Every two years the city of Bangalore in the south of India is host to one of the biggest airshows in Asia, called Aero India. By accident I flew to Bangalore and stayed for two days, before continuing on to Chennai (former Madras), Dhaka in Bangladesh and India’s capital city Delhi. While in Bengaluru (the official name of Bangalore) I used my chance to visit India’s prime air show…
The flight from Frankfurt to Bangalore was a night flight that took about eight hours. Due to the time of the departure and the long flight time, this service is operated with an enlarged cockpit crew, consisting of a Captain, Senior First Officer and a First Officer (me). Our SFO would join us for this leg of the route, but then continue back home as a passenger on a regular Lufthansa flight. It is common practice that the SFO gets the landing on his single leg and the Captain and FO share the remaining legs. In our case we had four more flights on the route BLR-MAA-DAC-DEL-FRA, so it was a fair solution for everyone. During cruise flight one of us pilots rests in our “cabin”. The two leather seats on board can be flattened and stretched – here is a snapshot of my bed:
After two hours of rest, I returned to the cockpit while one of my colleagues went to bed. I stayed in the right seat till about 50 minutes prior landing, but had more than enough time to witness a beautiful sunrise over India! This little video gives you a good illustration of it:
Once in Bangalore we went to bed and only met again for dinner. Aero India would open the next day, but there would not be much to see, as it was basically the opening ceremony in the afternoon. We only went to visit on the second day of the show, but ran into a few delays which meant that we only arrived at the venue at about 11.30 am even though the gates opened at 9 o’clock… Part of the problem were the endless security check-points. To even enter the grounds of Yelahanka Air Force Base you had to pass two or three check-points and then you would be searched and your ticket scanned again and again and again. If you wanted to enter one of the exhibition halls you had to screen your ticket again every time – it was really nerve-racking!
The 9th edition of the show was once again organised and probably paid for by the Ministry of Defence and it was clear that civil aviation was not of interest. India and Russia had a strong presence and it was clear that India wanted to showcase their military power. The common visitor was rather interested in the static display and the show put on by acrobatic teams and military jets. The guarded double fence did not allow for very close views and the aerial display was also a bit weak. The Flying Bulls sends their aerobatic team with four Zlin Z-50LX from the Czech Republic which performed okayish, but with some flaws. The Russian Knights were delayed (I heard on Delhi) and their performance was sadly missed. While the US Air Force only send a F-16, the Indians delighted the crowd with the flight display of a Sukhoi Su-30 which I also enjoyed watching. They are also into helicopters and the highlight was surely the Light Combat Helicopter (LHC) by local HAL. It already performed at last year’s show though…
The static display consisted of a number of small military support aircraft like Dornier Do-228 (Indian Coast Guard and Seychelles Air Force) and some business jets (mostly registered in Europe). Embraer had brought their Lineage 1000 (business variant of the E190), but it was impossible to get a clear shot. Most aircraft had signboards next to them explaining their features. I am not sure who was supposed to read them (definitly not the crowd that was kept away from the aircraft), but it was absolutely impossible to get a decent photo of most aircraft on the ramp. The wonderful Galaxy and Boeing 707 of the US Air Force were of course hidden in a corner of the display. Thank god did I see them in Berlin last year, were everybody was allowed to walk in them up to the cockpit.
We left before the afternoon rush-hour set in and reached the hotel just in time for a nice dinner. We had to leave really early the next day and I was already looking forward to taking some videos! I managed to get the whole flight from Bangalore to Chennai on tape and will put it online asap!
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