200 aircraft from 20 nations, 35 flight demonstrations on each of the two days, 275,000 visitors: these are some of the impressive numbers of the “Airpower 2022” in Zeltweg, which took place on Friday and Saturday. “All expectations were exceeded”summed up the commander of the domestic air force and the project manager of the “air power”Brigadiers Gerfried Promberger and Wolfgang Prieler, satisfied.
Promberger emphasized above all “high educational value” the tenth air show, which was organized by the army together with its partners Red Bull and the state of Styria, for both air and land forces.
Unique logistics
Prieler spoke of a unique achievement – not least in terms of logistics. He made a comparison: “Together we have created the logistical basis for the quantitative inflow of the population from all of Salzburg into a city of almost 7000 inhabitants in the important sub-areas of catering, sanitary and medical supply and waste management.” A total of 6,500 employees were deployed for this purpose, including 4,500 soldiers (also with a large proportion of the militia). “It was also a unique civil-military cooperation”said Prieler.
View picture gallery
Of course, the focus was on the aircraft – not just in the air. The future new helicopter for the army, the Leonardo, aroused great interest on the ground “AW169” and the Chinese Xian Y-20 military transport “Kunpeng”. Incidentally, this was the first time that the army of the People’s Republic of China took part in an international air event abroad.
In the air, the first overflight of a US American B-52 bomber was particularly inspiring “stratofortress” as well as with the aerobatic teams – as always with the “air power” – the Italian one “Frecce Tricolori”. Last but not least, the so-called ten jets painted the colors of the Italian national flag to the accompaniment of music “Nessun dorma” from Giacomo Puccini’s “Turandot” in the sky over Zeltweg.
2025 next “air power”
“Above the clouds”so the motto of “air power”, everything worked perfectly. The arrival and departure of the hundreds of thousands of visitors did not work so well. Although thousands used the offers of special trains and buses, too many apparently still came by car – the result was traffic jams stretching for miles. Working out improvements here will probably be one of the tasks for the organizers, which will be the next for 2025 “air power” to plan.
Source: Nachrichten
