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The unusual crowd that gathered on the sunny September day at the entrance to the Jat Flight Academy – which currently trains 90 cadets, more than half of whom are the future pilots of India – anticipated a special event. The procession of both people and cars from Vršac and other Serbian towns moved through the crowd to the runway just below the control tower of Vršac airport. It was the public's first opportunity since 1998 to see aerobatic maneuvers executed by daredevil pilots.
As a steady stream of spectators arrived, the air show began with ultralight aircraft and para-gliders.
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Drifting silently in the wind, these elegant planes were the opener to the official programme that began at 2 pm with a Piper pulling a Blanic glider from the airfield to the sky. And while spectators waited for Serbian gliding champion Ivan Filko to reach his desired altitude when the haul aircraft would release the glider, the jet plane Super Galeb G- 4, (the training jet of the Serbian Air Force) approached from the direction of Vršac. Major Saša Grubač fl ew above rooftops, drawing gasps from the crowd with ascending loops, daredevil dives, 360-degree spins and a barrel roll executed some thirty metres above ground.
In the meantime, the contour of an AN-2, from Jat's Economic Aviation unit, became visible in the north-west at an altitude of 3,000 metres. Moments later, 12 parachutists – members of the Zrenjanin Feniks Club – separated from the plane. And while they slowly descended towards Earth, the Blantik separated from its haul airplane, performing several figures and rolls before landing on the lawn near the runway.
Popular radio presenter and pilot Zoran Modli commented on the display of 65-year-old Jagodina native Miladin Stevanović-Cakan, a famous Serbian veteran of aerobatics. Soaring just ten metres above the heads of spectators in a three-decades-old Zlin 526, Stevanović-Cakan drew a thunderous outburst of applause with his mouth-dropping performance of loops, dynamic turns, dives and backwards flight. |
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Next came three Dromadars, also from Jat's Economic Aviation unit, which were piloted by Radovan Nikolić, Žarko Stepanov and Vukalica Mihailović, all of whom had recently returned to Serbia after battling forest fires in Greece. Using a simulation, these skilled pilots showed the crowd how fires are extinguished from an altitude of just 20 metres. The Dromadars were replaced by the Grumman, a double-winged aircraft that served as the principal aircraft of Jat Economic Aviation until the 1970s, and one more demonstration of firefighting technique, this time piloted by Milutin Radivojević who fl w one metre over the heads of photographers gathered on the runway.
Then came the Piper Cheyenne, an aircraft from the Airtaxi Fleet of the Jat Flight Academy, which participated with Cessnas in the next part of the programme. Pilot-instructor Borislav Brankov performed aerobatic displays in the Cessna 310, while a simulator of the same type, used in the final training of cadets at the Vršac Academy, was also available for demonstration. Then Dejan Brankov and Nikola Lovre gave demonstration flights in two Cessna 172s, as conducted in practical training at Jat Flight School. For the price of just 1000 dinars, the first 100 interested spectators had the chance to experience a flight training debut that consisted of an unforgettable 15- minute flight above the countryside at the foot of Vršac Hill.
The Helicopter Gazela added a new dimension to the show. |
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Saša Nikolić and Veselin Jovanović, pilots from the 714th Squadron of the Serbian Air Force, demonstrated loop-the-loops, dives, rolls, backward fl ight, and fi nished their display with a bow to spectators.
In the meantime, the roar of jet engines from four blue Gales (Seagulls) G- 2, from the Novi Sad air club "Galeb G4", announced the greatest attraction of the air show.
The once popular acrobatic group "Zvezde" /Stars/ (Saša Ristić, Išvan Kanas, Dragan Zlokas, Saša Grubač) gathered into a war formation and soon disappeared from sight. Expecting their return, the crowd was staring into the distance towards the west when a white commercial plane fl ew into the scene at only 20 metres above the runway. The Avio Genex Boeing 737-200 arrived from Belgrade and surprised observers with both its size and close proximity. Perhaps the last airplane of this type in the world, the 737-200 was part of Yugoslav Airtransport fl eet 30 years ago. On this occasion it was piloted by Momčilo Milojević and Predrag Premović.
Then the nearly forgotten steel "Zvezde" re-entered the sky-scape with aerobatic figures and kerosene smoke trails. Demonstrating cross formation at rooftop level and backwards flight, the jets left figures that can be seen at the most popular international air shows, leaving spectators fl abbergasted. Their double joint flight in tandem with the commercial airplane marked the end of an unforgettable Vršac air show.
Together with the aerobatic flight over the control tower, performed by Jat Flight Academy instructor Dragan Bakić in a Piper 31-T, the event ended symbolically at 4 pm when the Feniks Club parachutists jumped once again from an AN-2 plane.
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Tradition of Serbian aviation
This year's Air Show in Vršac was organized by aviation society "Saint Archangel Gabriel", which gathers Jat's military and sport pilots. According to society vice-president and Jat Captain Boris Vraneš, the main objective of this event will be to popularize and strengthen the position of Serbian aviation.
- This event was held on the site where, 95 years ago, pilot Aurel Vlajku made the first flight in Vršac in an airplane of his own construction. This year also marks eight decades of civil aviation in Serbia and the founding of 'Aeroput', whose tradition was inherited by the Serbian national air carrier Jat Airways, the sponsor of the Vršac Air Show 2007. | |
