Thousands of cameras and mobile phones in the Mar Menor will all be pointed to the sky on the weekend of June 9 and 10, the date of the San Javier Air Festival, when it will also celebrate the 75th anniversary of the General Air Academy.
Already displays have been confirmed by the world’s largest aerobatic display team with ten aircraft, the Frecce Tricolori, the Tricolour Arrows, the demonstration team of the Italian Aeronautica Militare. They will be joined by the Patrouille Acrobatique de France, in it’s 87th year and one of the oldest display teams in the world, and of course Patrulla Águila, Eagle Patrol, the aerobatic demonstration team of the Spanish Air Force who are based in San Javier.
The three aerobatic teams will each perform their spectacular displays on 9 June, all no doubt trying to outdo each other, after which the airbase will be opened to the public for a static exhibition of aircraft.
The following day, on 10 June, the public will be treated to helicopter and parachute displays from of Aspa and Papea based locally in Base Aérea de Alcantarilla, Sangonera, who will again demonstrate their skills over the beaches that border the lagoon.
In announcing the Festival alongside the Regional President and the mayor of San Javier, Colonel Director Miguel Ivorra said that the event promises to show the very best of the AGA, “the birthplace of the Air Force in Spain.”
In one of the historic hangars at the base, the Commander spoke of the thousands of young people who have passed through the airbase to become officers of the Air Force, more than 10,000 trained officers who between them have accumulated 935,000 flight hours.
The Chief of the General Air Command, General José Alfonso Otero Goyanes, said “We are lucky to have such an extraordinary team of professionals and teaching staff at the Academy who all reside in the area. The officers of the Air Force also are all children of the Region of Murcia, because they all spend four years of their life here which is why I, too, feel that this area is my home,”
“We have expensive resources, such as the Eurofighter aircraft, the best transport aircraft, the A400, and aircraft that are digitized to the maximum, but they have no soul. The soul of the Air Force is in it’s men, for whom it is now time to show the society that gives us so much, just what they can do”.
