An airshow is an airshow with airplanes flying and usually one headline act to draw the folks in. Well, that wasn’t good enough for the Aero Gatineau-Ottawa 2024 organizers as they spent the last three years co-ordinating three air demonstration teams to meet and entertain aero aficionados this past weekend (6-8 September, 2024), at the Gatineau Executive Airport. Headlining this year were the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, the Red Arrows from the U.K., and the perennial Canadian favourites, the Snowbirds, along with the CF-18 Air Demonstration Team, The GhostWriter with a nighttime flying pyro show, and a drone show with 150 drones also in a night show.
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The weekend started on the Friday with the Media Day event which is really nothing more than the press and those paying for prime photography spots getting into the site Friday morning before the public is allowed in at 5 p.m. The purpose of media day is for the media to talk to the performers/pilots/crew prior to everyone being enveloped by running a safe show with thousands of people on site. As well, many of the performers and teams take to the air for one final practice before the weekend starts, hence the photographers showing up on this day.
Now, Friday was originally forecast to be the best day of the weekend with sun and cloud all day. It certainly started out that way with clear skies from 9 a.m. until the clouds rolled in by noon. It remained overcast for the remainder of the day and by the middle of the night show, started raining heavily. Saturday was a horrid day with heavy rain all day but, as the airshow was not cancelled, thousands showed up anyways hoping that the weather would break. It finally broke about 4 p.m. and the Red Arrows and the Snowbirds got in a late afternoon show in but the day was such a bust that the organizers agreed that those holding Saturday tickets would have them honoured on Sunday if they chose to come back. Unfortunately, the rain was so bad that the parking lots, which were in grass fields, flooded and many people got stuck trying to get out to go home. Sunday, the fields were still bad so parking was directed to alternate distant fields (one man estimated a kilometer and a half) and people were shuttled in. Not really handy if you have chairs, food, and other weather paraphernalia, or paid for the premium parking. I can’t really complain as I left a little early Friday night (just as the rain was starting) and by the time I got to my car, packed the camera gear, exited, got into the traffic line, and finally to the highway was under 15 minutes. On Sunday, I left early again (I’ve seen the Snowbirds way too many times) and was on the highway home in eight minutes and missed a later accident on highway 50 that locked up traffic for a while after the airshow.
So, to the show itself. We were pleasantly surprised that at 10 a.m. on Friday two of the six Thunderbirds were on station to perform a small practice show. Their F-16s are fast and loud and the pilots can really handle the machines so it was really a good show and the weather excellent for photography as the sky was clear and blue. They were followed by the Vintage Wings of Canada Warbirds (a Spitfire, a P-51 Mustang, and a Hawker Hurricane) flying in formation as well as doing passes as single birds. Again, a great show and everyone loves the roar of the Merlin engines. 
The Red Arrows weren’t slated until after 1 p.m. so the space was taken by the GhostWriter in his Super Chipmonk and Rick Volker in his Siai Marchetti SF260 doing their aerobatic routines and let me tell you, both are fast and execute their routines flawlessly. And you have no time between passes as they climb and turn back with such a short turn radius that you don’t even have time to check the pictures you just took. The really nice thing is they come in low and fast making it that much more exciting. Now, I expected that Vintage Wings would take up some of the dead time before the Red Arrows by sending their Yellow Birds (Tiger Moth, Cornell, etc) or some other part of their collection, but they didn’t this year. Oh well.
The Red Arrows finally went up and did their practice in their Hawks and by this time the sky was fully overcast. They were only able to field eight of their nine airplanes as the two spares were broken and another bit the dust before showtime. The Red Arrows are celebrating their 60th anniversary as a team and have been doing a North American tour to celebrate. Again, the team is disciplined and the program moved quickly and smoothly from one maneuver to another with lots of white, blue, and red smoke all over the sky. There were a couple of special maneuvers with the Arrows writing a “60” in the sky to mark their anniversary and they also, at the end of the show, sky wrote a “100” in the sky as a salute to the RCAF’s 100th anniversary.
