moment, whether there was a regular flight arriving or departing from YXU, or how much traffic there was on the tarmac.  They did still provide a very good show that included a terrific display by the F22 Raptor East demo team (who really never disappoint to be honest), Pete McLeod’s Edge 540 stunts and several classic displays from a BAC Jet Provost, a Grumman OV-1 Mohawk (sporting an MIA livery), the CF-18 Demo Team in its BCATP livery, the Skyhawks parachute team with CC-130J flybys… Two heritage flights featured the F22 with a beautifully restored P-51 Mustang and the CF-18 with a Harvard 2.  I think my favourite performer aside from the F22 was Greg Colyer’s T33 Acemaker, a beautifully restored USAF jet from the Cold War era.

Interesting observations:
CC-150 with 2x CF-18 Flyby did occur.  A lot of to-ing and fro-ing going on as the CF-18s headed to Ottawa in the morning for a flyby and returned for their flyby in the London show with the CC-150 (an RCAF Airbus A-310) … this might have been what the show was calling a ‘refuelling demo’ as the CF18s lined up nicely on the wingtips of the CC-150. 

The three F16s that were so popular on the ground did manage to get a couple up for a few flybys before the show, after which they headed south of the border to do a flyover at a football game in the US.  They returned mid-show for a couple of flyovers again.

The C-17 Globemaster was a no show from the static lineup. The show also promised the (3) F-15C Eagles as "performers" but they never left the static display. I asked one of the pilots (who was in the midst of helping a young lady up on the wing of his plane) and was told that the quick flyover they did before they landed on Friday afternoon was the extent of their "performance" for the weekend.

Snowbirds

CF-18 Demo Team

Canadian Armed Forces Parachute Team – The Skyhawks with CC-130J

F-22 Raptor Tactical Demonstration

Heritage Flight: P-51D Mustang "Double Trouble two", F-22 Raptor

Canadian BCATP Historical flight: CF-18 and Harvard II in BCATP livery

Gregory “Wired” Colyer flying his Ace Maker T-33

Pete McLeod in his Edge 540 of the Red Bull Air Racing

F-16s flyby

BAC Jet Provost

Grumman OV-1 Mohawk

CC-150 with 2x CF-18 Flyby

RAF KC-30 Voyager (first time in Canada)

USAF KC-135R tanker

USN P-8A Poseidon (first tim ein Canada)

USAF’s RC-135 Rivet Joint

USAF B-1B Lancer (rare to see in Canada)

Canadair T-33

USN T-6 II

USN T-45

Harvard (T6)

RCAF CH-139 Jet Ranger

RCAF Bell 412

US Navy MH-60 Seahawk

US Navy MH-53 Sea Dragon

Antonov AN-2 biplane

USN E-2C and D Hawkeye

USN C-2 Greyhound

USAF ANG F-15C

USAF ANG F-16C

USCG MH-65 DOLPHIN

RCAF CT-142 Dash-8

and several others...