Airfield Orleans Bricy, home of the French Air Force A400 transport fleet was the host base for the 2025 French Air Forces Meeting De L’Air organised with FOSA (the La Fondation des Œuvres Sociales de l’Air). Created in 1936, Fondation des oeuvre sociales de l’Air (FOSA), aims to support all the aviators of the Air and Space army, whether they are military or civilian, the personal of the Direction Générale de l’Aviation Civile, that of Météo France, but also their beneficiaries.
The meeting featured a nice mix of modern and vintage military aircraft along with the usual aerobatic displays and civilian aircraft. We started on the Friday for arrivals and rehearsals as part of the spotters package which turned out to be the best weather of the whole weekend so thankfully banking most of the shots then.
The FOSA organised spotters package was a masterclass in access and organisation. Parking is on base via a dedicated route and after a very effective security check and registration it’s on to the bus to a spotters area 75m from the runway which put you very close and often under the action. Lunch was provided in the form of a baguette and apple pie with plenty of bottles of water and a couple of portaloos. Arrival and rehearsal timings were provided via a minute by minute timings sheet posted on the wall on our arrival.
On show days the spotters enclosure is located just to the right of show centre and spotters are allowed on base 2 hours before the public with a guided walk of the operational pan included.
Leading the bill with the drop out of the Patrouille de France after the accident in training earlier in the year was the French Air Force Rafale solo display. Captaine Jean-Brice ‘Mimouss’ Millett returns as display pilot for 2025 with a stunning new display jet scheme of Blue, White and Red that we got to see plenty of. Arriving with the twin stick spare jet on the Friday they proceeded to beat up the airfield for over 10 minutes for the 500 or so spotters along the flight line. Captaine Millett’s full display was no less impressive with a spotters day only crowd rear entry with a right hand break for full topside down the crowd line. The rest of the display was also very dynamic with a sneaky pass from the right that was only just below the sound barrier with a noticeable thud as he crossed in front.
Further Rafale action was seen with a pair of C models in the form of the Vautour Bravo’ tactical display from EC2/30 ‘Normandie Niemen’ and EC3/30 ‘Lorraine’ based at BA118 Mont de Marsan. Although less dynamic than the Rafale solo they displayed a number of air defence and combat mission scenarios.
The vintage enthusiast was well catered for with a superb collection of historic transports with the recently restored Douglas C-53D Skytrooper from Musée Aéronautique de Bretagne in its original wartime colours as 42-68810 , with code T3-003 ‘Gruesome’ alongside the Junkers Ju-52-3M from l’amicale Jean-Baptiste Salis and the unusual Nord 2501 Noratlas from L’association Le Noratlas de Provence. This was a fitting tribute to the host bases modern day transport operations.
For the vintage jet enthusiast, we had a display by the de Havilland DH100 Vampire operated by Fiocconi Patrice and Sensation Voltige’s Lockheed T-33 (CT-133) Silver Star in a stunning bare metal scheme. Zandotti Sandrine’s Fouga CM-170R Magister flew alongside the North American SNJ-5 Texan F-AZRB in a striking US Navy scheme which really makes it stand out against the blue sky.
Performing at its home base was the Airbus A400M Tactical demo with its usual dynamic display along with European visitors from the Spanish Air Force Eurofighter display and the Swedish Gripen. Probably the stand out role demo was the Airbus Helicopters H225M Caracal which deployed fast roping special forces operatives onto the airfield to capture a lone terrorist before extracting them attached to a single rope attached between the helicopter and flying them round as if they were on some wild fairground ride. Closing the show each day as a lone E3 AWACS followed by a Falcon and then finally an A400M and C-130 the later of which dropped further special forces onto the far side of the airfield after its initial pass.
Flying in for the static display were example of the Embraer EMB-121 Xingu and SOCATA TBM700 along with a pair of Dassault Alpha Jet E, a pair of Mirage 2000D’s, a Dassault Rafale B with full load out and a stunning pair of Airbus Helicopters H125M Fennecs both with EH 1.65 Alpilles squadron’s special anniversary scheme
Also completing the static line up was a German Air Force C-130, French Air Force Airbus A330MRTT Phénix and a based Transall which was moved across into the static display for the show amongst the other highlights.
Despite the weather over the weekend, particularly on the Sunday which did impact some of the flying displays this was an outstanding show made even more so by the Spotters package and superb organisation of the FOSA team. The location rotates around the French bases with Base Aérienne 709 Cognac-Châteaubernard planned for 2026.
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