[Jeroen]

Last Sunday I attended a so-called Fly-in at Malle Airport. A fly-in is an event where aeroplanes fly into a specific airport! Duh!

But there is usually a bit more to it. Fly-ins can be anything from very low-key to massive events. When we lived in the USA and I was still an active pilot I attended quite a number of these. Sometimes you would find yourself flying for several hours, to land have a cup of coffee with a couple of other pilots and return home again. Other times, you would find yourself in between hundreds of planes. From little Cessna's to classic war birds, such as the B29 and modern military kit, such as the B2.

The Fly-in in Malle was fairly low-key, but it still brought in some very interesting planes and helicopters as you will see. The Belgians are very good at organisation these events. It is a real family event, with lots to see and do for the kids as well. And very often, they combine it with oldtimer cars. Bring your oldtimer and park for free at the event!

Malle is an old Belgium airforce/NATO airbase. The military moved out several decades ago. The surrounding area is now a nature reserve and the airfield caters for small airplanes. It also has some glider operations.

So I started up my 42-year-old Mercedes W123 at 08.30 and headed south. I always stop at the Shell Petrol station on the Dutch-Belgium border for a coffee and a quick bite (banana bread). It took me less than an hour and a half to reach the venue. The organisation had put up lots of signs to find the airport and the special oldtimer entrance—quite a surprise. In my experience, Belgium and clear signposts are rarely, if ever, mentioned in the same sentence!

Initially, the day started a bit grey, but soon the weather improved and it would be a lovely day. Ideal temperature and sunny!

Parked the W123 in an interesting lineup of other classic cars.





The Belgium Air Force has its own display and aerobatic team. From the Belgium Airforce webpage:

The famous Belgian Air Force Red Devils have been the Air Force's most tricoloured flagbearers for many years. With their bright red colour and the Belgian flag beautifully adorning the underside of the wings, they proudly display their origins at home and abroad.

Current team members will also honour their glorious past during the Belgian Air Force Days. After all, the current team on SIAI Marchetti SF-260 has only existed since 2011, when the team was formed after a break of more than 30 years to help celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Air Force. The original team was founded in 1957 and at the time flew on Hawker Hunter fighters at the then air base at Chièvres. After a 2-year silence, the team was re-established at Brustem in 1965, this time on the Fouga Magister trainer and it was during this period, from 1965 to 1977, that the team would enjoy its greatest international successes. However, the oil crisis marked the end of the team in 1977. So great was everyone's joy when the Air Force re-established the team in 2011 at Beauvechain, on the Air Force's elementary training aircraft.

Source: https://www.belgianairforcedays.be/e...eng?i=img-0520





Look at the layout of the cockpit dash. The primary flight instruments are on the right and the radios are on the left. I thought it was a bit of an odd configuration. Anybody flying solo in a two-person side-by-side cockpit plane would always fly the plane from the left seat! Not sure why they have this configuration. During the demonstration later that day, I noticed some pilots were flying from the right and some from the left seat!



This little plane is a Cessna C-150. It brings back many fond memories. I learned to fly on a C150 and did my first-ever check ride in it for my Private Pilot License.

The C-150 is a tiny two-seater plane. Very easy to fly and very cheap to fly too. I seem to recall I used to rent it for about $ 35 per hour! There is also a C-152 which is marginally more powerful.



This here is the best-known Cessna of all time. The C-172 Skyhawk. Notice the registration? A registration starting with PH is always a Dutch plane. It seats four, has a maximum speed of about 115 knots and a range of 690 Nm. 9 out of 10 pilots all over the world will have gotten into flying and did their first check ride in a C-172! Funnily enough, I only have 1-2 hours of flight time on C-172!



Interesting "follow me" vehicle!



You could get yourself a seat on either the C-150 or the C-172 for a short introduction flight.

The Malle Glider Club brought one of its gliders out. Kids could sit in it.





Let's have a look at some more cars before continuing with the planes and helicopters.

I spotted this nice-looking Citroen DS driving to its parking spot



A very diverse lineup of classic cars. Anything goes at these events



You might not think of a Hummer as a classic car. But the civilian version starts selling in the early 90s! So some of these are getting close to thirty years old!