Next up were the Snowbirds who did their standard show to their usual high standard. However, from my perspective, photographing white airplanes against a gray sky filled with white smoke is next to impossible so I didn’t take many pictures. The same was true with the Thunderbirds who came next with all six F-16s.
Now, the Thunderbirds’ F-16s are amongst the loudest aircraft I’ve heard at an airshow. And they make it worse by pulling a maneuver called a “sneak pass” which was a new term for me. In short, what happens is the Thunderbirds do something on center stage like a solo-to-sole pass and draw everyone’s attention to the showline while, unbeknownst to the crowd, a third F-16 comes screaming in from behind everyone. Now this third F-16 is low and doing about 600 knots and it comes as a surprise and shock when this thing come screaming by without any warning at all. It made me jump, not just once, but on each of the three occasions that they did it. They also had one F-16 do a high alpha pass where they stand the F-16 on its tail close to the ground and balance it while moving slowly forward relying on raw power of the engines because there is no airflow over the wings. Remember that if that nose starts to come down, there is no time or altitude to get forward momentum for airflow over the wings to generate any lift. Also, this is an older aircraft and the engines don’t have vectored thrust so this is a true balancing act. Again, white aircraft against a gray sky with a horrendous amount of white smoke that didn’t leave the show area make a difficult picture taking moment.
This show ended about 4 p.m. and now we waited for the gates to open at 5 p.m. for the public to come for the night show which was the actual start of the airshow weekend. There was another chance to get takeoff pictures of the Red Arrows as they decided to relocate to the Ottawa airport due to the incoming threat of rain and a similar limitation on landing distances as the Thunderbirds who were already located at Ottawa. As it turns out, both of these aircraft, the F-16 and the Hawk, are able to use a 6,000 foot long runway as they can land in that distance if they are without brakes but once there’s water on the runway, they need more space. Gatineau is just 6,000 feet and rain was coming in so they made the decision to relocate.
The first performer to go up at 7 p.m. (a half hour late) was the Snowbirds who did their standard show, minus the solo performers, which makes sense as who wants to fly directly at another airplane in low light. The half hour delay, however, meant that the sun was down by the time the CF-18 Demo airplane went up for its night display so the only thing you could really see was the afterburners. It was totally dark by the time he landed but that was good for the GhostWriter who was going up to do his pyro show to be followed by the drone show. It was starting to rain so I headed out as I didn’t feel like having my camera equipment exposed to the elements so didn’t see either show.
I did not attend the Saturday show but did make it back for Sunday and it turned out to be another overcast day. I already mentioned the parking issues and again was surprised that there were no aircraft flying between the opening of the gates at 10 a.m. and the start of the airshow proper at 11:30 a.m. In past years, Vintage Wings or some of the smaller performers have used this time to go up but there was nothing but dead time this year. The nice thing is that I got to meet the people next to me in the photo pit and they all turned out to be really nice people (thanks Claude, Mike, and Charles for putting up with me).
The Sunday show was much the same as Friday, which was expected, but there were a couple of variations that should be noted. The CF-18 Demo Team did their routine and I must say they do the CAF proud. They are fast, execute precisely, and move from maneuver to maneuver so very quickly. It’s amazing how fast the CF-18 returns for the next pass in the program so you’re never waiting. At the end, the CF-18 disappeared for a while and everyone thought he’d gone out to setup for landing but that wasn’t so. The Red Arrows came down the showline in a “V” formation, at height, but the CF-18 was also in the mix as it trailed the formation signifying the closeness of the UK and Canada as well as acknowledging the RCAF’s 100th anniversary. After this pass, the CF-18 landed and the Red Arrows started their show. So that’s where I left the show as I’ve hundreds of pictures of the Snowbirds on good days so I didn’t need any on a bad day.
My congratulations to the AGO organizers for putting on a show despite the poor weather conditions. It is disappointing to have good weather on either side of the airshow weekend and then all the problems with the parking fields and everything. I know the photographers/media had a good time regardless and I’m sure the general public enjoyed seeing the three air demo teams all in the same place.
