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Belgium’s Red Devils and F-16 Solo in Ostrava for the first time

We keep the promise and publish the first confirmed participants right from the beginning of February. Thanks to the Belgian presence, visitors may look forward to premiere of two flying displays at NATO Days in Ostrava & Czech Air Force Days 2016. Supersonic fighter jet F-16 will be accompanied by the Red Devils aerobatic group with four turboprop SF-260s.

Both aircraft were already presented at Mošnov airport, however only on static displays – the F-16 fighter last year and the SF-260 three years back. This time they have Ostrava’s dynamic display’s premieres ahead of them.

„It has never happened that we would have two such attractive dynamic displays confirmed as the very first. We may only hope this won’t be a start too big and that we will launch future seasons just like that,“ commented Zbyněk Pavlačík, chairman of Jagello 2000. „Moreover, both displays can follow up on previous participations: the Belgian team will be already the sixth F-16 Demo Team which will perform at Mošnov. We have been showing F-16 air dynamic displays to the visitors every year since 2007, thanks to the Dutch, Greek, Turkish, American and Danish teams, and it was triple in 2014.“  The Dutch team will unfortunately not be performing this year as it was not during the last year; nevertheless the visitors can enjoy the display of neighbouring Belgium.

„Now we may also reveal that the dynamic participation of Belgian F-16 air fighter had been planned for the year 2009, however its performance had to be cancelled and instead Belgium sent its F-16 only for statistic display,“ added Pavlačík.

Belgian F-16 Solo Display Team Official Website

Team Red Devils will not only follow up to their static display presentation of training turboprop air fighter SF-260, but also to the previous year’s display of Polish Team Orlik. „Last year, Poland showed with their PZL-10 that even with turboprop aircraft there is much to offer for the visitors. However unlike them, Belgians use only four planes – on the other hand, these planes are flown by instructors from Basic Flying Training School, thus we may expect exceptional display, which will surely enrich the programme,“ stated Pavlačík.

Despite having historic roots of so called Les Diables Rouges in 1957, the Team was recently renewed in 2011 and operates under Basic Flying Training School at Beauvechain Air Base. The team was named after its colours on the planes, which match Belgium flag: red, black and yellow. Moreover, the same name holds the national football team. SF-260 planes, from mainly Italian production, currently operate as training ones; however the combat version exists as well (in use mainly by Asian or African states).

Belgian F-16 Solo Display Team was established in 1979 and it has been active since that time. Last year, the manoeuvrability of American multipurpose supersonic air fighter F-16 MLU was presented by pilot Tom „Gizmo“ De Moortel. Further, the team impressed visitors by its grey-black colour scheme designed to complement the vortices and smoke winders during the display routine.
 

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16^th NATO Days in Ostrava & 7^th Czech Air Force Days!

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