The Belgiums seem to like the old classic American cars a lot. I always see a lot of American car at these sort of events in Belgium.



I am not sure if the series "Knight Rider" was ever shown in India?

From Wikipedia:

Knight Rider is an American action crime drama television series created and produced by Glen A. Larson. The series was originally broadcast on NBC from September 26, 1982, to April 4, 1986. The show stars David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight, a sleek and modern crime fighter assisted by KITT, an advanced, artificially intelligent, self-aware, and nearly indestructible car. T

Well, would you know, the famous Kit was here at Malle!! Very cool!!

https://youtu.be/G10_-IZFEpQ?si=Kgnad95fO9NDsDov

You would be forgiven to think this is some old-school double-decker oldtimer plane. It is definitely not new, but it is a Pitt special. One of the best aerobatic planes on the market.



See how many of the planes and helicopters you can identify. I was awestruck!!



A real family outing. Very relaxed atmosphere, lots to see and do. Lots to eat and drink!





Some more classic cars.



The local Belgium police was out in force too. Not for crowd control or anything like that. They just participate at these sort of events with a stall of their own. They show their cars, bicycles, bikes and talk to the public about their work, prevention and so on.



Quite many market stalls selling all kinds of stuff. A lot of it aviation related!



There was also quite a bit of military hardware on display!





Here is one of the helicopters you might have spotted in an earlier image. This is an Airbus Gazelle built in 1984. It is a former French military helicopter. It was bought and fully restored by a Belgium guy some years ago. As of 2022 it is fully airworthy again.

[Jeroen]

You could also catch a ride with this Robinsson R44 helicopter. This guy was flying the whole day. He would come in, land, people would jump out, jump in, without him shutting down and he would take off again. Ten minutes later the same thing.

Notice the huge markings in the foreground. All airports have one of these. It depicts some basic information about the airport and can be spotted by a pilot when flying over it, before landing. As far as I know, even modern commercial airports still have one of these. Not much use for a commercial airliner. But very useful when you are flying these little planes and the airport is unmanned!



This was quite the sight to behold. A four-ship formation coming in over the treetops to land! I swear everybody that has ever seen Apocalypse Now was humming and whistling the tune of "Ride of the Valkyries"



It must have been at least 15 years since I last saw an actual Huey fly. Of course, this is unlikely to have flown in the Vietnam War. Huey produced several very similar-looking models for a good number of years after the war. They still sound like the original.

I have had the pleasure of flying in several of these during my oil offshore days. One of my most remarkable almost crashes happened whilst I was allowed to ride with the pilot of a Huey of the cost of Mogadishu in the early 80s.



Look at this. It could be a scene straight out of a war movie! As you may have noticed the public can get very close to all the planes. Unfortunately, these helicopters touched down about 150 meters from the crowd.





I am not entirely sure what make/model the other helicopters were. Do they look like some of the old Bell (Colibri) type? Not sure, maybe some of our members have some thoughts?



Another close up of the Gazelle and the Huey.



Notice how the main rotor of the Huey dips considerably. I am always amazed at how much movement that rotor has.



But for me this plane was the absolute highlight of the show: North American Rockwell OV-10 Bronco. Very frustrating, it landed whilst I was at the far end of the field. It had already landed when I spotted it first.

I have seen a number of these Bronco's in various museums around the world. But I had never seen one fly.



The last time I saw one fly, it was still in active service. I searched my old photographs and I came up with this image. I took it in the mid 1970s at an open day of the Dutch Airforce base Soesterberg. First time I laid my eyes on a Bronco! The next day I went to the modelkit shop and bought an Airfix kit. (It was kind of interesting going through my old aviation images, F4s, F5s, F104, those were the days!)



This one belongs to a Belgium couple. It is UK-registered and they fly it around Europe to visit all aviation events. You can follow them (like I do, obviously) on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/broncodemoteam

I managed to chat to them both for a while. I learned there are still some 10-15 Broncos flying operationally in Florida as fire fighters!



We had an American friend who used to fly one of these in the Vietnam war. He passed away some years ago. But I learned a lot from him about this plane and how the Americans used it. It has quite an eccentric history as to how it was developed too. Essentially two army guys pushing it through Military red tape and bureaucracy. The story is, that their superiors told them to stop all work on it, but they persevered, and the initial design plans were made on one of the guy's kitchen table, as they were not allowed to be seen spending time on it.





