Watching the amazing B1 at the recent Australian Airshow, I started wondering what is the best airshow in the world to see a wide array of military aircraft? What does everyone think? Is there an airshow considered the best?

Best world wide? Paris comes to mind. Never been but the photos from it...

Best I've seen stateside was at Andrews AFB. But I think the one in Dayton would be better.

Here in Hampton Roads we have the Langley AFB airshow in the spring (it was a few weeks ago) and then the Oceana NAS airshow at the end of summer. Usually that means we get the T-birds and a lot of Air Force hardware in the spring, and the Blue's with all the Navy/Marine hardware in the fall. Langley is an F-22 base as well, so definitely get a demo of one of them. And, on the non-mil side, FedEx always parks its 727 at Oceana the weekend of the airshow and opens it up to walk through.

As I recall, Willow Grove JRB up near Philly put on a good show. Since it is a multi-service base, there is already a good variety of aircraft on hand to see. I believe that base is close to being gone though, not sure if they are still doing airshows.

RAF Fairford would be the best, certainly the most variety. US airshows (and I live in the US) always seem to have the same old stuff, no variety! If you're lucky you might get a Canadian Hornet and NAS Pensacola usually get a GAF Tornado from Holloman.

Peter
ATL  

Quoting B787 (Thread starter): Watching the amazing B1 at the recent Australian Airshow, I started wondering what is the best airshow in the world to see a wide array of military aircraft? What does everyone think? Is there an airshow considered the best?

For variety, numbers, pretty much everything, it has to be RIAT at RAF Fairford. I don't think any other military airshow in the world can match it. There are typically 300 aircraft at each show from all over the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_International_Air_Tattoo

Best regards,

Jim

My vote would be Paris/Farnborough. You may 'see' military aircraft at other airshows, but at least here stateside the demos are pretty tame. At Paris since it is a trade show and not just a recruitment tool the aircraft are flown by test or company pilots and wrung the f*** out, since your fighter is competing with other countries equivalent fighters for billions of dollars of sales money. In any case that is my opinion and has been the reason Paris has been on my #1 list of have to see airshows... it just hasn't happened... yet!

Quoting HaveBlue (Reply 5): My vote would be Paris/Farnborough.

Can't agree.   

As others have suggested, RIAT at RAF Fairford easily trumps either of those trade shows. A non-stop 8 to 9 hour flying display of the fastest and noisiest planes, flown by the cream of the military.   

....as long as there isn't too much rain during the days immediately before the show!

Joking apart, it has to be RIAT. Where else, over the last dozen years or so would you have been able to see the diversity of aircraft that have graced the place, from B2 to Bear, Backfire to B1.

Only grateful I've been there to witness most of it, from both sides of the fence.