LIBYA 2009
By Paul Chapman.

The BAES George Pick trip to LAVEX 2009 began with the group meeting at Gatwick for our Afriqiyah Airlines flight to Tripoli. A few beers were had at Gatwick whilst waiting departure - the last for a week, as Libya is an alcohol free country. Arrival in Tripoli was interesting with various groups arriving from both UK and Holland at the same time; we met up with Peter and Jaap at passport control and once Alan had assembled all of us we were through to baggage reclaim and then out to meet Ali our guide for the week. After settling in to the hotel Ali took us for a short walk around old Medina en-route to our first of many excellent meals in fine restaurants.

Monday we awoke to clear fine weather that was to stay for the duration. We began with an informative tour around the Libyan Museum before going to the exposition for the first of three days. On the ramps we saw Libyan IL76's, an IL62, AN24's, AN32 Curl's, AN124, L39, Mig23, Mig25, Mirage F1, Mi8, 17 and 35, C130's, Let 410, Chinook and AW109's; Typhoon, Avanti, AW139 and M311 from Italy and Rafale from the French Air Force plus visiting airliners. This first day was the VIP day and opening ceremony with only limited flying, 3 Mig 23's, Mir F1C, L39 Typhoon and Rafale and one of the most accurate parachute descents (from a Chinook) ever seen with the parachutists landing in the middle of the main static display in an area of about 25 foot diameter.

Tuesday and Wednesday were also spent at the exposition. Tuesday saw two Mig23's, the F1C, L39, Typhoon, Rafale, Chinook and three of the four SF260's of the Air Force display flight. Some of the group went to the beach to photograph the aircraft as they flew into the display area for better pictures. On Wednesday most of the group went to the beach for the morning, the remainder went to the air traffic control office for a visit. The morning was going great beginning with two SU22's making passes followed by the Mi8 water bomber. Then came a really superb display by the Mi35 Hind before a solo Mig23UB took to the air, occupied by two senior experienced pilots including the squadron commander. The aircraft was rehearsing for a later display but to us it seemed rather disjointed the aircraft not following the same routine as the previous fast jets from the Libyan Air Force.

On its second pass the aircraft moved its wings from fully forward to half sweep and was going round to make another pass when it entered into a barrel role at slow speed and unfortunately stalled and came down onto an unoccupied house outside the base perimeter - both pilots perishing. This put paid to flying for 6 hours before some flying resumed with the L39 followed by the Mi35 redisplaying, an interesting display when the C130 from the static display departed flying immediately above the helicopter whilst it pirouetted! The SF260's displayed now as a full four ship display followed by a brilliant display from the French AF Rafale which then taxied right through the crowd to its parking spot in the static park - the pilot receiving a tumultuous applause for a truly magnificent display. The show completed with another perfect parachute drop into the area adjacent to the Rafale.

The final day saw the majority of the group going to the world heritage site at Leptis Magna, a historic Roman and Venetian site on the coast 80 miles east of Tripoli. Following an extremely good visit we went to Tripoli airport to view the aircraft on the ramps and storage area. Peter remained behind for a meeting that did not actually take place so he returned to the airshow of the final day reporting that there was nothing new either in the static or flying display and that the static display was closed after lunch.