Sunday, June 25, 2006
First Canary Islands Air Show Today
Now they tell us! Local newspapers, Canarias7 and Diario de Avisos, both have headlines this morning about the First Canary Islands Air Show that is taking place today, both in Santa Cruz in Tenerife and Las Palmas in Gran Canaria.
The Air Show in Santa Cruz, organized jointly by the Town Hall and the Spanish Air Force, with collaboration from the port authority, is obliging Binter Airways to reschedule their flights, with some postponements and cancellations, as the airport of Los Rodeos will be closed to normal traffic for two hours.
From 11 a.m. various units of the Air Force will participate in the exhibition, which includes a simulation by rescue services, four F-18's of 46th Wing, a P-3 Orión from the base at Morón de la Frontera (Seville), the air force parachute team and the Patrulla Águila whose base is at San Javier (Murcia). With 21 seasons, 13 missions and 420 exhibitions (110 over foreign soil) behind them, the Águila is the Spanish equivalent of the RAF aerobatics team, the Red Arrows.
Meanwhile, 25,000 spectators are expected to congregate on the beach of Las Canteras in Gran Canaria, where a similar lineup of 20 aircraft and a team of 120, provides the show in honour of the island's capital, Las Palmas' 528th birthday.
Diario de Avisos story, is really only about Binter apologizing to passengers about delays and redirecting flights to the south. The information about the Air Show - finally something really grand and of interest to just about any age and nationality - is merely mentioned casually at the end. I don't get it!
This is the first news I have read about the air show - too late to get there from this side of the island (which I would have liked to have done), let alone plan to come from abroad - which is not at all unusual here, but is disgraceful when you think that these islands thrive on tourism. Admittedly, I don't watch much TV, where it may have been mentioned, but then, seeing that will be in Spanish, neither will visitors either. Otherwise, if the air show has been announced previously in the press, I'm guessing it was in small print in an inside page.
You might wonder why I called this site "Secret Tenerife". Partly because there are areas of the island that the average visitor does not normally find and I live in one of them, of course. The other is precisely this: that there is almost never any widespread advance warning of events, which do render them virtually secret.
Ah well, we'll just keep our eyes out for the Second Canary Islands Air Show.
El I Festival Aéreo en el puerto obliga a cerrar hoy durante dos horas Los Rodeos
25.000 personas presencian el festival de destreza acrobática del Ejército
NOTE: Because my late father served in the Royal Air Force, during WWII, I was previously secretary of the Tenerife branch of the Royal British Legion and whose website I still maintain. Fortunately, I have already seen both the Patrulla Águila and the Red Arrows perform (and met the pilots :) at air shows in the south of England. But I am particularly sorry to have missed this one today and highly recommend these events for a spectacular day out!
2 Comments:
Pamela wrote (on
June 25, 2006)
Thanks for this information and for your comments. Yes, it could be possible that the Santa Cruz show was tagged on at the last moment. It is really easy to imagine the town hall just saying, casually, to the Air Force, "Oh, while you are in the area, how about flying over ..." I do hope they tell us in better time before the next one occurs.
Are you a Tenerife resident or visitor?
The air show at Gran Canaria may be unrelated to the one at Tenerife :?, because it was offered as part of Las Palmas' foundational celebrations. And it's not the first one; I recall this very same air show happening at least once in the past few years.
I don't like to think bad of my chicharrero neighbours, but it seems as if the air show at Tenerife was organized in a bit of a rush.