Portes Ouvertes Hyères

N.A.S. Hyères, Portes Ouvertes

Several airshows or open days were held in the same region during the same weekend; the Armée de Terre opened their gates at Le Luc on the Saturday as well as the Sunday. The Armée de 'l Air opened the gates from Istres-Le Tubé on the Sunday. And on Saturday the 5th of June, the Aeronavale held an open day at N.A.S. Hyères-La Palyvestre, celebrating the 80th anniversary of the base. Many warbirds participated in the airshow and static at Hyères, while the sun came behind the clouds now and then. It was a nice day after all. One of the highlights was 'Patrulla ASPA' from Spain, demonstrating their skills with five EC-120B Colibri helicopters.

Mirage F.1B, 517/33-FB, was one of the few jets that could been seen at Hyères. This Mirage F.1B belongs to EC.03.033 'Lorraine' which is based at Reims-Champagne.

This SA.365N Dauphin, with serial 81, is assigned to 35F, which is based at Hyéres-Le Palyvestre. It is seen here during its display.

'Patrulla ASPA' was definitely one of the highlights at Hyéres. The 'Patrulla ASPA' is based at Granada-Amilla, Spain. The team operates six EC-120B Colibri's (one of them as a spare). They perform

A firefighting helicopter is seen here entering the scene after the Tora-Tora-Tora display and demonstrated an firefighting mission. This Bell 205A1, D-HAFR, belongs to Agrarflug Helilift GmbH.

A lot of warbirds were present at Hyères. One of them was this DC-3, with serial F-AZTE (KJ994) which is seen here returning to the flightline after its display.

This Corsair, now a days registered as F-AZYS, was one of the twenty-six F4U-5 models accepted by the Argentine Navy in 1957 and withdrawn from use in1966. The Corsair was purchased in 1991 by the 'Association Française d'Avions Historiques' and shipped to France in 1994. It was reconfigured to a F4U-7 variant and flew again in March 2000. The aircraft received an 14F livery.

An unique aircraft at Hyères was this Dassault MD-312 Flamant, serial F-AZVG. The MD-312 Flamant n° 189 made its first flight on October 7, 1952 at Bordeaux-Mérignac and was withdrawn from service in 1983 after having logged 7846 hours of flight. In 2000, the restoration started and the Flamant flew again on Sunday 23 November 2003. The Flamant belongs to ' Ailes Anciennes de Corbas'.

This privately owned Yakovlev Yak-11, serial F-AZJB, flew a demo and is seen here returning to the flightline.