Where? Mihail Kogalniceanu - Constanta, Romania
When? 29.-30./07/2006

Watching out for something special and exotic this year the Romanian International Air Show (RoIAS) caught my attention. The two day event was celebrated at the Mihail Kogalniceanu AB near Constanta not far from the Black Sea in honour of the 100th anniversary of "mechanical flying" in Romania. MiGs, sunshine and the prospect of taking a bath in the sea after the show were very promising for a successful trip.

As Romania is still one of the few countries operating the MiG-21 in the upgraded Lancer-Version, I soon organized my flight from Munich directly to Constanta with Carpatair, which was also an official sponsor of the airshow.Sitting on the jump seat in the cockpit of the Saab 2000 I landed on Friday evening at CND in style and already got an impression of what to expect during the next few days.
To celebrate the centenary of flight a "Vlaicu II" replica also taxied on the taxiway in the morning, exactly the way it did 100 years ago, but the strong wind impeded it to take off. The show program was the same on both days with Romanian Air Force (RoAF) flight demonstrations in the morning and the foreign jet and display team displays in the afternoon. During the lunch break the Romania Aeroclub presented some aerobatic and formation flying.

MiG-21s Lancer

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IAR-99, An-26 & L-39

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An-26 parachutists & Yak-52

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Helicopters

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The disadvantage of this schedule was the fact that the flying in the morning was strongly backlit, which was a real shame for interesting formation fly-bys (5 Yak-52s / IAR99, AN-26 and L-39 / 5 IAR 316B and 9 IAR 330S / 9 MiG-21) and the two very spectacular MiG-21 solo displays. Therefore I walked some minutes under the hot Romanian sun to find a better vantage point on Sunday morning. The effort was quite worth it though I did not see a lot of the solo displays but got some nice photos of the formations. Solo displays in the morning were also performed by two IAR99.

MiG-21 Lancer Flight Display

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IAR 99 Solo Display

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Police Forces

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