Some more classic cars. Notice the original little VW Polo. We had one just like it, but dark blue!



Obviously, no classic car lineup is complete without at least one red Ferrari!



And aviation lineup!



As with any event with kids, there will be a bouncy castle. My grandkids love these bouncy castles! There is no entrance fee to this event and all the kiddy stuff is free as well. Parking was free as well and you would be bussed into the airfield as the regular parking was about 1,5 kilometres from the terminal area.
Food and drinks were very reasonable priced as well I found.



This is, I kid you not, the local airport fire tender. As I mentioned earlier the Belgians seem pretty relaxed about these matters. I was amazed about how close the flight demonstrations were to the crowd as well!



Some more army trucks. I know next to nothing about military trucks, other than I like looking at them. Always impressive.



My W123 drew lots of attention. Lots of guys wanting to know all kinds of details. As far as I could see, mine was the only Dutch classic car present.



Later during the afternoon several demo-flights took place. Star of the show were the Red Devils of course. Sorry, not particularly good images of the planes flying. I have lost my touch and did not have the right kit on me either. This is as good as it gets as they say!



These planes do very gentle aerobatics, very graceful to watch, like a ballet in the sky!



Taxing back to the ramp after their demonstration flight. Got a big applause of the crowd. Very appropriate.



Towards the end of the day two more planes arrived. Both of the Pilatus. Single prop but both are turbine driven, so turbo-props!





Towards the end of the afternoon both the Huey and the Gazette took off once more.

[Jeroen]

I managed to catch the Pilatus on final just before touchdown.



A couple of planes "holding short" as the Pilatus is about to touch down



Here you see the Pilatus at the ramp. This is a PC12. The Pilatus PC-12 is a pressurized, single-engined, turboprop aircraft manufactured by Pilatus Aircraft of Stans, Switzerland since 1991. It was designed as a high-performance utility aircraft that incorporates a large aft cargo door in addition to the main passenger door.
Range: 2,804 km
Cruise speed: 500 km/h
Wingspan: 16 m
Engine type: Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6
Weight: 2,761 kg

Very capable plane and easily the largest plane at this show!



Another good view of the Pitts Special The original design of this little plane is from 1944. But these planes are still going strong.



Here you see it going through its demonstration run during a German air show a couple of years ago. Even if you don't know anything about aviation and or flying, it is still very spectacular!

https://youtu.be/eQs2cvcUtX4?si=zXqsmG0Pn8ukxFz4

A close-up of one of the helicopters. This looks like the Bell 47 as seen in the movie and series MASH.




A final shot of the venue. Such a nice and enjoyable day for everybody present. Visitors, pilots, and all the volunteers alike. Great event, I will definitely try and go next year again.



I did not find a YouTube video on Malle 2024, but here is one from the previous year. It gives a very good impression on what you can expect during these Fly-ins.

https://youtu.be/ck-_ZyCKI1s?si=0WNMnW5F5KSVmr72

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[NutHead1270]

That Knight Rider Car brings back so many memories! Me and my cousins(Fellow BHPian @G13BB) used to play "The Knight Rider Game", It was such a cool game.
The intro, the bgm, the car it was all so perfect. I had tried to watch Knight rider movie once (I had thought film was based on the game, dumb me), the opening scene itself had something that made me turn of the tv right away and mom added it to the "Restricted movie" list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO4AhmCroP0&t=35

Thanks for the post sir, Always admired your post.

[VellVector]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

I am not entirely sure what make/model the other helicopters were. Do they look like some of the old Bell (Colibri) type? Not sure, maybe some of our members have some thoughts?

I think you are right - the open tube tail helicopters look like a couple of Bell 47Gs.

[V.Narayan]

Thank you Jeroen, as always for taking the trouble of clicking dozens of photos and then making the effort of sharing with us. What an interesting air show with choppers straight out of the Korean War and Vietnam war.

[Ravindra M]

Very interesting information. Thanks for sharing.
W123 caught my attention. What a prestine car and looks classy !! The design is ageless.