The Orange airshow; an almost entirely French party
In 1982, Orange Air Base -situated in the southern department Vaucluse- was home to no fewer than three squadrons with Mirage F.1s. EC01.005 ‘Vendée’, EC02.005 ‘Ile-de-France’, both with Mirage F.1Cs, and EC03.005 ‘Comtat-Venaissin’ with Mirage F.1Bs. With approximately 24 F.1s per squadron there were more than 70 Mirage F.1s at the time on Orange. On 27 June 1982, the base was open to the public, so everyone could watch the operations of the local wing and its Mirages.
Static show
The open day was almost here completely French. The only two ‘foreigners’ on the static show were two F-111Fs from the 493rd TFS from RAF Lakenheath. The Jaguar on the static, that later the day performed in the air show, was from EC03.003 ‘Ardennes’ from Nancy. That makes him quite unique because the unit only flew with Jaguars for a relatively short time. Other hardware were four Mirage F.1Cs, two F.1Bs, a CM-170R Fouga, two Alpha Jets, a Mirage IIIE, an Alouette III and a Mirage IV.
Air show
The air show was completely French. Although there were no demo teams, the large number of aircraft that came over the taxi track, made the show very worthwhile.There were 19 different Mirage F.1s that passed us by, as well as a Mirage IV and a quite unique Noratlas. This last one was from ELAS 1/44 from Solenzare Air Base, Corsica. And for dessert the Mirage IV took off with a Jet-Assisted Take Off!
