"Frecce Tricolori"

Airshow over Beirut

by Emad F.Tabsh

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  Lebanon National Day 2004 

 

The famous "Frecce Tricolori" team of the Italian Air Force performed Sunday Aug 1/2004 at 6:30PM Beirut time over the seaside area in Dbayeh.  As always, a spectacular show......everyone watching was taken by the professional flying of the team.  Many watched live and the show was live on the TV channels as well.  The "Frecce" arrived Friday, July 30th. of July, at 5:30PM local time.  Before landing at Beirut Int'l Airport, they performed 2 fly-past waves and then landed on runway 18.  Then they taxied to the Lebanese Air Force's airbase where they parked their MB 339's on the selected area of the tarmac surrounded by LAF's Bell UH-1H Heuys...  Moments later their support aircraft landed, which happened to be a C-130 J of the Italian A/F.  

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Saturday 31st. of July at 6:30PM they performed their training sortie in the airspace of the event and used some smoke during the half hour flying.  The whole event was by all means "unforgettable"..........

We hope to see more such shows in the skies of Lebanon in the future.  This was the first show to be performed by an international aerobatic team in the history of Lebanon.  A big thank-you goes to the Italian ambassador in Lebanon Mr. Franco Mastriata, to Mr. Antonio Righetti, who has been in charge of organizing the team's events and time in Lebanon and to all the Lebanese Air Force officials and pilots who assisted me personally at their air base.  

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Part 2 of my report shall include pictures taken with the team when they arrived and some will be close-ups of the MB 339 aircraft used.

Hope you like the pics.

Emad   Beirut,Lebanon

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Photos and text © by Emad F.Tabsh