Göteborg Aero Show

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Göteborg Airshow

Where? Säve - Göteborg City Airport, Sweden
When? 28-29/08/2010

Just as many other nations Sweden did also celebrate the centenary of Aviation. It was in 1910 that a certain Carl Cederstrom was the first Swedish to be issued a pilot license. This anniversary was the reason for a series of festivities all around Sweden, one of them being the Airshow at Göteborg, hosted by the Aeroseum aviation museum, located at Säve, the same airfield as the Göteborg City Airport.

The show promised to be an excellent venue spanning over all eras of aviation, starting with the re-build of a 1909 Blériot monoplane up to Sweden's most recent jet fighter, the Saab Gripen. Unfortunately fate struck hard the week-end before the show as one of Sweden's most iconic Warbird pilots, Bertil Gerhardt, was killed in an accident with his Spitfire at a Norwegian Airshow. In honour of his achievements for Swedish aviation the flags were therefore lowered at he start of the event.
The crash was also the reason that the other Biltema owned warbird, a P-51 Mustang, did not attend the show. And as the Saab B17 was grounded due to engine problems, the show did concentrate mainly on the historic jet aircraft owned and operated by the "Swedish Air Force Historic Flight" (SwAFHF).
Such 'dinosaurs' as the Saab Tunnan, Lansen or Draken were therefore the order of the day. To complete this list only the Viggen was missing, because as though technically ready some important signatures were missing on the necessary papers for the aircraft to be given the permit to fly. But though the Viggen was not present to complete the impressive line-up of Saab-produced jet aircraft, the show was outstanding with its focus on these icons of early jet aviation.

Before they climbed the stage the morning hours were filled with several other presentations, such as the Danish "Baby Blue" team or a demo by a S-70 SAR helicopter.

Around midday an "Armed Forces Demo" was announced. With the hope being high for maybe some kind of airfield attack the disappointment was quite big when only a dog demo and a flight display of a Agusta A109 (Swedish designation Hpk 15) was shown. At least the C-130 Hercules did an additional fly-by on Sunday and surprised by a nice low fly-by.