The meanest looking Mil Mi-35/24V Hind assault helicopter gunship I have ever seen goes to this Czech Air Force example known as “Alien Tiger” at NATO Days in Ostrava 2017. As you can see, the weather last weekend in the Czech Republic was terrible!
There was plenty of Hind action in the air too over both days which was great, even in the bucketing rain – the Soviets made these Beasts from the East to fly anywhere, anytime, in any weather! Unfortunately “Alien Tiger” was on static display only.
Aces Flying High 
And the skies were gloomy. The most photogenic planes were the Czech and Slovak presidential aircraft since they had some color. The acts that flew did a great job given the low ceiling.
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Yes – low viz was tough on Saturday. Sunday was miserable but the Slovak Govt jets were a highlight and I was glad the choppers still went up!
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I was there on Saturday. The rain held off most of the day, but the ceiling still kept the Saudis from going up. Good for you toughing out the rain. I hid out in my hotel on Sunday.
Tough venue to photograph, if it was clear you would be facing into the sun. And then there are the two fences to shot through for anything on the runway.
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Sunday was brutal! It was the strangest set up for an air show I have ever seen. I eventually saw the Saudi Hawks briefly fly low over the city in V formation Monday afternoon as they headed off. Unfortunately I was in a tram at the time. At least on Saturday we saw a fair bit of flying but I couldnt understand why, when the weather was at its best at 3pm, nothing flew for an hour!
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I think they were running tanks or fire trucks or something at 15.00. Also, I have a feeling the Saudis don’t have a “low” routine. The ceiling is usually unlimited back in Saudi Arabia.
I spent much of this week trying to explain how weird the show layout was and that bringing a group might result in moaning and complaining. A visitor to the show is going to miss something, there are too many places you have to be watching; and if you are there for airplanes, there are large gaps in the flying program. The one positive thing is that the Czech authorities allow pilots to display closer to the crowd line than is normal in Western Europe or the North America.
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Yes I suspect they are fair weather flyers only. I plan to put up a post on some of the aircraft that did fly and a summary of the strange set up too. The statics were mostly so far away too! I spent a lot of sunday watching the ground displays!
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Yes, I was a bit miffed at the layout and schedule. I got in on Saturday, went right to the statics and about half way around the north dispersals when the flying started. And the flying was very far away and the planes kept disappearing behind trees.
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Yes it was tough to know where to be at times!
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Some great shots in spite of the weather.
I was there on Saturday only. The Slovaks did a good job keeping something on the table for the flying program with their MiG-29 and A319 Airbus. I was quite impressed with how they threw around the Airbus.
What really bothered me was how the Turks set up their E-7 Wedgetail in the statics, with the entry and exit doors on opposite sides of the aircraft. I don’t mind them opening their aircraft up for the public to walk through, but have the entry and exit on ONE side and keep the other side buttoned up so photographers can get a reasonably clear shot of it.
As for the venue set up, it’s a bit odd but it’s also the former military section of the airport and was never meant to accommodate such an event. I think they are making the best of it though and it dies bring the action closer to the crowd.
I remember when the show used to be on the terminal side of the field, I think that stopped in 2010 or so. It felt much more like the shows I used to attend in North America, the runway basically was the show line and the ground show was between the apron and the runway. Everything was in front of the crowd all the time and the static park was evenly distributed on the show grounds. It was good, as you didn’t have to run from one end of the are to the other to see everything, but it did become quite a clutter as the show got bigger over the years.
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Thanks. Yes I was surprised as it was certainly a non traditional air show set up. One good thing with not having a flight line / crowd line setup was there was no typical crowd crush at the fence everytime an aircraft is taxiing by. In fact at Ostrava you saw very few aircraft moving on the ground as they were so far away!
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Whether you see aircraft moving around at NATO Days depends on what end of the runway they decide to use.
Sometimes, they use the opposite end of the runway that they used this year and that can afford photographers some awesome shots of aircraft turning around right where the taxiway that leads to where they had the big planes in the static park connects to the runway. If I know they’re using that end of the runway to launch from, I’ll set myself up right near the fence gate on that taxiway. I’ve never had problems with crowd crush there.
If you want good lines of sight on both the ground and air performances, you need to set yourself up along the ground area fence pretty early.
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Yeah at times on Saturday it was a bit crowded. I managed to get some reasonable shots of the Slovak MiG-29 on take-off and landing as I was closer to the runway near the corner of the ground displays. I enjoyed the T-72 menacing the crowd and crushing cars!
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The best place to view the flying display was at the far end from the entrance as this seems to have the display line, However this was not a good area to view the ground display, so to view all would require moving back and forth all day. I also think that the flying display should be “grouped” together as it was very spread out from 9am to near 5pm.
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I changed location a few times but also wanted to enjoy the ground displays, so concentrated mostly around the grassed area. Muddy mess in places! The program was spread out for sure. A pity the weather disrupted so much of the weekend
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Those last couple of Hind in flight photos were taken near where the army guys had a lot of their logistical gear parked towards the entrance where you walked 1.8km to the shuttle bus in the pouring rain (they need to work on that! Other public transport options involved a 3-3.5km walk!)!
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better late than never… but, that Hind need a (c) H.R. Giger tag to give justice to the origine of that bio mechanical design, i did see it elsewhere but i never found a single article mentioning either if they were inspired by H.R. (which is highly likely) nor a single mention of it
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Yes, better late than never. the “Alien Tiger” Mi-24/35 helicopter of Czech Air Force, 221st Squadron, does not require
HR Giger’s copyright because this striking paint job is not a copy of any Giger painting (that would be really something to see) but it is painted in HR Giger’s signature airbrush style. I will make a point of introducing this work of work of marvelous ingenuity and excellent artistry to the fans of HR Giger on his official soclial media pages:
• https://www.HRGigermuseum.com
• https://www.HRGiger.com
• https://www.facebook.com/museumhrgiger/
• https://www.facebook.com/TheHRGiger/
• https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/265564362/hr-giger-museum/
• https://www.instagram.com/giger_art/
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Yes it’s definitely inspired by his Alien work
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