The first Hungarian Air Show

The first international air show in Hungary after WWII was held at Taszár, in September 1991. This was the first large scale event where the public could enter a Hungarian Air Force base, and get an insight of the work of the pilots. The organisers of the show tried to live up to the very high expectations - eventually it was a superb event.

The Hungarians put almost everything on show what they had. Every major type could be seen on the static display, from the local Su-22M3 Fitters to the Tököl based L-410s and Police Mi-2s.

The other dominating party of the static display was the USAF. Following the Gulf War the Americans brought a lot of aircraft. Even two years before no one could have dreamt about watching F-111s, F-15s or A-10s at a Hungarian base. The planes were full of mission marks, the F-111F was the plane of the commander of the Lakenheath wing, while the Eagle was flown by Major Randolph May - he shot down an Mi-8 during the conflict, but also he was the one who killed one of the two UN's UH-60 five year later.

The Eastern block high-tech was represented by the Czechoslovakian AF, which brought a Su-25K and a camouflaged MiG-29. These planes were at least as popular as the American ones. The flight program included most of the above mentioned types. There were some civil displays also, crop dusters and so on. The spectators could see a nice Wild Weasel show with an F-4G/F-16C hunter-killer team, a remarkable three-ship MiG-21bis dogfight demo, and a nice Su-22M-3 solo flight, with drag chute open still in the air during flare. However, the highlight of the show was the Thunderbirds, the USAF's demo team. The white Vipers definitely stole the show with their first Eastern-European display!

The 1991 Taszár air show was the first modern air show in Hungary - and definitely one of the best, we could hardly see any better in the following years.