Ramstein flight day
The Ramstein Flight Days were open-air events that took place once a year from the 1950s to 1988 on the US Airbase Ramstein in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in the Federal Republic of Germany .
Flight day / open day
On the day of the event, which was always a Sunday, the gates opened for the guests of the flight day. The management of Ramstein Air Base was able to look back on a 30-year tradition in 1988 with “Flugtag 88”, because the first so-called Open Day took place in June 1958 with the presentation of the RF-101A Voodoo fighter jet . After the Federal Republic of Germany joined NATO in 1955, the Flugtag was also an information event organized by the allies for citizens , organized by the USA . Especially in the 1970s, when the arms race was an issue, up to 1 million visitors were counted according to eyewitness reports. But even on the last day of the flight in 1988, it was estimated that there were still between 300,000 and 350,000 visitors, which no other air show in the world has achieved in one day to this day.
The flight day was always divided into a static display and a flying display. In the static display (military) aircraft such as B. the US bomber B-52 exhibited and described on the air base site for visitors. In addition, US soldiers who z. T. pilots were there to answer questions from the passengers. With the flying display , an air show was held in the southern part of the airbase, beyond the runway, from midday onwards, which was the actual visitor magnet and which the guests as spectators in the demarcated area in front of the runway (meadow along the runway with a width of up to 150 m).
Below are some flight days with the date of the event and the aerobatic teams they represent, along with other flight demonstrations:
Flight day 1973
August 26th - Red Arrows , Patrouille de France
Flight day 1976
August 8th - Patrouille de France, Frecce Tricolori , Belgium Diables Rouges
Flight day 1977
July 31 - Red Arrows, Frecce Tricolori, Belgium Diables Rouges, Belgium Blue Bees
Flight day 1978
July 30th - Red Arrows, Aces of Diamonds (A), Patrouille de France, Frecce Tricolori, Belgian Swallows Demonstration Team , Asas de Portugal
Flight day 1980
July 13th - Red Arrows, Karo As (A), Frecce Tricolori, Asas de Portugal, RNLAF Grasshoppers , Belgian Swallows Demonstration Team, British Jaguar Flyby, Canadian Starfighter Demonstration Team
Flight day 1981
August 2nd - Red Arrows, Aces of Diamonds (A), Patrouille de France, RNLAF Grasshoppers, Belgian Swallows Demonstration Team, British Jaguar Demonstration Team, Canadian Starfighter Demonstration Team
Flight day 1983
August 7th - Red Arrows, Aces of Diamonds (A), Patrouille de France, RNLAF Grasshoppers
Flight day 1984
July 24th - Red Arrows, RNLAF Grashoppers, USAF Thunderbirds
Flight day 1985
June 23 - Red Arrows, Vikings (D), Frecce Tricolori
Air Day 1986
August 10 - Red Arrows, Vikings (D), RNLAF Grasshoppers
(Note: The Patrouille de France and the Frecce Tricolori were on their North American tour)
Flight day 1987
August 2nd - Red Arrows, Patrouille de France, Frecce Tricolori, RNLAF Grasshoppers
Flugtag 1988 (30 years of Flugtag Ramstein)
The last flight day on August 28 ended in a disaster with the Ramstein flight conference accident . The squadrons represented were the Patrouille de France, Asas de Portugal, Vikings (D) and the Frecce Tricolori, which were supposed to conclude the flight demonstrations as the last item on the program. Several machines collided during their demonstration, which ended in a catastrophe.
Airfield Day 1998
Ten years after the disaster, Ramstein Airfield opened its gates again to visitors shortly before Operation Desert Fox - but this time without flight demonstrations. Due to the tense security situation, Ramstein Air Base has been closed to visitors since then.
Trivia
While the US military spoke out in favor of holding air shows in their own country, the USA , immediately after the flight conference accident , it was banned in Germany on August 29, 1988 by the German federal government.
Allegedly there were considerations to hold an "old style" flight day at the air base five years after the accident on July 1, 1993 (on Independence Day ). These plans failed due to political resistance from the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
The fact that the management of the air base adhered to the requirements since the air day disaster of 1988 and no longer held any military aerobatic exercises became apparent in September 1996 when the USAF Thunderbirds came to the air base for an internal American festival, but only did not fly stood on the ground.