Genova celebrated the inauguration of two new cruise-ships today: Costa Luminosa and Cost Pacifica. For this occasion the aerobatic demonstration team of the Italian air force, Frecce Tricolori, has returned (last time they performed in Genova in 2004) to the city.
The show was held in the area between Porto Antico and Fiera di Genova, though most of the acrobatic presentation was done in front of Fiera di Genova (although my flat-mate said it was visible quite well from Nervi also). Luckily we picked Fiera di Genova to watch the show. The high-point of every act was literally in front of us.
Although Frecce Tricolori has 9+1 planes (the largest in the world), we could see 9 planes performing. Anyway, this was spectacular also, the way the pilots managed to synchronize the planes in a close formation at that speed was astonishing. They have drawn different shapes in the sky (with the Italian flag the most used motive) and did some high speed near-miss acts. The whole show lasted for 30 minutes during which they did 10-12 circles with different acts. The grand finale was of course the best: they flew further away and returned with their front lamps on, and when they got close enough they have let the red-white-green smoke go at maximum output, drawing an impressive rainbow-like Italian flag on the sky.
One of my friend has already seen another air-show and he said he was quite astonished at that time, but this has surpassed the other one by miles 🙂 . If you ever get the chance to see these guys perform, don’t miss out on them, they are worth it. (Photos on my Picasa account)
In the beginning there were 9+1 airplanes but I understood that the radio of the solo flyer malfunctioned so he had to abandon.